Clumsy and Scatterbrained, aka 4 weeks out from IMLP

When I get this close to an IM, it seems the only things my brain and body know how to do are:

1. Swim
2. Bike
3. Run
4. Fix bottles
5. Laundry and dishes
6. Mess with bikes (wheels, cassettes, etc.) and race gear
   
7. Acquire and eat food
8. Obsess about training and upcoming races
9. Obsess about all the ways in which I suck
10. Anthropomorphize just about anything
    

Those things I think I can do pretty well. But focusing at work now is a little difficult, although I'm getting it done, and making decisions about things that aren't already on my master schedule are difficult.

This morning I opened 3 cans of Coke to get them busy defizzing and was going to mix up 10 bottles of Endurox R4 (I mix 10 at a time so I achieve optimization of my bottle fixing time) and some Gatorade bottles for swimming, and I had put the cans of Coke back in the fridge, and went in there for something else and knocked over one of the cans of Coke, and it seemed like a huge tragedy. Luckily, the whole can didn't spill, but it still took time to clean it off all the surfaces it did hit in the fridge. The experience just reminded me that I need to be careful with simple things now, as I get clumsy doing much of anything besides swimming, biking and running.

As far as the #9 above, that sounds counter to what I should be doing, but it's mostly an effort to stay in touch with my emotions even as I am feeling good and aggro about training and maybe even racing. It's just that I am still not over this love I felt for someone, and try as I might to get all negative about him and such, it's not working, so I know I have a few more weeks of that to go. And while sometimes I feel like I'm superhuman, man, I know some really talented people (athletically, that is) and I don't put myself in that same category AT ALL. Mostly I just like to train, and I know that my training isn't necessarily optimal for all the crazy shit I like to do, and I am OK with it.

I'm looking forward to my partial weekend up in Wisconsin, but have decided to come back on Saturday night so I can have a relaxing Sunday and maybe even check out a local festival that I have really enjoyed in the past. I hope I am able to catch some of the balloons taking flight on Thursday and Friday mornings!

Spazzastic

Any of you who have done 3+ Ironman's notice that when you are in the last 4 weeks you get clumsy and spastic? I sure do. I've decided that what's happening is your body only knows how to swim, bike and run, and so anything else you attempt (like eating, for example) is no longer an "autopilot" activity, and your neuromuscular system spazzes out on you.

Let's see--last week I just dropped spaghetti and meatballs (but hey, my kitchen floor is clean so no worries), I've stubbed several toes in the last few days, last night I let some nachos slip off the plate onto the floor, yesterday I lifted something oddly and messed up some erector spinae muscles, and this morning, I decided to do this shoulder stretch that I haven't done in several months:




















Well, I've always had no problems doing it as shown above, but when I switch arms and I put my right arm behind my back, it's always a bit tight in the deltoids. I did it anyway (I can grab fingers together), it felt just fine, but then a few minutes later my deltoid starts to hurt. I'm like fuck, I wanted to swim like 3600 yards today. I worked on the trigger points, and it was raining early this morning, so I put the kibosh on riding CF to the outdoor pool (crap--I had wanted to get 6 days straight of biking), and headed to the Y. I swam very gingerly, and got psyched to swim 2,000 yards straight. Well, after 800 yards, my shoulder said nope, so I ended up only swimming 3,000 yards (still not bad).

I ran into my friend Jamie, and he swam for like 15 minutes, and then we both got out and talked for about an hour on deck! We always chat it up since we don't see one another very often. I then drove home and dumped my swim stuff and then drove to my mechanic to drop my car for some routine stuff, and then I ran home--it took about 25 minutes (got rained on a teensy bit). Work, work, work, work on the shoulder some more (it's getting better--should be fine for Friday's 5,000 yard workout), hope the rain stops, it does, my car is done, and I go run 20 minutes out and back from home and then run back to pick up my car.

And I'm thinking what else will I get spastic and klutzy with? I'm genuinely afraid of power tools at this point, and have no plans to cook anything requiring my big chef's knife! I know I need to be careful around this time before an Ironman, but somehow I always end up doing something to myself.

Other than that, I feel really good today--I know I finally replenished my glycogen stores, due to eating continuously yesterday, and I only worked out for a little over 2 hours today.

Tomorrow I only have to run 2 hours and maybe do some strength work. I'm already into my run taper, and I'm happy about it and also sad. Once you knock out some solid 2:15 and 2:30 runs, it makes you feel pretty invincible. I could run 2:15 tomorrow--it will depend on whether it's raining in the morning and I have to run on the dreadmill or not. 2:15 wouldn't hurt me a bit, and if the weather is good, I'll go to Waterfall Glen and do it.

In addition to the spasticity, now is when I almost get sad because the big training will be ending soon. I mean, I'm so fucking tired from it it seems like I should want to stop, but then I don't want to, and while I do enjoy the race, sometimes I'd just rather train. Does that make sense?

Oh well, it's all a pretty normal part of the process. I've done this so many times, I laugh at the fact that the same things happen over and over and over. Deja fucking vu.