I've been struggling this week--I think part of it has been the steady increase in intensity week by week, and also with the mandate to "always be pushing" on the bike, I've been really trying to push those watts every time I ride. This is week 4 of 5 weeks of 14-15 hours of training, which really isn't a lot of volume for me, but with all the intensity it's a tough schedule. Add to that a little "I wonder if this is the week I lose my job or have to switch to a position that's more than 50% travel" stress, plus friggin' crazy strength workouts (they taper off in 2 weeks, which is my intended periodization to achieve maximal strength AND rest before Ralph's), and it didn't surprise me a bit that this week I just felt mentally and physically off.
Tuesday's bike workout went just fine, but it felt like more of a struggle than usual (if you can believe that!) to push out the watts. I guess that the higher the stakes, the harder it gets, eh? Believe me, I feel that adage, "it doesn't get any easier, you just get faster," and I've never felt so strong or fast ever, and while my training volume isn't huge, it's been a steady push of intensity. But I just felt "off" on Tuesday.
Wednesday morning, I was up in plenty of time to get my swim workout in before work, but I just felt like I needed to not go, and instead do something non-training in the early hours. I've always been an early bird (relatively), and used to enjoy doing all sorts of things before I would begin my workday. So I skipped the swim and enjoyed almost 3 hours of NOT TRAINING before work. It was really nice to do my tempo run in the middle of the day not having swum, and feeling all nice and peppy. Man, my HR was low even as I kept pushing my pace.
Of course, my work ethic got the better of me, so I figured that since I had skipped my swim that I should probably do my Thursday core workout on Wednesday. So I did that after I finished working for the day, and I noticed that my upper body was carrying a lot of stiffness and soreness, which I attributed to the stress of that day, when luckily, I wasn't ordered to change to the big travel job (thankfully, another coworker volunteered for it). With a sigh of relief, I relaxed that evening and decided I would get up early on Thursday and see if I felt like swimming.
I am so used to 2 workouts a day that if I only do 1 I feel out of sorts and/or I do not feel as mentally engaged at work. Thursday morning rolled around, and I had slept well, and the coffee was good as always (I brew my own Kona every day), and I decided I'd do my shorter, Friday swim this day, since I had a tough bike workout for later in the day. The swim workout went really well. My upper body soreness seemed to have dissipated (stretching before swimming as I always do never hurts, either), and I felt pretty strong in the water. The Master's coach gave me a little objective criticism, which I thanked him for, and when I told him about what some other swimmer had said about me he just rolled his eyes and said, "No, you do NOT do that." Ha ha. Maybe that was a married guy's way of flirting with me by telling me my form was so off? Whatever. I "only" did 2800 yards, and felt ready for my bike workout.
Well, Thursday's bike workout included a measly 3x10' at FT watts, and even though my objective for the week was to meet or beat current FT (165), in reality I wanted to see numbers over 170. What is my problem??? Oh, yeah, coach said, "Always be pushing," so I have interpreted that to mean, "Go for +5 watts over FT until the next test." That is certainly one way to push up my FT watts! I felt like I was putting out good power, but the watts I wanted weren't there, yet I still achieved the objective, but was disappointed. I figured perhaps swimming in the morning sapped a little energy, and even though I shouldn't have been phased by the workout results, again, I felt like the week just wasn't going like I would prefer.
Friday I got up early enough to swim again, so guess what, I ended up not skipping any swim workouts after all! I did my Wednesday workout, which included a main set of 6x300, 15" RI. Now if you know anything about swim workouts, you know this is an endurance set--not much rest at all. The first 3 were 1-3 descending, then the last 3 were negative split. My swimming speed still isn't where I want it, but what the hell at least I could see what's going on endurance-wise. Yup, I've got plenty of that! The entire workout was 3,100 yards, and it went by in a flash, and I wasn't the least bit tired or fatigued. Just takin' care of business. Then later all I had to do was an easy 40' run including 10' of strides, no problem, I can do that half asleep. The day almost ended with a fire drill at work, but luckily, the situation was confirmed under control by 5PM, THANK GOD! I have had plenty of late Friday afternoon fire drills, and they are no fun at all, not to mention they have a way of putting a dent into the weekend.
