Eeek - two weeks to go! Right now I should be exhausted from my final hard training week. I'm not. I'm exhausted, but exhausted from moving house. This wasn't quite where I wanted to be at this point but I didn't have any other option. It's frustrating because after last weekend's excellent cycle ride, my workouts until Friday were pretty damn good. My body was twitching to start the 70.3! Yesterday was a rest day so that I could hit the unpacking, I worked from 7am to 5pm with 20 minutes for lunch and about 8 people hours of help from two wonderful friends from my tri club. The house is in reasonable shape and the majority of my stuff is actually unpacked now (apart from the last 7 boxes of books and my magazines which have inexplicably gone missing); Mr Tuna hasn't really done his yet as he's been doing other useful tasks like mowing the lawn/putting up curtain rails/etc, but his stuff is mainly confined to one room that's not too much of a problem. I was anticipating doing a 44 mile ride today (should have been 56 but was prepared to compromise). But I just couldn't get out of bed. I eventually forced myself to go out, and was going well, until I got lost, and realised that I was about 15 miles from home, back into a headwind, and didn't really think I could manage that, so a lift home was summoned! A mere 21.5 miles completed :-/ So this week I've ended up down 22 miles on the bike, a pilates workout and a 4km swim, not great, that's about 4 hours of missed training and I've only hit 8 hours for this week. But it could have been worse I suppose! Because I didn't manage to get up for the pool on Thursday, I did get in 29 miles on the bike as opposed to the 12.5 that I would have done if I'd gone to the pool...
My bike has now gone off to be given a service, I should get it back on Friday. I do have plans for this week, which is taper week 1, but having been in bed all afternoon I'm seriously questioning how much I am going to get done. It's really difficult not having done a half ironman before knowing how to take it so that I can get around :-/ I really hope that the sessions in the bag to date over the last 18 weeks are enough. I suppose I just have to go with the planned 80% week as I don't want to overload my body before the race. The thing that I find difficult is that the training plans and schedules you see online don't really allow for life events, they don't even seem to allow for you to get sick with a 24 hour bug or a minor cold. I suppose it's the triathlete's equivalent of photoshopping models but it doesn't help when you overthink things.
What did I get up to this week?
Monday: am 3k pool swim, pm 2k pool swim (inc 30 mins 5 seconds for my 1.9k)
Tuesday: am 10k run, pm osteopath (still having problems with my hip)
Wednesday: am 2.5k pool swim (missed pilates)
Thursday: 29 mile bike ride (missed 4k pool swim)
Friday: 3k pool swim (this was an excellent swim, I was on fire!)
Saturday: rest
Sunday: 21.5 mile bike ride.
= 8 hours
What is the plan for this week?
Monday: am 2.5k pool swim, pm 2k pool swim
Tuesday: am 8-10k run, pm osteopath
Wednesday: am 2-2.5k pool swim, pm pilates
Thursday: pm: 3.8k (or 1.5k if I'm shattered) swim race
Friday: OFF/collect bike
Saturday: 3k pool swim (or 2.5k if tired)
Sunday: 44 mile bike ride.
= around 9 hours of training.
Having seen how rapidly you put your new house together I have to wonder whether all of this training hasn't played a part in your amazing motivation and energy levels. I hope you're settled enough that you can really get back into your slightly revised training schedule.
ReplyDeleteA thought occurs to me, one that often pops into my mind when I'm veggie gardening because I read it in that context: "Perfect is not in the language of gardening." Perhaps 'perfect' is not in the lexicon of training, either?