Adjusted Reality

Notes on my very very very very weird and unnormal week:

1. I crashed and burned hard last week, and took an unthinkable 2 back to back rest days (MON + TUES) and put in very short workouts the rest of the week (I did get almost 3 hours on Sat but at this point in training, that’s not much).  I wish I could have seen it coming, but hindsight being 20/20 I really should have done my recovery week last week before the race and gone out hard this week on the trainer.  I’ve learned a lot about stepback weeks – aka – I need to plan them.  I’ll go out at about 80% next week (I decided to cut a few run miles and actually try to enjoy my half marathon on Sunday instead of using it for back to back double digits again.  I have some times in my head but we’ll see how much the hills eat me.  It certainly will be nice to run in the upper 60s instead of the upper 80s!

2.  You could start a tumblr from my Jack’s Generic Tri official race photos called quixisnotimpressed.tumblr.com.  I had some really, really bad ‘tude.

It’s one thing to train through a C race, but it’s another to crash and burn into a race on your highest mileage week EVER.  Oh yeah, and it’s about 10000 billion degrees outside.  And you got almost ZERO rest before it (bad, bad, bad).

3.  I took a break from social media (twitter, facebook, only getting on daily mile to log workouts) and oddly enough, the world got on without me, and I didn’t miss it that much, and I felt much more….relaxed.  It was nice to be more in the moment with my hectic days.  I think I’m going to continue to stay off it, for the most part, unless I have time to kill.  I also am going to look into pruning my feeds – I follow a lot of fluff on twitter that I just don’t care about.  I care more about my free time and mental health than if someone will get upset about me unfollowing them so I will be doing that sometime soon.  Hint: if you read and comment here, or I actually interact with you on twitter, you’re safe. 🙂

4.  Related to the crashing and burning – I have not yet taken a day of PTO this year before Monday, and that was only justified by a trip to the ER (don’t really want to go into it, it wasn’t for me, everyone is fine).  That day off made it very clear to me that I had been not very good at my job the last few weeks due to exhaustion, and since I don’t actually get sick, I need to realize that my sick time needs to be used for exhaustion because I need to function at closer to 100% than I have been some days.

5.  Holy crap you guys – I lost weight this week.  So I’ve held steady at about 178-179 for quite a while now.  Last week, I saw 177, which I figured was a product of increased training.  I just followed my appetite and food wants this week and didn’t try to restrict food since I wasn’t training crazy-like and got on the scale Saturday after my workout (but also after chugging 100+ oz water, a milk, and eating breakfast and a decent amount on the bike) and I was 175!  Lowest this year!  Apparently rest did me good.

Breathe in, breathe out.  Going to keep this short and sweet in the spirit of relaxing this week and enjoy the rest of my Sunday.

Last week:
MONDAY: off
TUESDAY: 30 min swim, 30 min weights PM off
WEDNESDAY: 30 mins trainer (10.23 miles) + weights
THURSDAY: 3.25 mile run (32:19)
FRIDAY: weights
SATURDAY: 6 mile run (1:08), 25 mile trainer (1:30)
SUNDAY: off 45 min swim (1650m)

Next week:
MONDAY: weights
TUESDAY: 7-10 mile run
WEDNESDAY: 35 mile trainer + weights
THURSDAY: 4 mile run + weights
FRIDAY: off
SATURDAY: 15 mile cycle
SUNDAY: Race!!! 13 mile run (+2 warmup) = 15 miles

Question of the week: how do you relax?  Where is your happy place?  Any social media tips to have it not eat your life besides abstaining from it?

Short and sweet Long and explanatory…bloggy friends… this has been my week

120 miles on the bike trainer this week/152 miles total from 7/30-8/5 (176 from 7/28-8/3)

5 stressful days at work

2 nights of piss poor sleep and elevated resting heart rate

1 smart but mediocre race

=

impromptu recovery week next week

The math is simple friends.  I have often experienced the mental edge of overtraining and pushing my boundaries with ennui about getting out for my training (I don’t WANNA), and have had stressful weeks at work and some temporary degradation in my workout output because of it.   But I always sleep like a champ, and my resting HR is soundly in the athlete-approved 40-50 bpm.

