In and out of the big tired hole – 14 weeks to go

By the middle of week I got into a big tired pit of despair.  But I’m doing much better now.

#mfw I haven’t slept through the night in 4 days.  Thank goodness this was the morning after the last time I woke up at 3am… ><

It makes sense.  It’s been two weeks of throwing myself in the deep end of Ironman training.  There was no gradual ramp up this time.  I spent two months of doing whatever the eff I wanted (some week’s 10 hours, some 4, and mostly exploring on my bike), and then all of a sudden it was schedules and 11+ hours a week and having to hit numbers and putting some sort of effort into things and it’s been a shock.

Also, the mold and cedar are conspiring against me and hitting me hard, right where it hurts.  We’ve had a week of BEAUTIFUL weather, perfect for playing outside, and the air has been poisonous.  It hurts my soul.  Also, for the first half of the week (until Thursday night), I woke up around 3am unable to go back to sleep for an hour or two, which is SO not normal for me.  I’ve read most of a book series, which is great, but on this volume of training 6-7 hours per night is not even remotely enough.

The good news is January is half over, and after I cross the line of 3M on Sunday, I’ll have arrived at my first rest week.  14 days down.  7 days of training left to go until rest week.  14 weeks left total until race day.

If Einstein is correct and the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, I’m doing things pretty sanely (and I’m sticking with that story, yup!).  My schedule’s all switched up and it’s not like “yup, it’s Saturday I’m always going to be doing X thing I’ve been doing every other cycle/year”.   I’m not taking days off, I’m pushing active recovery with easy spins and swims to get more volume and with great care, it seems to be working.  I am actually finally for reals being diligent about stretching, rolling, and using the puffy boots for recovery, like a good triathlete.

Things will probably change a little more towards the traditional when the air stops trying to kill me, but for right now, I’m enjoying the novelty of difference.

I <3 night swimming even if my face doesn’t show it.  Especially an hour of it.

Last week:

• Runs: 6.25 in 73 mins (long run cut in half), 1 mile off the bike in 10:32.
• Bikes: 81 mins cycle class with zone 2/3 constant cadence changes, 4.5 hours long trainer, 30 mins ridden every other day
• Swims: 1500m gentle speedwork, 3000m long swim
• Weights: 2 dozen sets
• Stretched, rolled, or legs every night

I hit everything else I wanted EXCEPT I cut the run miles in half and only did a mile of speedwork (though off a 4.5 hour bike I think it should count at least triple).  Ah well.  January is about the bike first and foremost.  Total training was 12 hours.

This week’s goals:

• Runs: 3M half marathon, 1 hour easy
• Bikes: cycle class, 5 hour trainer, 30 mins easy spin every other day
• Swims: 1500m speedwork, 3250m long swim
• Weights: 2 sessions, since its a race week, definitely not heavy lifting after mid-week
• Stretch, roll, or legs every night

Specifically, my goals for 3M are a little more subdued than I expected when I signed up.  I figured I’d have a little more run volume under my belt and taper at least a little for it (nope and nope).  I am going to show up and see what happens, but if my legs don’t have an effort, I’ll just treat it like a supported long run.  I’m open to magic pixie dust, of course, but I’m also going to be realistic.  Priority #1 to be able to wake up and train the next day.  That probably means flirting with a personal worst here.  And that’s TOTALLY ok.

Life lately – food, bike, trying to look less like a scrub since I cleaned out my closet and actually know what fits…

As for all the other things I’m tracking:

Last week I did Chapter 11 for my triathlon coaching class. This week I’ll do Chapter 12.  Only 4 more weeks to go after this one.  If I keep up with my progress, I’ll be certified by my birthday!

As a bonus, I also spent a little time updating this site (added links to FB, Pintrest, and G+, and updated my race results), got rid of a bunch of people I’m no longer interested in following on twitter, and added some interesting health/fitness/triathlon folks.  This week, I want to continue this trend to shift my feeds over to awesome active adventurey stuff.  Are you reading this?  Do you participate on a social media I have linked above?  Let’s connect!  Use the links up there or drop your name below in a comment and I’ll find you.

Last week I tracked my calories for 2134 average each day with -700 deficit.  My ratios were 111g protein, 63g fat, 32g fiber, and 243g carbs per day.  I didn’t do too badly, but I had slightly better ratios last week (-50 calorie deficit more per day, less fat, more carbs), so I’ll try to aim more that way.

Last week, my average weight was 188.0.  I don’t have a comparison yet of how much I’m losing per week (I will by next Monday), but I started the week off at 188.5lbs which is about 1 lb down from what I started last week.  However slow it’s going is fine because I can’t do anything further at this volume of training. 8lbs to go back to 70.3 race weight!

Last week I drank 13 beers (I found these and are counting them as “beer” as well).  I am going to stick with it through January, but I just really don’t like beer that much, it’s a LOT of calories compared to other alcohol, and miss a good whiskey on the rocks or glass of red wine.  However, I know this is necessary so I’m not talking about missing a good BOTTLE of whiskey/red wine, and I can already feel less alcohol affecting me more.  Shrink little tolerance, shrink away, become moral again instead of superhuman!

My sleep sucked last week.  It’s really not even my fault.  When allergies wake me up in the middle of the night, I wake up later, so I have more to do later at night, finishing my workouts and dinner in the 9-10pm range, so I don’t go to sleep until 11, and then it happens again.  This cycle actually made me not ride long Friday night, sleep almost TWELVE hours, and while I was cranky about plans changing, I felt like a new person at 9:30am on Saturday morning.  I so needed it.  I was able to start today off with a morning spin so I have high hopes it will be better this week.

Last week’s to do was clean out the cars and put inside Christmas away.  Christmas has left the building, but instead of the cars, we decided to make some progress on the office yesterday.  We’ve got about 90% of like six years of shredding done, and the front half of the office is cleaned out and no longer is a maze of boxes.  It was a moment of clarity when we started working on it that I realized we CAN INDEED do it a little at a time and maybe even finish it before the Ironman, it doesn’t have to be done in one weekend.  We just have to keep at it.  Small steps to accomplish an intimidating task.  DUH.

And just keep at it, I shall. Just about 6 days until rest week starts.  About 11 more workouts.  About 144 more hours.  I can do eeeet!

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