Getting down to single digit countdown of weeks before the race!  With a three-week taper that means I really only have about six more weeks of training, yipes!

Week of 9/9/13:

Monday: Planned rest day, but ended up doing the swim missed from Sunday

Tuesday: 3000m swim, wore my waterproof ipod and it really made the time fly!

Wednesday: Brick, didn’t have time to drive to my usual park so once again it was done on the trainer!  Got in some good intervals and then averaged 7:26 on the 2 mi run!

Thursday: 1 hr run…which got cut to just 35 minutes.  My legs felt heavy, my head felt light and I just felt exhausted.  Was wondering if it was post fatigue from the weekend that finally caught up with me?  Moved planned swim to Friday.

Friday: Easy 1 hr trainer ride and still felt exhausted.  Took a half day from work, tried to nap and then headed to the pool, feeling more tired than before my ‘nap’.  Got all of my gear out, locked up my locker and headed to the showers when I realized I was still wearing all of my clothes.  Argh.  I really was out of it… so I took it as a sign to head back home and rest.  No swim for me.

Saturday: 3 hour ride, followed by 30 min run.  Once again, my legs felt DEAD!  I wasn’t as tired as I was on Thursday and Friday but still didn’t feel right.  Finally the last 30 minutes of the ride my legs seemed to loosen up, and my run after felt good, but good grief, it was frustrating.

Sunday: 10 mile run which was also very very slow… averaged 10:30 which given the weather (it was cool out!) and the semi-flat route, was pretty pokey.  I emailed my coach about feeling so sluggish and if it really could be from the big week last week.  She didn’t think so, but mentioned to make sure I was resting  and eating enough. Then it hit me… I had been really watching/cutting calories over the week to try to be a little leaner for Redman the following week.  So much that one day I had 500 extra calories to eat to still be in a 500 calorie deficit for the day (I track my calories/exercise on myfitnesspal, so it was easy to go back and review my totals)!  I was trying to really cut out starchy carbs (bread, rice) and in the process just wasn’t hungry enough to eat enough calories since I was eating a lot of protein.  Bring on the healthy fats!  After coming to that realization, I ate a ton on Sunday (and some bread) and felt much better by Sunday evening.  Hoping to be better about that this week!

Total Training Hours: 9:47, low compared to the planned 11:45, but now that I have my nutrition figured out, I shouldn’t be missing any workouts due to lack of energy!

This current week is race week (Redman 70.3 in OKC) so I have a pretty light training schedule!  Hooray!  However, as you can see, I’m already practically halfway through my next week of training when posting this… even with a ‘light’ training schedule, I’ve still been busy….busy and nervous for Redman 70.3 on Saturday!!!!  I did this race last year and it’s my third 70.3, but for some reason I’m really having some serious pre-race nerves!  Hopefully they go away by tomorrow or Friday or I’m going to be a wreck!

Off to go pick up my bike from getting tuned up for Saturday!