Not this week.  I took my resting hr last night and it was about 120.  Thumpity thump thump.  Friday night I had the same thing but I thought it was just stress.  Last night though, I had taken care of all that and my mind was clear.  All the signs pointed to overtraining.  And since it was my highest mileage week ever, there was no question in the diagnosis.

Don’t get me wrong.   I’m proud as hell of what I accomplished between 7-30 and 8-3.  HUGE HUGE miles.  It really proved to me that I have it in my capability to do this 70.3.  That I’m not a wuss on the bike.  That I can run off  it for 13.1 miles on tired legs.  This week had a PURPOSE with a capital P.  I have no sads that I did it.

However, it did not bode well going into a race.  I was not excited at all, as you can clearly see from my pre-race pic.  I was falling asleep on the way there.  I was making a lot of deals with myself about how hard I would go and how long I would take off after.  My final plan by the time I was in the water was to do what I could.  No pressure.  Race what I could, maintain when I could do nothing else.  3, 2, 1 go.

The water was icky.  Tasted funny.  I normally swim with my mouth open (yummy yummy lake water) and tried to not, but I decided I’d rather breath normally so whatever. I started in the back, and couldn’t find any feet to stay on so I just passed people.  I did have a few incidents with people trying to cuddle (I swam BIGGER) and one lady who apparently thought I was in heat and kept trying to mount me from behind (she got a few nudges from the tootsies), but I swam consistently with brass balls and didn’t let anyone fuck with me.  The only error I made was that I stopped too quick and tried to walk up chest deep which cost me about 30 seconds.  I got out and huffed my way (hello elevated heart rate) to transition.

Swim time: 12:12

T1 was uneventful.  I recovered my sandals from the fence edge and ran up the concrete into the maze of bikes.  I fucked around about 30 seconds longer than normal and wasn’t anywhere near bike out due to assigned racking (lame) so I finished up and clompity clomp clomped my way to mount line and got on with it.

T1 time: 2:56.

On the bike, we got wind that the first hill was the worst.  So, I attacked it because I wanted to get that shit over with.  AVG speed after hill: 15mph.  Awesome.  The first half of the course was uneventful and I built from 15 to 15 to 17 to 17.5.  The last half of the course was supposed to be the easiest they said.  The hills on the front half were the hard part they said.  I was feeling pretty badass at my 17.5 avg even though I had nothing in me to power up the hills like normal.  Then, the rollers came.  I sucked wind and didn’t recover like normal.  I went down back through the 17s and 16s and hit 15.8.  Then, thankfully, the nice downhill mile to transition happened and I coasted back to 16.2 (official results said 15.97 but whatevs).  A different day, I could KILL that bike course.  The only complaint was the first hill and the ~5 miles of really uneven cobblestone-like road.  I think I could have pushed harder on that but it was making my hands numb.

Bike: 51:50 (15.97 MPH)

T2 was also a bit of non-normal futzing around, but only marginally.  I was not really ready to run but all I had was a 5k to freedom, so off I went.

T2: 1:37

The run really showed my true colors of exhaustion and overtraining.  I was able to knock out a decent swim and bike without really trying, but there was no hiding on the run.  I got out of transition, hit 10 and tried to make my way down to the 9s and…um… NOPE.  It wasn’t a dastardly hilly course but there were rollers, and it was road with no shade, and I just settled into doing what I could.  Sometimes it was 9s, sometimes it was more, and sadly I didn’t have anyone like the last few races to latch onto and draft off of – either people were passing me going FAR beyond what I could do, or I was passing them.  So it was just me, myself, and my broken will and brain to try and knock out a decent pace.

I saw Zliten just before the 1 mile mark coming back, so he was about 2.25 miles in.  We were right about even splits at that point.  I picked up the pace a wee bit trying to not get my ass beat.  I then saw our friend Brian and said hi.

*interrupt my tri experience for Zlitens – Brian caught up with him, told him to run faster, and he booked the last half mile stupid fast and almost PR’d his 5k.  He also said he went out of transition keeping up and chatting with someone for about half a mile and noticed he was running 8:30s.  He’s a little wonder sometimes…*

It was getting hot and I was BEAT AS FUCK.  I kept thinking “I have nothing left, I have nothing left” and wanted to walk and say screw it, but somehow I convinced myself to say instead “I have more than nothing left, I have more than nothing left” (I know, a FOUNTAIN of positiveness, but that’s what I had in me right then) and decided I could be unhappy with my time, but I would be jazzed as fuck with not giving up on the run.  I did what I could on the road.  Sometimes it was 12s, sometimes it was 9s, I passed everyone I could, I got passed a few times and fought when I had it in me, and then I finally hit the run around the lake.

