Yeesh. 24 Weeks? Honestly, I started ‘week 1’ to get my head in the game and get into a routine (aka, not skipping swims) for IMWI. However, I don’t really feel like I’ve been training for 24 weeks… more like, hmm… since mid May? Time really has flown! I was reading another triathlete’s blog that I follow and she posted about the crazy things training for an Ironman does to your body….being tired all the time, being hungry all the time, randomly getting emotional (crying) for no reason…. and I guess to a degree I did experience those things, but waaay more when training for IMLOU. I think planning for a wedding at the same time didn’t help either 🙂 Regardless, it made me pause and think…am I/have I trained enough? Shouldn’t I be experiencing those things more often, especially during the past few weeks?
After doing some thinking and comparing last year to this year, there are some big differences which might explain why I’m just not feeling as drained as I was last year:
- I am not planning a wedding 🙂
- I can work from home 50% of the time, which means I don’t have to get up crazy early to get a swim in because I can come home with wet hair and in comfy clothes and work (seriously, it takes 30 minutes to get ready + 20 minute commute, working from home is a huge time saver). Also it means that I can work out at lunch, hop in the shower and get back to work.
- I took off work a couple of Friday’s to fit in long rides on weekends we went to the lake (which JMR thinks is ridiculous :)).
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Ok, so I started this post on Tuesday (8/18) and now I take everything I said back. The last week of training was awful! Every workout was a challenge to get done and I was soooo tired. By Friday I just wanted to sleep all day. I was dreading my long ride on Saturday and it turns out, I had a reason to: it was awful. Rain and unfun hills. And blisters. All I can say is *thankgoodness* that the taper has started because I don’t think I could manage another week with a heavy load. My emotions were out of control over the weekend. Poor JMR. I’m also a walking disaster. I am more accident prone that I think I’ve ever been (more on that later).
Monday – Rest Day. This is when I felt a little fatigued from the run on Sunday but other than that, not too bad.
Tuesday – Started this blog post before work, feeling like this training cycle has just overall been easier than last year….but I found out as the week went by I was wrong, very wrong. I ran an hour at lunch, followed by the longestswimoftheyear, 4100 yards. Was tired but felt ok after!
Wednesday – 1:30 on the trainer, followed by a 2 mile run. Afterwards I felt pretty spent.
Thursday – overslept and missed my swim, ran an hour after work. Why does this feel so tough?
Friday – made up missed 2600 yard swim, followed by 1 hour on the trainer after work. I was so tired alllll day. However, the kitchen/bar cart I had ordered had arrived, so I wanted to put it together before going to bed because I was having a few girls over sat night and wanted it assembled! Well. Here, you decide if it was an easy assembly:
Just half of the bolts, screws, etc.
The finished product! 4 hours later….
Yeah. Four hours. It took four hours AND I managed to drop a board on my foot (incident #1 of the week).
Saturday – Long ride, 101 miles followed by a 25 min run (it was supposed to be an hour but my wet socks were causing blisters). This ride sucked. My friend Ricky rode with me (thank goodness) and we were trying a new route for the first loop. It included hills (yay, that was the goal!), but they were out and backs and honestly, really boring. On top of that, the skies opened up on us and it poured during most of the ride. Pleasant was not a way to describe the ride. So instead of doing that route for two loops, we opted for my usual 53 mile loop that has hills as well but also loose gravel…I was going to risk loose gravel over the boring first loop route!
We made a pit stop to refill our water bottles at the grocery store where we parked and off we went. The skies opened up a few more times but for some reason it was more tolerable. Also, I think the rain helped clear up some of the gravel because it wasn’t as bad as I remembered it was on the ride two weekends ago. We ended the ride with 101 miles..and I will say, we were tiiiired by the end. I think we had headwind 75% of the ride. So tiring!
Next we headed out for a one hour run, however 10ish minutes in, I noticed my feet were feeling weird… it occurred to me that running in wet socks might not have been a great idea. I stopped and took my shoes and socks off, and sure enough, blisters were forming. I put my shoes back on without the socks and we headed back to our cars. 25 minutes will have to do because blisters will not!
Sunday – The last long run. 18.6 miles (three hours). This run was tough, as most of my long runs are, but because I wasn’t running at the hottest time of the day, it was much more bearable. It was slightly overcast and honestly, kind of chilly! (I was not complaining). JMR was also out running his first 20 miler for his Chicago Marathon training cycle, and I saw him around mile 10, gave him a quick sweaty kiss and it was back to business. Oh, I also forgot to mention that I almost got hit by a car (incident #2 of the week). The rest of the run was pretty uneventful. I managed to keep a pretty even pace and ended with a 9:41 avg/mile.
That evening I went to the store to get dinner and managed to slip on a clear liquid in an aisle (incident #3 of the week). There were two other people in the aisle that saw me fall and then pointed out the liquid. I’m embarrassed they saw, but was also glad they noticed the liquid, otherwise I would have chalked it up my clumsiness of walking in flip flops. The manager came over and other than a scrape on my foot from the basket, everything checked out ok. Until I got home and sat down on the floor to pet Patrick…ouch! I must have bruised my tailbone 😦 I decided that from then on, I will be wrapping myself up in bubble wrap.
Ok…..I am ready for the taper!
Total Training Hours: 17:02
Running in the Moment 