Highs and Lows

It’s been the best of weeks, and the worst of weeks.  Let’s start with a cute…

The bad (let’s get this out of the way):

It’s apparent I have ratcheted up the training to 11 over the last few weeks.  It’s time – I’ve got about 8 more quality weeks of training, and – oh – I’m out of town for 2 of them.  I have some base building work to do before I really know for really reals I have this shit in the bag, and I didn’t want to do it too early and fizzle boom like marathon training in December.  But it’s time to push beyond Olympic distance work and jump into half iron quality volume.

I’m excited to finally open up and really see what I’m capable of sustaining in two months of training.  My body (until this week) has really cooperated and taken the beating and said “thank you ma’am, may I have another”.  It’s all about walking the line of what I’m capable of back to back to back.  I’m down to 1 planned rest day per week (and occasionally, I’ll push a short workout or weights to that day due to time constraints).  I rarely have a day under an hour (and some days much, much more).

It’s exciting to have the opportunity and excuse to push so much volume training for a 70.3 with a side of marathon.  However, three things this week became apparent…

#1 I haven’t taken a PTO day all year.  Which means, besides showing up to all this training, I also show up to every hour of my 40 hour work week plus some.  I kept thinking about taking a long weekend just to rest and read in bed and hide away, but it’s never the right time.  I’m really feeling the motivation to get through the week take… more motivation.  I’m waiting for the crash, but thus far I’ve gotten through it.  Sometimes barely, but you do what you gotta.

I really hate taking unplanned time off because I leave people in the lurch being in charge of shit, so I never do it unless I’m on my deathbed.  I have vacations coming up soon, so I’m just banking on the fact that I am mentally tough and when I have a countdown, I can get through just about anything.

#2  I need to make sure I really respect the distances I’m putting in.  I may be able to get by with being stupid staying up late and having some drinks and not getting the proper rest occasionally when I’m training up for a half or a sprint or in the off season, but this is serious business.  Having a Sunday Funday after a race is an an expected setback, but normally it doesn’t wreck me into a day off.  Then a Tuesday Funday after a race (handled it and biked that evening), but then another Thursday Funday after a happy hour just sealed the deal.  Bad bad bad bad bad.  I should know better, especially during peak training.

8 hours is the minimum requirement most days, and if I happen to screw up one day, I need to more than make up for it.  Hangovers from either drinking way too much or drinking without eating properly do not work except for the rare occasion that I’ve planned for it and have a Sunday off or a super easy day to completely recover.

Also, stretching.  My weakness.  I’m not sure in what reality I thought it would be ok to log double digit hours of training and not properly stretch and foam roll (my new lover), but it bit me (literally) in the ass finally this week.  I have redeemed myself by making bffs with my ice pack, Zliten massages, shocky pads, and biofreeze, but it should never get there.  I felt invincible because all this strength training is making me a superhero ton of bricks, but it stops now.

I may legitimately have issues stretching sometimes (up at sunrise, come in the door at 9:30 from a long run, having to be to work at 10 and I need every minute) but it’s the exception to the rule.  Yoga needs to make a comeback during my downtime in the evenings when I have it, and foam rolling and I need to commune nightly.  You will never get me in a bath with ice cubes, but I feel like biofreeze is just about as awesome (and there is no escaping it), so I need to do all these things PROACTIVELY, not because I has an owie.

#3 Being self coached and not following a specific training program, I need to respect that this season is a whole lotta guinea piggin’.  Over the years, I’ve gotten to know how to prepare for races and what works for me, and what I can combine successfully race-wise.  This year though, I’ve done one new distance (dumbly) and am conquering two more this fall.  If I don’t hit every workout, I need to remember it’s not failure as an athlete, but more a fail as an amateur coach to be able to anticipate how my body is going to react, which is TOTALLY FINE.

I like being self coached because I have the motivation to do so, and I also have the freedom to switch around workouts as I see fit in my week, but I also have to have the forgiveness to realize when I’ve stacked the deck too high against myself and back down and be ok with either easing up or just completely bailing on a workout if I need.  I know which ones matter.  Long runs are non negotiable.  Weekend long bricks are important.  Getting in massive miles in some form or another on the bike are important.  Weights at least twice a week is also non-negotiable (unless your back/ass decides to die, like this week).  Swims are a little more optional.  Cutting a hard run/bike down to an easy run of the same mileage is fine.

There is a little bit of me that, when I miss a workout, is pissed and wonders if I’m just wussing out, but the vast majority of my brain knows that over the years, I’ve really come to know my body and brain, and sometimes you have to know when to fold ’em.  Just don’t wanna isn’t often a good excuse (but really, sometimes it is… mentally being checked out sometimes deserves an unplanned rest day too).  Waking up and feeling like your body and soul is crushed into little smithereens and you risk emotional/physical meltdown?  Time to try later in the day or shuffle things around or just bail on the least important thing in your week, curl up on the couch, watch bad TV and eat lasagna, and live to fight another day.

And…the GREAT:

The training I DID do this week rocked my socks off.

Tuesday’s splash and dash was actually amazing.  I was so flippin’ tired, but I was able to really have a solid (and better than last month) swim, and hang on through a run that was only slightly slower during a totally and completely mentally checked out day.

Wednesday, I hit the trainer and logged 40 miles from about 7:15 to 9:30 pm.  The movie I watched (Transformers Dark Side of the Moon or some crap like that) sucked, which might have contributed to slowing my pace, but it was mostly that my legs felt like stumps and keeping about a 17 mph pace, which is usually cake, was HARD HARD HARD.  About 30 miles in, they finally woke up and I did that last 10 much faster (though still in cruise pace).

