Week Thirty

I can't believe I'm in my 30th week of training. Yesterday marked exactly 50 days until Ironman France.

I've been really tired this whole week. I've been getting plenty of sleep, but I just feel like I have less energy. It hit me on Tuesday, when I guess I needed more recovery time (I spun for 60 minutes, and then used my foam roller instead of ran). On Friday, I got home at around 6PM after teaching all day and directing a 2 hour rehearsal with the kids, and I barely had enough energy to prep for Saturday's ride let alone run that night.

Okay, so I've been pondering yesterday's bike ride and I'm trying to figure out exactly what went wrong. Maybe I made several mistakes, now that I'm thinking of it. The plan was to do two 40 mile loops in San Jose that has about 2,000 feet of climbing per loop. I wanted to get in about 5,000 feet of climbing, though, so I had planned to do a repeat of the first hill, which is a 1000 foot climb in about 2 miles (repeat on the first time through only). I thought I had chosen a route that met Coach Mike's guidelines: that I wanted to have a bunch of flat riding as well so that my muscle memory doesn't learn the slow cadence that happens during climbing. He suggested that if I were to do, for example, an 80 mile ride, then no more than 30 of those miles should be climbing. Well, this ride, if you consider both loops total, really looked to have about that ratio. I met teammate Andrew on the corner of Redmond and Meridian in San Jose and we headed out.

Mistake #1: could have been that I went out too hard. I was really pumped up from last week's ride, and was hoping I could keep up around 16 mph average on the flats. Of course I felt good, being the beginning of the ride and all.

Mistake #2: My directions indicated at which mile I would find every turn I had to make. My bike computer doesn't allow me to look at mileage and ride time at the same time. Usually, I have it on ride time, so I can monitor that I am drinking water every 10 minutes, and have my electrolytes and calories every 20 minutes. But, I thought that I could just keep the computer on distance, and just keep reminding myself to fuel up "every once in a while." So, it's very likely that I didn't keep the same schedule I normally do. I think I was doing really well, until I got tired, at which point I stopped thinking logically about my nutrition needs.

Mistake #3: I thought it was a good idea to do that hill repeat early in the ride (mile 15) while I still felt strong, to get in that extra 1,000 feet of climbing. But, 1,000 feet of climbing in 2 miles is no easy task, let alone twice, and it took it's toll out on me. This, in combination of going out hard, I think did me in.

By mile twenty-something, I was already feeling pretty drained of energy, just plain tired. I pushed through with Andrew until the end of the first loop. He had to leave at that point (he only planned on doing one loop with me). We said goodbye, and I headed back to my car.

Here is the point that I had to make a decision. Do I do another loop with all of those hills when I'm already feeling so depleted? Do I call it a day at only 45 miles? Someone with more experience is better at making those decisions. A novice like myself can't decide the difference between stopping because I'm "being a wuss" and stopping because I'm "making a smart choice in my training."

I refilled my water bottles and perpetuem, took another enduralyte, put on some more sun screen, and then sat on the curb by my bike for a good 10 minutes or so just trying to decide if I was really going to get back on. I was just so wiped out. I decided that I would at least get on and ride the easy, flat stretch of Redmond Ave. and see how I felt.

So, I got on my back, and did just that. I rode the few miles of Redmond Ave, out and back. When I got back to the intersection where my car was, I decided that I couldn't quit so soon. (I also knew that I couldn't face going back to that 1,000 foot climb again either.) So, I made a compromise with myself. I would ride around the flat long roads of San Jose to try to get in some more distance and work on the faster cadence. I rode the less busy part of Camden out and back and out and back and out again, and did a few Camden - Almaden loops. I felt some sort of comfort that I was never more than 10 miles away from my car, should I totally need to give in. I made it back to my car finally at around mile 76.5, and decided that was enough miles to call it quits for the day.

My recovery from this ride was so much worse than after last week's 100+ miler. I did eat and drink right away afterwards, just the same, but I was exhausted the entire night, as though I had just run my first marathon.

I decided, for the first time in longer than I can remember, that I would wake up without an alarm this morning, to get in as much sleep as I needed. I woke up around 8. My body still felt just lethargic. I decided to have an easy morning and planned to run in the afternoon instead. I don't know if that was a good idea. I went out at around 4:30 to start my run. I ran a 4/1 combination for about an hour and forty minutes. The calendar said to go 15 miles, and I'm sure I didn't get that in, but I was feeling like I wasn't getting anything out of it by the time I decided to stop.

(I didn't even get to the pool today, either. I do have time to go tomorrow morning, so I might do that to get that workout in.)

It's really disheartening to have a rough training weekend so close to my event. I know it happens to the best of us, and I know I'm supposed to learn from it. I'm just a very methodical, analytical person, and it's really hard that so much of training isn't an exact science. There's no way to know why I was so tired this week, or what I could have done to prevent it or deal with it, and it's really hard as I said before for a novice to know when to push through a workout versus take some time off and rest. There's only a few weeks of training left, and I don't want to waste a minute of it, but it's sure hard when your body is so tired.

Hopefully, I'll be able to have next week feel like a fresh start!

THIS WEEK'S SUMMARY:
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Spin 60 minutes
Wednesday: SC Informal Track Workout
Thursday: Swim 3000 yards (1,000 of which were in 20 minutes!)
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Ride 76 miles
Sunday: Run 100 minutes

BODY CHECK:
My lower back is tight, but it's not painful. I'm a little sore in general (neck, shoulders, shins, ankles), but no cause for alarm. :-)

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