More taper ramblings

Yesterday I let myself sleep in and didn't swim until 11:30AM. Warming up, I felt clunky and a bit tired from Sunday's workout, but when I got on my main set, I felt a little more peppy than normal, and I thought when was the last time I swam, and it was last Thursday, so oh, this is what a little swim taper feels like! I swam well, although I still suck, but it felt good and the time went by quickly.

I had thought about getting my strength workout done yesterday, but after about 1:10 of swimming, I found myself again tired, so decided to put it off. Then I thought about riding a bike to my massage, but decided against that, too, thinking it would be good to give my legs a day of rest.

I intended to ride to the outdoor pool this morning and get in a short (2000m) swim this morning, but probably an hour before the alarm would have gone off, I shut it off, decided I didn't need the extra swim, and went back to sleep. I slept 10 hours for the second day in a row!

Today I had a short (1:10) ride and run (:30) on the schedule. The power company was removing some dead tree limbs from the lines near my house and cut the power at about 9:15, so since I couldn't work, it was time to get it done.

Another beautiful, cool day (for a Chicago July), and I headed out on LGL in the big chain ring (I've been mostly riding in that for the last 4 weeks or so), but thought I should actually do a little warmup so hit the front derailleur at the top of the hill and promptly dropped my chain. I tried to go back into the big chain ring, but failed, so now I had to actually stop and put the chain on with my hands, and I'm tapering, so I am having a brain cramp but remembered that I had better get the grease off my hands before I get back on otherwise I will mess up my pretty new zebra striped bar tape!

So you should have seen me licking bike grease off my hands and fingers and wiping them on my bike shorts so I wouldn't get the bike dirty! I got enough of it off to continue, and I'm riding maybe 2 minutes before I decided fuck it, back in the big chain ring anyway, and I just wanted to ride really hard.

But a funny thing happened at the same time--I just started crying for no good reason. It's pretty typical for me in an Ironman taper, and I don't even try and stop it or rationalize it--it just happens. I feel great, I feel strong, I'm fucking crying my eyes out! I let myself think about it a little--even though I've definitely had some things to cry about the last 8 months, and have done some crying, I suppose I have still been holding back on it a lot, because that's the game of Ironman training or else it's just my personality that I feel like if I start letting it all out when I feel it that I will totally lose control of myself. And that did happen a little bit a month ago, and even though I let myself go with the flow for a few weeeks, at the same time I knew I had to HTFU so I wouldn't fuck up my training, which I love so much, and it just wasn't worth it to me to mess up my last 4 or so big weeks of training. And they have gone really, really well, overall.

So back to crying. I think about it a little bit and part of it is I'm crying for myself for having put myself through all this effort to hopefully get to race day in one piece and do my best. I'm crying for myself because it's when I taper that I feel the opposite sort of lostness that I described in my prior post--I feel lost because I don't know what to think about anything or feel about anything and it's a very disconcerting state of mind. I want to feel everything and I want to feel nothing. I want the race to be here and I want it to be months away so I can just keep training and not thinking about it. I am crying because I don't get to choose anymore--it's going to be here whether or not I like it. I am crying because I am so fucking fortunate to be able to do this to myself--to take my body and my mind to places that most people probably never get to experience, and I think that if they only could, life would be an even more sublime experience for all of us. I am crying because I feel sorry for myself that I feel like I need to do this to myself in order to feel alive--why can't I just be dumb and happy? I am crying because my mind is trying to fuck with me even more than it normally does, and the end result is crying, which I suppose is better than becoming angry or violent.

And all of this happens in maybe 2 minutes of elapsed time, and I go back to riding, and today I don't know how to ride other than hard. I figure it's a short ride, and while I am supposed to warm up, I've rested, right, and so it feels like I'm racing. The numbers on the power meter tell me I'm riding hard, and I am just loving it. And about 25 minutes later I'm at my power loop, and it's time to really focus and work. And it feels easy, and on my first interval, the tears come again, but they aren't stopping me, and I almost laugh at the nuance of simultaneously putting out maximum watts and crying! How great is this???

And then I knock out two more intervals, both great, and then head for home, even though I want to ride longer than I need to, but I'm being good to myself this taper and trying not to overdo things (although I just did overdo the ride!). I put on my running shoes, shorts and visor and head out to run, thinking I wonder if I really did ride hard?

And right away I knew it--I had--because of how my legs felt. It was like I was doing a sprint tri, but I just sucked it up and ran, feeling still better than I might feel at the beginning of the marathon in Lake Placid, and I ran out for :15, turned around and headed for home, wondering if I could pick it up just a little bit on the way back int, and oh yeah, that last mile I didn't really fell that much faster but I was.

And then I check the power data from the ride and I rode at 93% of FTP, which is hard, but it was a short ride, so no worries. I get to do this same workout on Thursday!

And while writing this blog post, I have a few more tears, and they are just there...they are like my little taper friends that will keep coming to visit me, assuring me that I am human, I do have feelings, I have bottled a lot of them up for months now, and while I think I have processed a lot of emotions without tears, the tears are just now the physical expression of all of that.

And OMG I need to start assembling stuff I need to take with me for next week, and the time is going to go so fast now, and my mind is going to do crazier shit as the days move on, but as long as I am resting and feeling peppy (or not--it really doesn't matter right now) while I work out, all is well.

In a way, all of this weirdness (if it seems that way to YOU--to me it is perfectly normal for ME) I think is part of my mental preparation for a long, long day of being inside my own head, so I may as well start working out some of that shit now, so I can go to that place of peace and nothingness that is the real thing that has had me coming back to Ironman over and over. I know it can't possibly be that way for someone doing their first Ironman or even maybe their third or fourth, and maybe some people never get there, but it's waiting for me in less than 2 weeks now, and although the emotional road to get there is going to be rocky, I'm OK with it.