It’s now 4 weeks until Ironman Arizona and I’m in the peak
of training. The volume is significant. The duration of each single workout
makes me think “what am I doing this for? I’m tired. I just want to stop.” Yes,
I could stop. I DO have a choice. But then there’s the end goal right there and
I do the work. I thought I’d share these training sessions in case they give
you a little insight that might help you with your own training.
This past weekend was to be huge. “Stuff” led to adjustments but in the end I
did what made sense (if you can call it “sense”!) Saturday was a VERY long
training ride, which turned out to be my longest ever. Rode 121 miles, nearly
all of it along the north San Diego coast, including Camp Pendleton, the
campground at San Onofre, past Trestles, and as far as Carl’s Jr. (aka my aid
station). Hills were minimal. And this was purposeful as Arizona is not hilly
and I didn’t feel the need for terrain challenges. Distance was the only
objective.
The first 2 hours were miserable. I was a ½ hour late
getting out the door, I couldn’t find my jersey, I couldn’t find my ipod, I
couldn’t find my heart rate monitor strap, my hydration system wasn’t set up
right, etc. My patience was short to begin with so none of this helped. When I
finally got on the bike I was having doubts that the ride would last more than
a couple of hours. I was slow and not in a very good place mentally. But, just
like in a race, you’ll never know if success is just around the corner if you
don’t keep trying to move forward. Things eventually did get better but not by
much.
Except for an 8 mile stint at 70 miles, I rode solo. It was
tough going at times, though the repeat loops through the campground felt good.
Later, when I got just a few miles from home I thought of the final hill I’d
have to ride up to finish and knew I’d have to walk it. I also knew I’d be over
my 120 mile goal by then so I texted Linda for a rescue. My hero came with the
van and got me at the bottom of the hill. When I saw her it was reminiscent of
how I feel after an Ironman – spent, relieved, and so grateful to see her. In
the end it was an ugly ride but a ride that I’ll be able to “reference” when
I’m racing IMAZ.
Sunday was Esprit de She, a women’s triathlon race, in which
we had 18 of our current or former athletes racing in. Linda has been leading a
post-TriRock group to do this race for the past five years. As in previous
years, it was a fun and successful race. A few of us were swim buddies, helping
anxious athletes get the swim done. That’s always very rewarding. Post-race
brunch got me back home around 2pm. I had a long swim and long run planned but
the run just wasn’t going to happen.
After a short nap and a lot of nothing, I headed down to the
pool and got in 5000 yards that were painfully slow (compared to my normal pace).
After about 3500 I had to keep making deals with myself to get through it.
First I told myself I could stop after 4100 if I felt the same or worse. Once I
got there I figured I could go another 300. After that I took it 100 at a time
until, what do you know, I was done. Ahhh, Chunking. All I could think of was
getting in the Jacuzzi to warm myself back up!
The long run got pushed to Monday. Since Silverman I’ve
struggled to do even 50 minutes of running. Putting it off an extra day I hoped
would make it easier. I got 13 miles in this morning (2 miles short of planned),
all at a fairly slow pace and easy effort. My quad is still not feeling 100% so
I pulled back on the effort, wanting to live to train another day. I’ll have to
see if I should have scrubbed this run completely.
Looking ahead I have another significant week of training.
The long ride will be more reasonable but with a brick run after, I’ll try to
get 2 open water swims in, and I hope I’ll be able to run longer on Sunday.
I’ve decided to drop any of the intensity that is part of the run workouts to
avoid injury. If I were at 100% I would
be doing things differently but since I did a full taper for Silverman and
because of how hard I pushed the ride and run I’ve had to adjust my approach to
the final 6 weeks of training for this year’s Ironman Arizona.
No comments:
Post a Comment