Piling it On

I felt a bit shelled on Monday morning after last week's foray into 19-hour territory. As I've said in the past, my body "notices" when I make volume jumps to around 15 hours, and then every hour on top of that is almost an exponential leap. Although I am absorbing the volume better than ever, I think. Of course, I wouldn't know how much I could take if I didn't keep pushing it, right?

So Monday I had to get in a swim and a run before starting work so I could make an early-ish massage appointment. As tired as I was, I figured I may as well do some other stuff before swimming, so I knocked out 120 crunches and 5' jump rope, knowing it might make me even tired before swimming and running!

When I got into the pool, it was nice and cold, and initially I thought I'd cut my planned 2900-yard workout in half. After all, I deserved an easy day or even a full rest day. But the water felt so good, and even though I couldn't swim very fast at all, I was enjoying myself (isn't that perverted?) and ended up doing the entire workout! But then I thought I really should cut the run short.

Again, I thought about cutting a 50' run down to 25-30', but actually my run legs didn't feel that bad once I got going on the treadmill, so I ran 25' there, then ran 5' on the track at about 10K pace and finished up with 10' of strides. So I only ended up cutting out 10' of running.

Ideally, I would have started in on my strength training later on, but I was just too fatigued from the previous week, but I did manage to stretch during some conference calls, got the massage which was very much needed, and then did some cooking which should have been done Sunday except for the impromptu trip to Wisconsin which was way more fun anyway. I finished up a Chinese dish and got the green chile finished except for buying, roasting, peeling and slicing poblano peppers which get added last.

Tuesday morning I awoke after a good night's sleep still feeling pretty shelled. Maybe I should have taken Monday off? Fuck no...I've done this before and I know what to expect. At this volume level, it takes me until Wednesday to feel "normal." "Normal" being normal for a Crackhead.

I didn't get on the bike (trainer--shitty and rainy again) until almost 2PM, and truthfully wasn't expecting much at all from my legs. But 1:35 later, I had managed to rack up TSS of 113, running at 85% of FTP for the workout! How I did that in the condition I was in, I can't tell you, but I must have developed this HTFU reserve that I am now able to draw on.

Again, I should have started in on my strength training on Tuesday, but I needed to finish up my green chile and was so fucking tired, so I shopped, roasted, peeled, chopped and cooked, stretched out really well and was in bed early.

Yesterday morning I felt pretty good although not 100% recovered still. But I was up early so I figured I had time to get in some crap before swimming, and I did 75 pushups, 120 crunches, 15 chinups and 10' of jump rope. I know, I know--there was no real need to do this stuff, but it has just become part of my pre-swim routine, so I do it.

I only had to swim 2800 yards, and the water was warm, which sucked, and I was still tired and a bit slow, but I need the swimming to recover from the biking and running. Once I got home, I realized that I was, in fact, pretty fucking tired, and would need some caffeine to get through my mid-day run.

I went with Ultra Violence at the suggestion of Shelley, and that turned out to be a great decision. But I wasn't sure of how little I could wear running, and my core temperature was still depressed from the morning swim, so I went out for a short out and back with shorts and a long sleeved t-shirt AND sweatshirt on to warm up. I thought I wanted to try and run flatness, but there really isn't any right from my house so what did I do? I ran to the street with one of the steeper uphills and just chugged my way up, turned around and back home, stripped off the sweatshirt and t-shirt and headed back out to finish up.

Of course, I chose the route into the wind and uphill, and it was amazing because since I had warmed up at tempo pace (hills will do that to me), I felt really solid heading into more hills and the temperature was just perfect where my arms were a bit chilled, but it was nice and sunny so it didn't matter. All I had to do at the turnaround was not slow down, and I ended up even splitting the second leg of the run, which was awesome considering I didn't think I had any legs in me. Ah...the power of the jump rope!

Now since it was Wednesday, I really needed to put a dent into my strength training, and I found time to get in 44' worth while wearing compression tights. I motivated to wash a pile of dishes and bottles from all the cooking and training, stretched out really well last night, did some reading and blissfully passed out early since I knew Ms. Robin (nesting just outside my bedroom window) would be waking me at 4:30AM.

Today I feel pretty well, still a bit fatigued, but that is normal for an Ironman build. I will do about 30' of strength (maybe even finish up for the week!), and then I'll head to Waterfall Glen for a 2-hour run, which I am really looking forward to. It is going to be an absolutely gorgeous day, and I'm lucky that I can get away in the middle of the day for this instead of starting at OH DARK THIRTY running on a treadmill. I plan on running a full counter-clockwise loop today plus whatever else I need to get up to 2 hours. I am sure it will hurt at some point, but the pleasure of being outside in the sun on a beautiful spring day in a beautiful setting will more than compensate for any pain in my legs!

And maybe I won't be too shelled after work to get out into my gardens and do some cleanup.

Life is good!