I didn’t look at my garmin.  I could have been running 13s, I could have been running 8s, but I let the crowd give my utterly spent self one last little wind and sprinted into the finish.  I almost fell over when they took of my chip, and the first thing I did was collapse under a tree, trying not to puke or pass out (feels like temps around then were about ~93).

Run: 32:28 (I know.  Any other day I’d be PISSED but it’s really all I had today)

I was all incoherent babble.  First, it was about watermelon.  Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon.  I had seen someone with it and I NEEDED.  Then, I found an unused patch of grass and sat.  Because I had to.  Then,  we met up with Brian and they were all making proper sentences and I decided I needed back in the water and then that was nice and I felt good.  We got out and again I felt bad.  I shuffled to transition, put my stuff together, then sat on the ground until Zliten got me and I could not manage all my bags so he took one.  Got to the car and BLASTED the AC and ate cheese from the cooler and soon I felt like a person.  Who could say more than one word. Magic!

He wanted to check results so I sat and he took pics.  I was 1:41:05 and he was 1:38:15.  He smoked my ass by almost 3 minutes.  It was all the run + a bit of my dabbling around on transitions.  He won legit.  I give him props.  It’s the end of an era (but I will get him next time).  He had it in him and I just didn’t.

So why was I Deady McDeaderson?  Besides the two nights of bad sleep due to heart rate issues and crazy stress at work:

MONDAY: 30 mi trainer
TUESDAY: 7 mi run + 30 mi trainer
WEDNESDAY: 1050m swim + weights
THURSDAY: 7 mi run + 27 mi trainer
XFRIDAY: 33 mi traner
XSATURDAY: off (and by off I mean 4000000 hours of errands and getting tri stuff together)
SUNDAY: 500m swim, 14 mile bike, 3 mile run

It was a 12 hour training week (and last week was 11.5, week before than was 9, week before was 7.5 – taper for race week, week before was 12.5, week before was 9, so it’s not a fluke), and while I intended all the trainer rides to be stupid easy activity while watching olympics, that didn’t happen.  Also, last Saturday was our 6 hour, 56 mile trainer + 13 mile run so by Friday our 7 day mileage count was 176.  I KNOW.  Crazy.  I was hoping Saturday completely off would fix me but  Friday’s nights crappy sleep + 5 hours of errands + Saturday night’s 4 hours of sleep didn’t do the trick.  I felt icky on Saturday night like I was getting sick and remarkably today I pulled it together, but I’m not chancing it.  Next week is a major stepback week, coach Quix’s orders.

Original stupid plan was:

MONDAY: 2000yd swim + weights
TUESDAY: 50 mile trainer
WEDNESDAY: double bricks (15 mile bike + 2 mile run) + weights
THURSDAY: 14 mile run
FRIDAY: weights
SATURDAY: 2000yd swim + 25 mile bike + 9 mile run
SUNDAY: off

New sane, recovery plan:

MONDAY: off
TUESDAY: 30 min swim, 30 min weights PM
WEDNESDAY: long trainer TBD + weights
THURSDAY: long run TBD
FRIDAY: weights
SATURDAY: 2000yd swim + 40-50 mi bike + 3 mile optional run at Lake Pf
SUNDAY: off

In which long trainer is anything beyond 10 miles and long run is anything beyond 5 miles.  Or not.  I’m accepting that it could be a full week of just swims.  Or sitting on my ass.  Sometimes guinea piggin’ means you have to change plans.  I’m accepting that I’m broken, and going to take this week to fix myself in any way necessary.  I value my sleep and my resting HR too much to keep on keepin on.

