The photo at left is the blast from the past. That's me running in August, 2004 in a sprint triathlon where I won my age group and had the fastest overall women's bike split. That was one week before Ironman Canada, where I did my fastest Ironman to date. And followed it up by my 2nd fastest Ironman in Hawaii. Man, I wish I was tan now. I am pasty white right about now (but just as lean if not leaner than in the photo).
1/17 Workout
3:35PM Bike 1:00, 445 kcal, average HR 111, average watts 119. The objective of this workout was just to be on the bike, easy spinning. Well, I did 2 HOURS of that on Saturday, and it was boring as hell (even though I watched Running on the Sun and the first 15' of A Clockwork Orange), but it was necessary I try to not go too hard my first ride back. So yesterday, I thought I would just run through my cogs in the SCR (Small Chain Ring) and then move into the BCR and see how it felt. I only really upped the intensity for the last 20', and it felt good! I didn't feel like I was ready to crank out FT watts yet, but considering I averaged 119 watts for the entire ride (which is in my "steady" or Ironman watts range), I did well. And I just noticed that I was hitting my Ironman watts at a lower than normal HR. YEAH, BABY!
1/18 Workouts:
7:15AM Swim 2700 yards in 57:47. This workout included 4x400 negative split with 20" rest as the main set. I had no endurance issues; the pool was FLIPPIN' HOT--85 degrees! It was SO hard to push myself at all, and when I started the workout I felt like I was in a bad mood (more on that later), so the temperature of the water wasn't helping. But, at some point I decided to focus on one thing during the swim, which was my head position. My head position isn't bad, but I do notice that it isn't neutral enough when I'm breathing to my left side. So when I spent time to focus on it today, I noticed that my position isn't all that neutral to the RIGHT, either. So I worked on that, and even though my speed was non-existent, a good thing came out of the workout. All right! This is a technique anyone can use. There is always SOMETHING you can manage to do of value during a workout even if you feel like crap, are in a bad mood, are tired, anything (except bonking!).
1:20PM Run :45, 373 kcal, average heart rate 116. Can I say how good it felt to run again? IT FELT FUCKING GOOD, THAT'S HOW IT FELT! I felt light as a feather on my feet, nothing untoward in the way of pain (the top of my right foot is still a little sensitive, and it let me know that today), didn't lose any speed, and my HR didn't go nuts! I had an ostensibly easy workout to do, and it went like this: 25' warmup from easy to steady, 10' of strides on the track, and then 10' on the track. The strides felt great, and when I started the last 10', I was curious as to how fast I could go. I wasn't going to look at my HR; just run. I tried not to go out too fast, and when all was said and done, I ended up running 7:52/mile! That is unheard of for me! Actually after I finished 1 mile I looked at my watch and saw 7:55, and I just wanted to hold that, but I guess I picked it up just a tad! It felt GOOD to run fast, and even though I was at (maybe over?) my 5K pace, what the hell, welcome back to running, Crackhead!
Now on to some ruminations. This morning while swimming and feeling in a bad mood, I had this sense of restlessness, because I am not sure what I want to do in 2007. Reality check--it just turned 2006, OK? But still, up until this year, I could pretty much tell you what might be on tap the following year. Not so much right now. Sure, I entered that Western States 100 raffle, and if I win, I guess that's what I'll be doing--but today I was thinking what if I just did one 1/2 Ironman per month from May through September? That would be pretty cool. My training would be something like the following 4-week cycle:
Week 1: Bike and run like hell
Week 2: Bike and run like hell
Week 3: Taper down just a little bit (2 days)
Week 4: Taper up just a little bit with full return to biking by the weekend
How much fucking fun would THAT be? Plus I'm sure I'd come out of it a speed demon. But then back to trying to swim. I realized I was focusing so much on the future, I had better stop and do what I needed to do RIGHT NOW. And as soon as I got my head back to swimming, despite the pool temperature, I felt at peace and all was good with the world.
It IS possible to plan too much, but what I was trying to do today was not so much plan, but force myself to make a decision before I'm ready. I have plenty of time to think about next year, and what it is is somewhat dependent on this year. But I think the point of todays thoughts were that I AM becoming a little burned out with Ironman--other than going to new places and spending lots more money, what is left for me to do there? This is how it gets when I feel I've mastered something--I need some time away for it so that it can become just part of my repetoire to draw on for future free time. Again, I'm not saying I've reached the pinnacle of my fitness or speed by any means, but at some point this old lady is going to hit that final PR and then it is all downhill from there. So I guess I'd rather go out on a high note and switch the engines to the pursuit of something different. Or maybe not. It's too soon to tell.
I think a little of what I'm experiencing, too, is post-big event letdown. I don't feel let down so much as well, my life is still messed up because I'm still not in my regular training pattern/volume. Which is why TWO WORKOUTS today felt better. I may kick myself in the pants in a few weeks if I come back and read this post, but so be it. Part of why I do this stuff is it helps me to feel sane by not giving my overly-active mind too much time to be idle. Not that my mind is ever really "idle," just that I've developed this ability to calm it through training, and while I've gotten MUCH better at doing that outside of training, hey, I'm still human and far from perfect and I haven't achieved nirvana, and so I still get thrown out of whack.
In summary, I am coming to a crossroads in my life. Oh, my fucking craziness! Writing this just now I realize that this happens to me about every 5 years LIKE CLOCKWORK! I've done Ironmans for 5 years, DUH! The 5 years before that I basically got my post-divorce crazy on (if you know what I mean). The 5 years before that I spent figuring out why my marriage was not working for me. It's time for me to do some serious thinking, so I guess it's good that I am working on getting my mental house in order. These watershed events require careful and deep thought, and whereas in the past, I sort of just "rolled" or "defaulted" into the next phase, this time I have complete and utter power to decide where I want to be. What a wonderful problem to have!
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