I'm on the Mend

After 5 days of almost no workouts (I did slip in strength training; after all it's mainly anaerobic, so I didn't need my lungs to do it!), and coughing up NOTHING at all, I began feeling much better yesterday, so I attempted a run. Goal was 1 hour, but I made it 30' and felt dizzy.

Well this morning I found the dizziness culprit--the lovely inhaler I was using to help me over the hump of this cough thing. One of the signs to me that I am coming around is that drugs do weird things to me. So while the inhaler was good for a few days, I'm done with it. Even though I didn't go to California to race, I decided it would be good to take the 2 days off from work that I had planned, to have more time to visit with my mom and also to just not have to focus on work nonsense while trying to get better.

Today I managed a 1 hour run and a 1:15 ride. Now, I'm sure that sounds like a lot for someone coming off a URI, but I know many athletes who wouldn't have rested as much as I just did feeling even worse! Coming back from something like this is where I actually pay attention to my HR (generally I don't). Since I effectively had a taper, my main concern was to not jack up my HR too much, with the knowledge that things are still in a weakened state. Heck, today was the first time my chest muscles (intercostals and pecs) didn't hurt from all the coughing. But I knew my leg muscles should still be in fine shape.

I capped my run RPE in the steady to upper-steady area. I didn't try and run tempo or anything. But I did throw in 10' of strides, which let me run fast for 30" at a time, and it didn't hurt or anything. Actually, running felt quite good. No dizziness, and I hardly coughed at all.

I had about 45' after running before I got on my bike. I knew that trying to do any FT intervals today would be ridiculous, as I generally get my HR way up there to produce those watts--"way up there" meaning higher than I hit at my running tempo pace (word to the wise out there--I can push REALLY REALLY HARD on the bike). But I thought that I would be able to hit HIM watts, which for me are around 88-93% of FT watts. I figured a workout like this would ease me back into the FT stuff either Saturday or next week. I decided to do an extended warmup, just to feel out my legs and lungs and watts to see what I might be able to do today. I did a 30' warmup, then 3' spinups and 9' of the Z3 stuff from my usual warmup. And then I thought I'd do either 3x10' or 2x15' at HIM watts with 2' rest in between, and then cool down. I got to 10' and didn't feel like I needed to stop, so I went to 15', and that was OK, too, 20' fine, and then I figured I might as well go 30' straight, which I did. It felt challenging, but not particularly hard (again, because I've effectively had a taper), but at the end of the day, my HR was up where it usually is when I'm producing FT watts, but my RPE was lower than my HR indicated. So I think I made a very wise decision to hold my watts back. It will be fun to hit those FT watts again at the same HR I was seeing today. I know from coming back after Goofy Challenge that my watts recovered and IMPROVED rather nicely within 2 weeks. So I think I'll be full-strength again next week.

Now some of you may think, "wow she probably still could have gone and raced this weekend." NOPE! I am not 100%, and a couple of airplan trips plus a full HIM effort this weekend would not be a good idea. I will be monitoring my recovery very closely the next few days, and even though I may still get in a decent week of training, the body was telling me to rest, and there is no way I will hit the hours I was at 2 weeks ago this week, and taking the race off the table will enable me to march right into a solid week next week, which in the end, will be a great setup for the training camp to follow the next week.

I can't believe it, but I'll be doing an Ironman in TEN WEEKS!!! I could be freaking out of my head right now, but I'm not. Do you know why? Because of my MIND OF IRON. It is what enables me to make good decisions about what is best for me right now, what is most important, remember to stay in each and every moment, even the uncomfortable ones that I've had in the past few days. Every time life throws me a curve ball nowadays, as it's coming at my face I recognize that there will be lessons for me to learn from it and strength to be gained after it passes.

I knew when I got sick last week that it might mean not racing, but I just accepted it and instead adopted a perspective that the rest will probably do me good. Lord knows I've been pushing the envelope. But then when I learned about my mom's condition, as much as that saddened me, I felt good knowing I would be here through the worst of it. And in talking to my younger sister, I am finding that I must have acquired some sort of wisdom about finding one's way out of depression and appear to be able to help her start to see herself for the beautiful person that she is, independent of what she has or does. If I can help just one person find inner peace that helps them find their path in life, that is enough justification to me for my own existence. I consider myself far from enlightened; yet I believe I am further along than most and I see myself now able to help others. I hope that doesn't sound conceited of me; well, truthfully I don't care what anyone thinks of me anymore. We are all here to help one another; the trick is being of the right mind, in the right place at the right time with the right tools to provide that help, and to jump when opportunity presents itself and the other person is receptive. It is always true that you can't help someone that doesn't want to be helped.

Enough of that. It sure felt good to get in some solid working out today, and also to be NOT WORKING. It just goes to show you that I really do love training. Racing is nice and fun, and I'll get that in, too, but training is where it's at in my life. Oh--and I've got some eating to do. I dropped about 1.5 lbs. from the evil no-phlegm-at-all cough. I lose my appetite when I'm sick AND not training. Chicken soup and crackers, while tasty and comforting, just don't pack much of a caloric punch, even with all the butter I was putting on the crackers! That 1.5 lbs. was probably just my muscles letting go of glycogen and the accompanying water anyway (1 g glycogen is held in muscle by 4 g water, didya know?), so as I pick up training again, my muscles will suck up glycogen and water, and the weight will be back in a flash. I'll know I'm really 100% when I crave a big, juicy steak.

Namaste!