So, completely unrelated, I’ve been having major issues trying to find dresses for this wedding in Sept, and I, against my better judgement, ordered something online.  Badbadbad.  I should know better.  At least I was only out 10$ shipping, and returned it at Macy’s, and the clerk let me know a bunch of dresses were on major sale.  I spent 30 minutes and fell in love with 3.  The patterned one is not in contention for bridesmaiding, but I loved it too much to let it go.  They cost me about 140$ for the 3 ( I KNOW – love dress sales) and I’m now needing to stop training so much so I have excuses to wear them all out.  Excuse the horrible mirror shots of them all, but please to consider this my peace offering for no pics of the red one last week (Miz :D) – it’s very similar to the purple one.  Yes, I shop for one and come away with 4.  I am a dress whore.

Green bridesmaids (most likely)

Purple backup bridesmaid dress (also, I’ve always wanted a purple dress)

…and this is not in contention because it’s patterned but OMG LOVE

Also please to excuse the bit of belly, it’s actually MUCH better than it was (thank you, maintaining at ~178 and getting strong as fuck instead of losing weight), but nothing that a control top panty hose or a bit o the spanx can’t take care of, so yay!

Questions of the week: which of the dresses is your fave?  Have you ever had over-training issues?  What did you do about it?

Confidence, I am having more of it after this weekend.

I know I need more run miles to get through this race and not die at the end, and ramp up for the marathon.  I don’t want to make the mistake of ramping up my long run too early like I did in November and then crashed and burned.   However, I definitely could ramp up my miles per week with more runs and more mid-long runs.  First, I started with more shorty runs (adding in an extra 5k or 2 per week).  Now, I’m trying to really get some miles under my feet keeping with  average miles for the early stages of a marathon program, but not running longer than 13 yet.

Two years ago, I would train up for a half marathon, do a few double digit runs, run my half, and then swear off running for a month.  Last winter, I built up and kept a base long run in the double digits for many months, but during the week, I would only do 3-6 or so.  So far, within the last two weeks, I did 2 (race), 12, 9, 3, 10.5, and 13.  It was the product of doing my long run Sunday last week than Saturday this week, I ended up with 35.5 in a week.   May not sound like much to some of you, but it’s HUGE for me.  Really it was 23 last week and 26.5 this week, which I am still thrilled with.

I actually only planned on a 3, a 13, and a 7.  However,  I was looking at my training program and I never do the the half bike and run distances together.  That made me nervous.  I studied the plan and realized that this weekend was really the best one to yoink and do that.  While it’s a little early, I have races or vacations (or vacations with races) almost every weekend between now and taper (really, there are only TWO free).  I wanted to do it now to put my mind at ease.

I played it smart this week.  Monday, I did weights (yay my back felt better) and swam 1200m.  Tuesday, I was supposed to do weights but since I was sorrrrre I skipped it.  Instead,  I nailed a triple brick, with 3 bike segments of 5 miles averaging 20.2 mph, and 3 – 1 mile runs paced at 8:50, 8:44, and 8:43.  Wednesday, I was STILL sore so I just swam another 1000m.  Thursday was long run day, and I was supposed to do 13, and thought it would be fun to do double 13s within a day of each other.  However, my quad started to pull weird so I cut it at 10.5  super easy miles.  I was happy to have finished another double digit run on a weekday and felt pretty good and not dead after, but my quad continued to feel weird so I decided it was rest it and ice it and stretch it and see how things went.

Friday was a rest day, and the plan was to leave work, eat dinner, and go right to bed at 8 and get up at 3:30 to be on the trainer at 4.  Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned at work, and I was there until 9:30.  I had three options – sacrifice sleep, train during the heat, or just bag it.  As we discussed, I didn’t really have another good weekend to do it, and Sunday wasn’t an option as we had major amounts of Saturday night plans.  I checked the weather and each hour I slept in was an extra 5 degrees of “feels like” temps, where high 80s was if I stuck to my plan… so I set my alarm for 3am and promised myself a nice nap.

I woke up a little late and got on the bike at 4:40.  We watched the opening ceremonies and pedaled easy.  At 20 and 40 we got out of the saddle and took a quick break to simulate aid stations (I am still up in the air whether I am just going to attempt to do the bike with or without stops and just use my camelback and my own food).  I felt pretty great after 56 miles.  I ate a jelly bean each mile and had a chew each 5 and jerky when I felt like it.  I felt great and full after without feeling gross so I think that will be the plan.  I did it in 3:11.  A trainer is not the road.  On a trainer, you don’t have hills.  However, you don’t have any coasting breaks.  Kerrville isn’t stupid hilly so I feel like it was a decent approximation of saddle time.  I did ride in my izumi bike shorts, not my tri shorts, and think I may just take the extra 10 seconds in transition and slide them on and off.  I need to try that out of the water to make sure it doesn’t suck, but my ass doesn’t do well with long miles on my tri shorts.  Longest trainer ride by 16 miles, and only my 3rd ride over 50 miles!