Then, knowing double digi runs are really hard for me to do in the AM before work,  I ate a snack and promptly went to bed.  Sleep even came pretty quick which was thankful as I had an alarm literally 8 hours after I finished the bike.  I always set my alarm early on long run days, and usually snooze the crap out of it and have time for +/- a 10k.  I actually got up at 6:20 and got out the door this time by 6:50, so I had plenty of time.  It was me vs the road.

My legs were DEAD to start with and my only goal this run was to cover the mileage and get to work by 10.  I stuck in the low 11s, even dipping into the 12s, occasionally dipping into the 10s downhills, but thankfully it was pretty cool and overcast, so it was, again, feeling like a great, awesome, ez, cruise pace run.  I found, again, that my legs woke up as the mileage went on, so mile 4, I was like UGGGGGGH 8 more to go.  At 8, I was like, hey, only 4 more, awesome.  Once I hit 10, I sped up, and once I hit 12, I wasn’t really ready to be done.  I had at least a few more miles in me.  I was at 11:30 mi/pace, which is definitely EZ cruise pace, but the fact that I had miles left in the tank made me happy.

If on lower mileage pre-work run days, I have a runners high, let’s call this a runner’s OD.  I was SO FUCKING PUMPED.  If I could rock a 40/12 ON A WEEKDAY, that’s so almost close to my half IM distances.  Simply doing 12 miles before work made me so flippin jazzed, but doing it after 40 miles 8 hours before and feeling BETTER after made me just fly.

Then, later that day my back flipped out, but we covered that in  bad #2.

Also a note to the bad: Friday and Saturday were victims of bad #2 as well.  Friday, my back hated life and I was hungover so I skipped running, swimming, and/or weights in favor of rest so Saturday could happen.  Then, I overslept Saturday, and after discussion w/Zliten, we decided to bag it in favor of Sunday.  We discussed just toughing it out in the heat, ending our run in the 100s, or doing some/all inside at the gym, or splitting up the days, and decided that apparently our bodies needed another rest day and we did normal people things like shopping and errands and cleaning and it was amazing.

Woke up Sunday at 6-something after crappy sleep and was like OH NO NOT AGAIN.  However, though I was tired, my body felt ready and I felt much more like a person, so it was go time. We hit the water a little later than we hoped (7:25, goal was 6:30) but swam like champs.  Zliten rocked mostly freestyle for 1500m, and I practiced staying on his feet and drafting and form.

I was not ready for the swim to be done.  I wanted MOAR (like normal).  However to my delight/chagrin, it was still cloudy and looked like storms.  The swim was what I was looking forward to (and not the rest) so I asked Zliten if he thought we should bag the rest due to impending storms and he thankfully told me to nut up, 20% chance was odds we could deal with, so onto the bike we went.

I wasn’t expecting much out of the bike but it delivered anyway.  My back cooperated, and so did my legs.  I tried employing a new nutrition strategy, and it rocked – eat every 3 miles.  Maybe overkill on a longer ride, but I finished the ride feeling nutritioned but not overfull.  My goal is always to not eat on the run (hate hate hate) and it delivered.  I rode around 16 mph, which isn’t hard for me, but not a spin in the park, and only got a little winded once on the last climbs.  Again, when we parked at 20.5 miles, I was kinda wanting more bike miles but we still had a monster run.

I was worrying about my stiff back, and Zliten has a little bruise on his foot, so we went out eeeeeaaaaasssssyyyy.  We walked a bit, then jogged about 12-13 min miles.  The weather was holding at cloudy-ish, but the sun peeking out at times was uuuuuuuggggghhhh.  I yelled at it and made it go back.  It mostly worked.  Lap 1 was all easy cruise, with chatting and dance party antics ensuing.  Lap 2, Zliten grew tired of my antics and we just chilled.  I tried not to focus on my garmin and the sad pace, but I knew that it was good for me.

Around the middle of lap 3 – after a few walk breaks, I realized my back was hurting MORE during the slow and walk breaks, so I bid him adieu for the last 2 miles after discussion, and ramped up to around 10 minute miles.  My stride felt better and thus did my back, and taking it easy made my tank still pretty full.  Around 8.5 miles I passed the water and was like WHEN I FINISH IM GOING THERE and engineered my route so I hit 9 right around the water.

I passed Zliten at that point, high 5d him, as he said “.3 to go” and I said “I’m going THERE” to which he said “take off your SHOES” (I also had on my zune, garmin, camelback, sunglasses, visor, and other stuff, but he was concerned that moment about my SHOES).  I shed all my shit, got in, sighed relief, and started stretching and loving life.  I feel like I had another lap in me, but I was sure happy to be in the water and done if that’s how the day was going.

So, while it sucked how tired I was this week, and the weights + swim I skipped, and that I took off THREE days when I planned to take off one, I feel great about what I accomplished on tired legs.

Next week looks like this:

MONDAY: 2000yd swim + weights
TUESDAY: triple bricks (15 mile bike, 3 mile run) + weights
WEDNESDAY: 2000 yd swim
THURSDAY: 13 mile run
FRIDAY: weights
SATURDAY: 56 mile trainer + 13 mile run
SUNDAY: off

No two races this week.  No happy hours.  No plans whatsoever minus some birthday party action on Saturday night (hence: day off Sunday), so I hope to make good on being the laziest person I know outside training times and work and get lots of sleeeeeeep.

While I am not actively pursuing this as I am now enjoying some Sunday Funday on my patio with some vodka, I plan to quit that shit early and sleep many hours tonight.  I’ll try not to be a dumbass for the next few weeks but I do have a straight up goldfish brain so we’ll see.

Question of the week: what’s your kryptonite?