Weekly Workout Totals 02/02/2009-02/08/2009 and Another Race Win!

I'd been reluctant to say anything about the state of my recovery from whatever virus attacked me a little over a week ago because I didn't want to jinx my race yesterday. I was up and down this past week, sleeping a lot, including naps, completing most workouts at less than 100% prescribed intensity, coughing every now and then and feeling mucousy. I held myself back on the hard stuff biking (sort of) and running, and swimming was just there. I completed my strength workouts, but was left completely exhausted after them. Anaerobic stuff is always tough on me when I'm fighting a virus, and it was pretty obvious that if I felt I needed to go to sleep after 30' of lifting that I was still fighting one!

Friday morning I felt pretty good in the pool, and did a short run that left me feeling tired, but I snuck in a nap, slept long and well, and Saturday morning felt pretty good. It was a warm day, and there was just no excuse not to ride a bike outside. But the snow melt combined with all the built up crap on the roads would make for a messy ride, and besides, I thought it would be wise to hold back my intensity, so I decided to ride Clipless Fuck, since I didn't want to do a full road bike cleaning after the ride (I like my bikes clean!).

Well, just heading up the stupid little hill out of my house I was like, whoa, I suck really bad, but then again I was riding into a stiff headwind. I rode west first, just to enjoy the headwind even more, and rode on my usual weekday interval route, and all I could think was I suck, I suck, I suck!!! I didn't feel like my lungs were completely present, and neither were my legs. OK, so I can cut the ride short (my goal was 1:30), right? No. After I turned around and was going like twice as fast with the tailwind on the way back home, it didn't feel so bad, so on one of the hills I like to use for short, hard hill climb intervals, I decided, what the fuck, I'm going up. And as soon as I made the turn to start the climb, I said out loud, "I hate myself!" I mean, who else could I blame for making me do this when I wasn't feeling 100%? I actually did OK on that climb, because the sun was shining, I was slightly sheltered from the wind, and hey, I'm riding outside in February!

When I was almost home, I decided I could knock out another 7.5 miles even though it would mean the last piece would be into the winds. No matter, I finished up, I was filthy, my legs hurt, and I was coughing up a lung. I had to leave my bike shoes outside, and as soon as I went in the house, I had to strip down in the laundry room since I was a filthy mess, but smiling about it! I cleaned off my helmet, grabbed some Endurox, then went and cleaned my bike shoes and finally the bike (not a full cleaning, but enough), and thought that I didn't need to do anything for the rest of the day, which was nice. I laid in bed for about an hour but didn't fall asleep because I had slept so much the night before and napped the day before, but still just laying down was great.

When I woke up yesterday morning, I didn't feel bad, but I didn't feel the usual "oomph" that I feel on a race day. I knew I wasn't 100%, but anything can happen, so I did my usual routine of Ultrafuel, a little stretching, and headed off to race.

As I warmed up on the track and then the bike, I could tell I just wasn't feelin' the love, and even though I had assessed my day's competition and thought there were 1 or 2 women in my age group who could beat me, I just let go and figured I was going to have an off day, so may as well get the show on the road.

My swim was a bit slower than 2 weeks ago, although I think they miscounted laps, but whatever. I could tell that I just couldn't push it in the water, and my stroke didn't feel that great either. Oh well, onto the bike.

I didn't have high expectations for the bike, but biking is my thing, and I just started in and fired up my legs and sucked it up. I guess for me, biking is the sport where I'm really good with pain, and I went faster than 2 weeks ago(6.89 miles in 20 minutes), and cleaned up in my wave (including beating all but 1 man), and when I got off I was light-headed and once again laid on the floor for about a minute, and then walked up the stairs to run.

I was a bit wheezy right away, and I could tell that I just didn't have speed in my legs to run today, and I was suffering right away. This was the first time in maybe 5 years where I felt so bad that I just wanted to stop, but I told myself to HTFU and just do whatever I could. I was totally OK with not winning my age group, but I had done so well on the bike it might be a wash for me anyway. As it turns out, I was just 1/2 lap off from 2 weeks ago, but man that run hurt like a mofo. It wasn't that I couldn't run; it was just I couldn't run fast.

Oh well, I still needed to run for another 1:30, and I didn't want to wait too long in between, so I chatted with a few friends and got on the treadmill, and got it done. My legs didn't really hurt so much as I was only doing a Z1-Z2 run, but it was B-O-R-I-N-G. Still, I knew it wouldn't do me any good to try and run any faster.

Next, I went and watched the elite wave, which included my friend Adam, and also Lauren Jensen, a local pro. Lauren and I chatted in the locker room before she started her wave, asked me about the bikes, and I told her she'd clean up, that these bikes seems a bit easier than in the past 2 years.

Not that I'm competitive or anything, but while everyone was on the bikes, I walked around to see how everyone was doing and what resistance levels they were using, and even though a lot of these people are way faster than me, I knew I'd done a solid effort on the day that would be hard for anyone to beat me in my age group or neighboring age groups ;)

After watching the elite wave, I finally grabbed some pizza and got a short massage (the best part of the race!), and prepared to watch another friend race. In the meantime, I was checking the scores, and it looked like I was going to take my age group and be fairly high again overall, but you never know...it's not over until it's over, right?

I had fun watching my friend race and cheering even though I was pretty wasted, but hell, he had done another race before this one, so what could I complain about? He did really well, too, and then finally it was time to go eat some sushi and have a beer or three.

Before leaving the facility, I had to check once more, and I think I was 6th woman overall, first in my age group, and pretty happy. I'm going to try and hit 7 miles on the bike in 2 weeks, as I should be done with this stinking virus, back on a full week of training for 3 weeks solid, and I really want to have a solid swim, bike and run.

It's going to be nice and warm again today, so I'm going to do a short run outdoors, even though I know my legs are going to protest mightily, but that's OK.

I am pretty happy that at least my biking legs have returned to where they were 2 years ago, and I think I can pick up my swimming, and my running is good except for the glitch of the virus I've had for about 1.5 weeks.

Yesterday was just an awesome day, and even while I was suffering I know I had some sort of stupid grin on my face because, well, this is what I like to do, isn't it?

Happy Monday!

Weekly Workout Totals	02/02/2009-02/08/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by my usual February illness and another race win!
Swim:	7800 yards (4.43 miles) in 2.78 hours; 21% of weekly workout time; approx. 976 calories burned Canadian: 7132.32 meters
Bike:	Approx. 95.48 miles in 5.08 hours; 38% of weekly workout time; approx. 2636 calories burned; Total TSS=315 Canadian: 153.66 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 27.14 miles in 4.23 hours; 32% of weekly workout time; approx. 1918 calories burned Canadian: 43.68 kilometers
Strength:	1.28 hours; 10% of weekly workout time; approx. 320 calories burned
All Sports:	Approx. 127.05 miles in 13.37 hours; approx. 5850 calories burned Canadian: 1.25 kilometers
Sleep:	8.07 hours avg./night
Stretching:	2.95 hours. Massage: 1.25 hours