Protecting the hay.

It really is week by week here, folks.  Last week, I hit every training session and felt awesome.  This week, I’m securely on the struggle bus.  But hey, if things went great all the time we’d be terrible problem solvers, right?

Problem: too much of the left side, not enough of the right side to recover/soak it up (pictured, with a yogurt breakfast, was literally all I ate – oops).

But, since this is a recap of last week, let’s talk about the highlights.

Last week had my longest training day before the Ironman: approximately 9 hours and 40 minutes for a 2.7 mile swim (2.4 had me halfway across the lake), 112 mile TT ride, and an hour run of 5.4 miles.  I talked about it plenty here.

Last week had my peak training week before the Ironman: 16.25 hours.  I know some people who train 20-30+ hours for these races but this is definitely enough for me with a full time job and a life. 🙂

Last week I hit all my weekday workouts:

• 2 weights workouts (at home)
• 1 lunchtime swim for 1500m
• 2 bikes: 1.25 hour endurance cycle class, 1.5 hour BSS ride
• 2 runs: 52 mins, 90 mins
• Total of about 6.5 hours.  It actually felt kinda light because the majority of my week was on Saturday, so it worked out nicely.

Normally, my A race of the season will get a 3 week taper.  Just because of how it’s working out, I’m looking at a very gradual 4-week taper.  I had more planned this week, but Monday’s workout just got straight scrapped, and Tuesday got changed from an hour run + kick ass cycle class to a 5k at a super slow pace and sleep intervals.

Although, I didn’t miss my BSS group ride.  Can’t do that.  #ridingbikes #goplayoutside

I’m the BEST at telling someone else objectively that they should back the fuck off when they’re exhaustipated and rest, a few missed workouts isn’t going to mean anything.  When it happens to me, the world is literally ending and how am I going to be ready to race 140.6 miles if I can’t manage to run for 2 hours on a random Thursday?  I have to separate the coach self and remember I’m not going to do anything good to myself by trying to cram all the 13 hours I wanted into this week, so early taper it is and my athlete (me) will just have to deal with it.

• Monday: weights and swim 11 hours sleep (OFF)
• Tuesday: hour run and cycle class 5k run at like 12:30 pace and 11 hours sleep
• Wednesday: weights and 20 mile BSS ride
• Today: 2 hour run AM 9 hour sleep and 1 hour run at lunch
• Friday: maybe a work bike commute and maybe make up the weights with a very lazy core session but also maybe not any of that.
• Saturday: practice Olympic race at Lake Pflugerville (just us, mock-tri style)
• Sunday: riding bikes to and from Barton Springs (~2 hours) and an open water swim.

Coach says: I’m ready.  And the best thing I can do is to just protect all the hay that’s already in my barn even if it’s a week earlier than normal.

Life stuff:

My iguana is in her spring eating phase (which is A LOT) so we have that in common…

Let’s just get back to talking about food and macros and weights next week.  I haven’t had this in me.  I really do need to get back to it during taper to manage an increased appetite vs less activity though, I don’t want to gain the taper 5-10, please.

We did indeed get the cars inspected and register them.  My husband also woke up feeling super motivated the day after the long day (???) and went and purchased a new screen door and installed it.  I helped by napping, sitting in a chair reading instructions for like an hour, walking around the block, and then sitting inside on the couch because being outside was too much work.  I did batch cook food later though, so we ended up with some chicken tortellini soup (and Zliten did some green chili pork for tacos).

I missed out on some fun times with friends.  It’s an acceptable sacrifice for Long Day #2, and I’ve been a pretty decent human this cycle, but sometimes you can’t have it all.  I’ve loved the IM process, and I’ll be honestly a little sad to give up the long training… but I’m excited to when I can start saying YES to those kind of things again on the regular.

I’m not sure why this is relevant, but here’s an unrelated picture with 3 #ootds on a random 3-shower Tuesday.

This week, my goal is/was to get new shoes.  My bike shoes MAY make it to IM Texas, they may not.  Same with my Hokas.  In both cases, I need to at least start rotating in a new pair to have the option.  I have ordered the bike shoes.  For the run shoes, I still need to make it to the store (since I want to try out the new Arahis to see if I like them better than the Cliftons).  It’s looking tight for this week so it may have to get rescheduled but it’s good to have goals.

The rest of the week/weekend should be super fun.  Checking out a new place near work for dinner tonight, and game day at work tomorrow.  Then, a super long and exciting Saturday -after the mock tri we have a wedding, reception, and maybe another (different) party afterwards.  We’ll see how much energy we have to burn.

So, yep.  This week is about self care, protecting myself from burning down the barn, and letting the coach tell the athlete what to do instead of me just throwing tantrums.  Oh, and maybe a little fun along the way because that’s why we do this shit, right?