We got outside at around 8:20, which was around 1:20 later than I was hoping.  It was already muggy and hot but whatcha gonna do besides get going, so we did just that.  We kept a slow but non-stop run pace of around 12 minute miles through mile 7, where we took our first walk break.  During that time, we tackled the two mile downhill and then the two mile uphill, so it was more tiring than just me running my happy lap.  At 7 it was getting super hot and I had aches and pains, so we walked for half a mile.  After we started running again, I thought I was done, I was going to try and run a mile, walk half, etc, just to get through.  I made it through about another mile and then walked a bit, and then we realized that we were almost out of water, so ran it into the house with about 3.5 to go.  We walked just a bit to get the legs working again, and then made it to about 11.25, and walked the same hill we walked before, and then ran it in for a 2:47 finish for 13.1.  Slow, slow, slow, but that was the point.  The only fuel I had was a little bit of a honey stinger waffle Zliten had.  I felt ok but really think I need to figure out how to get some nutrition in on the run.  Maybe Gatorade or some sort of liquid calories.

I finished out the day with 5:58 of training total, and I was beat.  I downed a milk before anything else, then showered and got a gigantic burger and fries.  Then I went to sleep.   Like right away.  That nap was ah. may. zing.  I need to remember to do that more often on weekends.  I woke up a human again and just in time too, because it was the day of crazy birthday party madness. First of all, 2 hours of a skating party.  I actually wasn’t sure if my legs were going to work after 6 hours of training that morning, but it actually ended up feeling pretty nice working different muscles and I had fun.  Then bowling (and imbibing) began, and I bowled two fairly decent games (104 and 128 – I consider anything over 100 a win these days :D), and then finished out the evening at the bar playing bean bags.

Today, I got up, had yummy brunch, got an awesome massage, bought a sassy red dress and some other stuff for Alaska, and have spent the day watching the Olympics and eating lobster and crab.  Some days it sucks to be me.

And I am going to continue to do that (watch Olympics – I am out of crab :D) and leave you with a less than wordy post (I’m sorry/you’re welcome).  I’ll note that I have a race next weekend which I am not excited about at all (another sprint when I’m ready to go longer, heard rumors that the swim tastes like sulfur, the bike is crappy with cobblestone-like roads, and is stupid hilly, etc).  My goal is to stay mentally in it, and not let the crappy conditions, if there are any, give me excuses to not give it my all.

This weeks plan:

MONDAY: weights + 30 mi trainer
TUESDAY: 7 mi run + 30 mi trainer
WEDNESDAY: 1500m swim + weights
THURSDAY: 7 mi run + 30 mi trainer
FRIDAY: weights + 30 mi traner
SATURDAY: off
SUNDAY: 500m swim, 14 mile bike, 3 mile run

Less run miles at 17, and not much swimming, but more bike miles than I’ve ever done in a week at 134.  This week has been engineered to get maximum trainer time while watching Olympics.  🙂

Also, I took some time and updated my races page with my recaps and results.  Interestingly enough, Kerrville will be race #50.  Fun!  I had fun dramatically reading all my early ones to Zliten over vodka last week.  Some things were just adorable, like “OMG I had to wake up at 6:45 for a race woe is me”.  LOLZ!

*Pictures as proof that after 6 hours of training, we actually made it to both skating and bowling….

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?

To know pain is to really know pleasure.

To know disappointment is to really know triumph.

To have some “meh” races is to really appreciate the good ones.

There is no real dramatic story here.  I didn’t spectacularly fail.  I didn’t injure something.  I didn’t crawl across a finish line.  I’ve never done a July race before, and maybe it’s just not my month.  Maybe you just have a limit of races you can crush per year, and I’m saving mine for later.  Couples was race 13 for the year, and maybe it was just unlucky 13.