So through Friday, some good, some not so good workouts, plenty o' stress at work, but good Olympics action so the net net as of this morning was I shouldn't be so concerned about how the weekend workouts go. But you know that isn't me--I want to nail everything. And I had decided to increase my bike workout today by another 15', to get it up to 2:45, which is close to what I usually ride in a 1/2 IM, so that I don't feel like a total loser when I show up at Ralph's in 4 weeks. Last week I did 2:30, and I added intensity, and I felt pretty shelled after that plus the brick run afterwards, so I was careful about what kind of intensity I added for today's bike workout.
It was -9 here in Chicago when I got up this morning, and I keep my heat set to 67 so that the main floor is reasonable, upstairs is about 69-70 (and I'm usually burning up at night--I guess this Iron physique really kicks out the watts at night!), and then I don't spend much time except on the trainer downstairs--it's pretty cold down there. When I fired up the SRM the temperature was 60! Perfect for an indoor ride, but I started with a long sleeve t-shirt on because I was so chilled. I usually wait 10 minutes before I turn on the fan to blast me in the face, and I thought maybe I wouldn't need it today, but I did, but I felt pleasantly "not too hot" for the entire ride.
And I had watts and watts and WATTS today, EASILY! After all the other nonsense this week, I was pretty relaxed about things and figured I'd do whatever I could, and I did push and I just totally exceeded my expectations at every work level! I am not going to use this to justify even harder efforts next week, but it tells me that I'll be plenty ready to push my FT watts up to 170 in a few weeks, and then go beyond that well before IM Brazil. Yip-fucking-ee!!!!
I will say that while I was doing the FT interval, man could I feel the lactic acid in my calves--they were screaming at me, but my quads felt like huge, strong pistons that were transferring all this power down my legs and too bad if the silly little calves were objecting a little bit! As an aside, I am developing those biker calves--nice little teardrops in the gastrocs and my soleus muscles are ripped and visible on the sides. It's the least my body can do for all the hard work!
When you look at the data points above, you will see that I got STRONGER on the HIM intervals and did not lose much power at all on the Steady intervals. You may also notice, though, that my HR did go up across those intervals, which is not at all surprising. See this is where having a power meter really pays off. The HR data to me is just "interesting," but if I worry about my HR then I will not push the watts I know I can. So I added 15' to my ride today, and it was all intensity--no extra lollygagging! And I felt great right through to the end--I felt like I could have continued cruising at HIM watts for awhile. This is good, since I have an actual HIM in 4 weeks, huh?
But then, I wondered how would it feel to run? Doesn't matter if you can go faster or push higher watts on the bike if you are then destroyed once you begin to run. Last week's brick run did not feel too good. It didn't feel too bad, either, but certainly nothing to write home about. I got on the treadmill after a frigid walk from my car (it got to an amazing 5 from -9), and wow, nothing! I mean it felt easy! What happens when it feels easy? I need to push harder. A sad, but true, occupational hazard. I figured this is good timing to up the stakes on the run with a race coming up. I was singing, my stride felt all loose and easy, breathing was easy, it was all FUCKING GREAT, I mean I haven't felt that good like EVER! I had a split second thought, "What if I'm blowing my wad RIGHT NOW and have nothing on race day?" I've come to learn that thoughts like that mean I am peaking right on schedule, and I hate to say it, but the peaking is almost better than the damn race sometimes! Because it usually happens all of a sudden, usually after I've had a crappy week or been really tired or both, and then, BANG!!! HERE IT IS, ENJOY THE RIDE AND SUCK IT UP. And then, the truth is, you just have to accept it for what it is, and then no matter what happens on race day, you KNOW you had the goods. So if race day turns out to not be your day, no big deal.
Man, that was so much fun and I felt so joyful the entire time--if I could bottle the sensation and sell it, it would be more precious than gold or the best champagne in the world! My long run tomorrow might suck, or it might not, but right now, everything is right with the world.
