The taper has finally arrived!!  Hooray!  However I think after pushing through last week and getting in all of my workouts (especially the long ride in awful conditions), my mind and body were worn out.  I spent the week mostly in a tired fog, was in bed early every night and didn’t get up early to swim once.

Monday – Rest day, although my legs didn’t feel too terrible, but I was worn out.

Tuesday – I ran at lunch and once I fired up my Garmin it flashed ‘low battery’ and when I turned on my iPod, the little voiceover said ‘low battery’.  Seriously?  Usually I would just run 3 miles out and turn around, but I had a meeting at 1p (I left at noon) and couldn’t risk being late.  So, I ran little loops until my Garmin crapped out and called it a day.  30 minutes.  Those 30 minutes felt pretty awful too.  I was supposed to swim after work but could hardly keep my eyes open, so I hung out on the couch (really, it took an effort to keep my eyes open!), and went to bed at 8p.

Wednesday – I made up my missed swim at lunch, 2700 yards, and it was a struggle.  My arms and legs felt dead.  After work I had a planned 2 hour trainer ride followed by a 2 mile run.  I was dreading this workout, and had to drag myself downstairs to get on the trainer.  15 minutes in and I just wanted to lay my head on my aerobars and take a nap.  I told myself to just go for another 15 minutes and see how I felt.  30 minutes in…I was trying to trick myself into another 15 minutes, but the thought of any more time on the trainer sounded awful.  I called it quits after 30 minutes (this was starting to be a theme for the week), and headed upstairs.  Once again, I was in bed and asleep by 8p.

Thursday – I had a 45 min run on the schedule, but decided to do an hour to make up for the reallly short run on Tuesday.  This workout felt much better than the others had this week.  I was still tired but feeling a little more pep in my step.  Hooray.

Friday – 2500 yards after work.  This swim felt much better than the one on Wednesday. Still tired though and in bed by 9p.

Saturday – 2.5 hour ride, followed by a 30 min run.  I rode from our house and met up with my buddy Bob.  It was overcast and in the 70’s.  Perfect weather.  The ride went by quickly and was a pretty pleasant ride.  I’m sure that ‘only’ riding 45 miles also made it fly by, such a nice change!  When I got home, I switched into my running shoes and ran around the neighborhood.  I couldn’t believe the clock said 10:15a when I came inside.  Wow!  I wasn’t sure what to do with myself the rest of the day.

I ran a few errands, picked up around the house and took a short nap on the couch.  I can’t wait until I can do this every weekend!  That evening JMR and I had our first ‘date night’ since…well, I can’t even remember, and went to the Lantern Festival at the Botanical Gardens.  I even stayed up that night past 11p!  I took a ton of photos, but my iPhone doesn’t take the greatest pictures, so I’ll just share a few:

Flowery forest we walked under

Daffodils

I loved the cute pandas.

Sunday – 1:45 hr run (12-13 miles).  This seemed like a walk in the park compared to the 3 hour run last weekend.  The weather was once again nice and time flew by.  I was home by noon, showered and met up with some friends at the Festival of Nations.  I was good and didn’t eat a ton of food, but I tried a lot of different things!

I’m glad my energy returned by the end of the week (I was starting to get worried I was going to be tired for forever!) and I’m also looking forward to an even lighter week this coming week!

Total Training Hours: 8:47