Going into Couples, I was both excited and sorta …eh…  The exciting part was I got to race with my Zliten (triathlons are usually split in age and gender specific waves – this one was by what sort of couple you were so we started together with all the married under 70 combined couples), and I was going to get up mother fucking carnage hill this time.  Meh, because it was at Decker Lake, which is not my fave, and double meh at the run course on grass and sticks and yuck.

We never really got the race woogies.  We just kinda did our thing.  Set up the gear.  Practice transitions the night before.  Pack all the things.  Neither of us could sleep, and then finally when we DID fall asleep, it started pouring which woke us up.  I was working off ~4 hours of sleep which was NOT working for me.  The normal tea late in the AM made me functional, not amped like normal.

We got there, racked our bike as close to bike in/out as possible, hit the portas, got the rest of the stuff out of the car, and set up transition.  What was going right was the early morning forecast said 70-85% chance of rain, but as the sun came up it was apparent that wasn’t going to be the case.  Sunny, and almost no clouds in the sky.  Yay, no rain.  Boo, no clouds, so it would be hotter.

We did our normal run warmup, slow out, race striders back, and went to finalize transition and I realized – CRAP.  My shoes were muddy (*%&$ sticks and grass course!!), so I couldn’t do my norm of shoes on top of my visor and race belt.  I spent about 5 minutes mucking with different configurations and finally extended my towel a bit and placed things a little differently.  Zliten was laughing at my neuroses, but I have a plan for a reason, dammit!

We headed down and got a practice swim.  OMG bathwater!!!  I don’t mind it so much (gimme 85 degree lakes over under 70) but for some reason I associate Decker with cold because Rookie is always frigid.  We got out, walked around, found our tri friend Brian and our friend’s friend Elle and said hi, and then things were about to kick off.

We had discussed how weird it was going to be for both of us.  Zliten usually starts in one of the first waves (it usually goes open, under 29, then him), and I’m anywhere from slightly after halfway through, and in Pfluger, I was actually second to last.  He is used to, on the bike, getting passed by all the people.  I am used to maybe 2-3 gals with Project Rudy helmets and 10k$ bikes passing me and me passing all the rest of the people.  Our wave was just about smack dab in the middle, so it would probably be a combo of both.

Then, we were on double deck, then deck, then in the water, gave each other a kiss and hug, and got our swim on.  My focus this year is slowly increasing my swim intensity, to find the line between paddling along and redlining and blowing up, as well as being more aggressive around other swimmers.  I think I did well at the latter, at least, as I didn’t break my stroke every time I was jostled or touched.  I swam over a few people that were being obnoxious and backstroking or breaststroking in my way. I concentrated on being long and big and confident, and came out of the water feeling like I kicked ass at the swim.  I picked up my sandals and then I heard Zliten say something right behind me.  Holy crap!  I expected to beat him by a bit on the swim.

Swim Time: 21:57 for 800m (for contrast, see my 750m swim + transition below – something was WAY off)

We jogged to T1 together and I had to wait on him just a little, but really quickly we were off on the bike.  All went as planned.

T1 time: 3:58 (a little slower than normal)

This is where we started to realize that triathlon is really an individual sport and it was challenging racing every step of the way with someone.  He was off like a rocket on the bike, I took a while to clip in and get my legs going, so he slowed.  Then, a mile in, I’m off like a rocket charging up the hills and passing all the people, and I had to take it easier after a while because I was losing him.  This was the theme of the bike.  One of us would get ahead (usually me charging a hill but sometimes Z) and then slow down waiting for the other to catch up.  It really effed up the mojo.  I race my ass off on the bike, get to redline huffing and puffing, take a second to recover, and then do it all again.  It was weird to hit recovery, be ready to go, and then have to wait.

Six miles in was carnage.  After last weekend’s torture ride, I was certain I could do it.  I turned the corner as fast as I dared, and shouted my battle cry of ” CARNAGE IS MY BITCH!!!!” (yes, out loud, I’m sure my mother is proud) and got out of my seat and tore that hill a new one.  My proudest moment this race was not walking up this stupid effing hill.

However, as I’m going, I see Zliten slip off his bike.  I was not able to see to what extent.  I couldn’t deal with it, so I got up the hill, and unclipped, expecting the worst, having to go back down the hill and wait for him to recover.  As soon as I unclipped I hear GOGOGO!  That badass fell on a steep ass hill, his first wreck (his paint job has some major road rash), got back on the bike from a standstill, and got up it.  Yeah.  That rocked.

