Monday, October 12, 2009

Week 25 - Mon thru Wed

After the ugliness of last week, I'm taking a different approach for Week 25. I'm only thinking three days ahead so that I don't fry the precious remaning mental toughness I'm grasping onto. And I'm easing into it and praying that my body cooperates. Six weeks until GO TIME. Five weeks until I'll be packing the car and fretting over lists. Okay, okay, yes, yes, we all know that I'll be fretting over lists by this weekend.

Today - easy peasy swim (got in 2600 meters before work)
Tuesday - run 1hr
Wednesday - bike 1hr, brick run 30min, swim if I have time during lunch

That doesn't look so bad!

Want to know what looks bad? This...
Tuesday - rain
Wednesday - rain
Thursday - rain
Friday - rain
Saturday - rain
Sunday - rain
Monday - rain

The Sinking of Week 24

Week 24 sunk...like a tank. And not in a good way. My planned week of 18 hours turned into a struggle to get in 6 hours. It started out fine enough with an 8 mile run on Tuesday and a decent swim on Wednesday. On Wed night I nodded off on my aerobars. Thankfully I was on the trainer and not the road. But I was really proud that my legs never stopped spinning. Ken looked at me like I was out of my freakin mind. By Thursday, it was all I could do to put in 2 loops around Lacamas Lake...and that knocked me out for the night by 7pm. On Friday I did a short swim and then went to work crying because I was so tired. I bagged my Friday night run. And then stupidly got up on Saturday morning and began what was supposed to be a 70-miler at 7am. Have you realized how COLD it is at 7am now? And dark? I arrived at the gym almost an hour later (and almost 10 minutes slower than it normally takes me) and was done. Done. Shaking, shivering, spewing mucous from everywhere. Done. My body had quit IM about 6 weeks too early. I sulked to Nadine's car and she drove me home where I took a piping hot shower and crawled under lots of blankets. Sunday was spent watching sucky football games and force feeding myself multi-vitamins, supplements, and various healthy food stuffs. I think I gained 3 pounds just from soup and other fluids.
You're probably reading this and thinking "why would someone put themselves through all of that?" or maybe, if you're a triathlete, you're thinking "why didn't she take a rest day sooner?" I'm still struggling with the answer to the first one. It's hard to explain unless you've had a similar drive to do Ironman...or something equally stupid, er, challenging for you. The answer to the second question is that I'M SCARED. It doesn't matter how many times people tell me that I'm going to finish. It's still f'n SCARY! And nothing is guaranteed. Yes, a more fitting title for this blog would be "Training Scared".