I remembered the second half of the course was rough, but I overestimated (I thought it was hill, hill, double hill, but it was only hill, double hill), so I got up the last hill and thought I had one more to go and was pleasantly surprised to be done and in good shape.  And then I coasted.  And coasted more.  ….and coasted more.  No Zliten. Then Zliten zoomed past me, and I took it easy to the finish like normal where he was pushing and wondering why I dropped back.

Bike time: 42:11 for 11.2 hilly miles- 15.9 mph (4 seconds faster than Rookie – LOL)

We got into transition and I had issues racking my bike, and he had to wait as I did the shoe switch.  “Do we really have to do this run now?” I said?  For some reason, I was just ready to be done.  I swam strong.  I got up carnage.  Isn’t that enough for a workday?  I guess not, because he said, “No, go go go…” and off we went.

T2 time: 1:46 (not too bad)

The run was equally awkward going together.  I get my legs a little faster than he does.  After the initial shuffle getting my race belt and visor on, I was ready to start cruising under 10s.  Zliten was not.  He kept talking about staying under 12s and I was like NONONO under 10s but it was not to be.  I stayed just a little in front holding my pace back.  Then we hit a hill and the “under 12s” became 9:30s.  YOU DON’T ACCELERATE UP A HILL DAMMIT.  He flew ahead, and then what goes up, must come down, and I flew past him because he had…slowed?  I mentally just got mad at the day, at the course, at not being able to run my pace, at Decker, at hills, at sticks, at the hot, sticky day.

My mouth became not of me, but of a sailor.  When I race by myself, I often mutter a lot of cuss words under my breath.  Well, racing with someone who is trying to talk with me, I started saying a lot of them louder than I should.  “Fuck fuck fuck fuck this course, fuck the sticks, fuck the hills FUCK THIS MOTHERFUCKING COURSE”.  Yeah, I did that as some random dude ran by and giggled at me.  Then  I looked at Zliten and said “TALKY TIME IS DONE” and shut up and ran.  I am a JOY to run with, let me tell you.

My ankles started hurting as we got ass deep in the sticks and twigs and rocks part from landing unevenly.  I cruised on the downhills and chugged on the uphills and made it a goal to just stay within sight distance of Z instead of running with him as we continued the passing dance.  About mile 2.25 it turned, and it was sticks and twigs and rocks and uphill as far as the eye could see.  I knew the hill lasted pretty much until the last quarter mile of pavement, which was still uphill.

I just lost it.  On a fucking sprint tri 5k, I started walking.  In my head, our run time was already just awful, so fuck it, why bother chugging up that hill?   I walked a bit, then ran, then I saw Zliten ahead of me walking so I ran to catch up with him, and then he starting running and I said “fuck that, I’m walking” and we walked up the stupid hill.  He tried to get me going again sooner, but I was done.  We had already screwed the run.  I made us walk to the aide station, and got water, and saw the pavement.

In MY HEAD, that was time to make the shit up and I took off running like a bat out of hell to the finish, but Zliten asked me to slow down (apparently he was not ready to run Olympian paces), and we cruised into the finish line.

Run time: 33:27 for 3.2 miles (10:26 pace) UGH UGH UGH UGH.

Total time: 1:43:19.  Double UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH.

Ten minutes slower than Pf for BOTH of us.  We both had really underestimated how rough it would be to essentially have to account for both of our weaknesses together on the tri.  I’ve cruised the Rookie run both years at 9:30-ish and really didn’t think that adding an extra mile would screw with my mojo as much as it did.

Mentally, I am happy with how I handled it.  I didn’t need the win that bad that day.  No bawling in the bathtub.  I’ve been hitting my run paces well off the bike in training, so I can write that off as just a sucky course and a weird day.  I beat carnage.  I still have no idea how my swim was that slow, but it is what it is.  I improved my bike pace (by seconds), even with the oddity of trying to stay with someone, and while it wasn’t magic like Pf, it was a solid day at the races.  We showed up and got it done.  They can’t all be unicorns and rainbows.  And, I got to do it every step of the way with Zliten – even though we both agreed we may have been able to eek out some extra minutes solo – it was super fun to keep him in my sights all morning! 🙂

Then, around 6am that morning, I figured out that I had wrecked something in my shoulder, as I woke up IN PAIIIIIN.  Four hours of sleep Saturday plus less than 6 hours of sleep Sunday = UNHAPPY grumpy melodramatic Quix.

I posted things to social media like:

“Tired at the core of my soul today. And my shoulder and neck are out of whack. I want so badly to take painkillers and sleep.”

To which some tweeps gave some some undeserved sympathy, as some lunch and less than half a cup of regular octane Earl Grey tea fixed me.  I don’t usually bend to the will of caffeine, but I had a very important work meeting, and I realized how out of it I was when I got on the microphone in front of the whole company(200 employees) like I do each Monday and rambled and lost my train of thought.  I recovered, but I knew I had to do SOMETHING to fix my leaky brain.

Even though I felt better, I knew that I shouldn’t use my chemically fueled awakeness, and decided to bail on my 2000 yd swim and weights anyway and just rest.  Zliten was awesome and rubbed my shoulder and cooked me dinner and I zonked on the couch and relaxed and got great sleep last night.

However, one of my worst race day fears was realized as I woke up this morning, and it was that one day of the month I want to curl up in a ball and die.  And instead of that, I was to have a hectic and mentally challenging day at work, and then RACE right after.  Yeah, I was really into that idea retaining water, completely fatigued and run down, and rife with CRAAAAAMPS.  Plus, my shoulder was still a little owie.  Then the weather said it should be around 96.  Yeah, please, anything but a splash and dash….

I got through the day aight, but felt the ache pretty bad this afternoon.  I decided my attitude going into it was going to be that since I was already in pain, I’d be used to pain, so the extra pain wouldn’t matter, right?  That was to be my silver lining.

We got there, got our chips, set up transition, did a very short warmup run in which I felt pretty bleh, and then got in the water and warmed up the arms.  The good news of the day was I felt AWESOME in the water and my shoulder had decided to play nice.  I decided that I wasn’t going to let myself off, and my goal was 38:11, at least one second faster than I did last month.

The dudes were off, and then 3 mins later, so were we.  I decided since I felt great in the water, I wanted to really push the swim.  I focused on drafting off ladies that were going about my pace, but sprinting past them when I felt like I had it.  I felt more confident and strong in the water today than I ever have.  When ladies got near me, I didn’t get flustered, but I either got around them, or swam over them (whichever was appropriate).  I kept a really strong (for me) pace and worked on getting ahead of people.

On the way back to shore, my kryptonite happened again.  Two girls were both slightly ahead of me, and squeezing me.  Last time,  I dropped back.  This time, I held my space and started sprinting and got ahead of them instead.

Not going to lie, I was more out of breath at the end of this swim than the last, but I felt great about it, and while my run was slower (yeah spoiler alert, whatever), I don’t think it was because of what I did in the water.

Swim+ transition: 18:56 (19:09 last month)

I got out, transitioned, and got running.  Last month, I was mentally in each step, pushing, looking at my garmin all the time, trying to keep my pace at a certain point.  This time, I just didn’t quite have *that*.  I more ran by feel, trying to keep my pace as low as I could, but I wasn’t doing the math and calculating and digging each and every second – I really zoned out a lot of the run and tried to keep the pain and tireds at a manageable level.  I can remember what I was thinking almost every step of the last run.  This one was sort of a haze, following one girl who was running just about my pace and just getting through the 3 laps.

Run: 19:37 for 2.05 miles (19:03 last month)

750m swim + 2.05 mile run – 38:34 total (38:12 last month)

I finished about 20 seconds slower than last month (my swim+ transition was 13 seconds faster, but my run was 35 seconds slower).  Considering I could have described my mood and attitude as tired, shitty, exhaused to my core, crampy, bloated, braindead, pissy, dramatic, and NOT WANTING to do anything but curl up on my couch, I’ll call that a freakin’ win even though it wasn’t.

Tonight – one more great night of sleep and sleeping in, and a mellow 40 on the trainer tomorrow, and then Thursday resumes normal badassery and ramping up for the half IM.

They can’t all be winners.  But now the eggs are all in the Kerrville basket, and the rest of these are just playtime.  So onward and upward (in amount of miles, certainly).

What is your worst race day (or work out day) fear?