This was the final week of the Base phase; I did around 11
hours of aerobic training and another hour of strength and core work. I was sleep-deprived pretty much the whole
time, as you’ll see below, I could barely function in class and lab throughout
the week. However, I’m going to start
doing the “competitive” plan from my training book now because I think I’ll be
way more mentally and physically prepared for the race. My weekly training time will keep increasing
to a maximum of 20 hours per week in April.
So I need to find more time to sleep and still get my homework done. Goodbye social life (such that it was…).
Monday 1/30/2012
Rest day, which was great, but everything made me feel
stressed out.
Tuesday 1/31/2012
Some days it feels like everyone around you is better,
smarter, harder working and faster than you.
Today was one of those days. While
doing my main swim set (1x300, 3x200, 1x300) this morning, my lane mate passed
me (flew by me might be more accurate) while doing her warm up. That was disheartening. She could be an Olympic swimmer for all I
know but I feel like I should have progressed a little more by this point. Maybe I need a swim coach. Or maybe I need to
try harder. In my journal club this
evening, which is largely based on the discussion and critical evaluation of a
scientific article, everyone around me was coming up with great questions about
the quality of the experiments and ideas for other things to try. I had one question in mind, but someone else
asked before me, so I ended up contributing nothing. I had read the papers, I just hadn’t gotten
anything important out of them. It
didn’t help that I was so tired that I kept nodding off; this is a class of 10
people, including 3 professors, mind you.
Once again, disheartening. I need
a new plan for Tuesdays because I am not functioning to the level that I need
to. This new plan will probably include
gummy bears, I didn’t have any tonight and they’re my go to for staying awake.
Wednesday 2/1/2012
I got to do a longer brick this morning (45 min bike to 30
min run) and it was awesome! I ended up
watching Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA” music video several times because my
Ironman motivational videos didn’t load properly. It’s a surprisingly good to bike to, at the
tempo corresponded well to my RPM’s.
Then I headed out and hauled ass on the run portion. My heart rate got a little high towards the
end when I was going uphill, but I averaged 8:04 min/mile overall and was
around 7 min/mile for anything flat or downhill. Both paces are pretty excellent for me. I swear I run faster off the bike. After that workout I’m in much better
spirits.
Thursday 2/2/2012
Morning: Well I’m back to feeling upset with myself. I was up later than usual the last couple
nights working on a homework set and ended up sleeping in until 6:50 this
morning. I meant to get up at 4:30 to
get in my swim, lifting and 1:15 bike ride before class. I was still able to ride for 45 minutes but
I’ll have to be in lab less today to get everything else done. Gonzaga’s playing at BYU tonight and I’m
going down with a couple bus-loads of other alumni to watch, so I won’t get any
workouts in this evening.
Afternoon: My swim workout went really well today. I did another 2500 yard straight swim, it
took me 51 minutes (compared to 45 and 53 minutes for my last two); so while it
was slower than I would have liked, my splits for each 500 were negative and my
stroke felt smooth and comfortable for the first time an awhile.
Friday 2/3/2012
Well we (Gonzaga) lost last night. It was unfortunate, but if we’d won I
probably would have been hung over today.
I actually felt like I was running faster than usual, I was on the
indoor track so I didn’t have my GPS on, but I lapped a girl wearing a Ragnar
shirt several times, so that’s got to be worth something.
Saturday 2/4/2012
Question: what’s one of the last things you want to deal
with when you’ve just finished a 3 hour trainer ride? Answer: ants invading your bathroom. Watching them crawl across the ceiling
towards the shower made it really hard to “enjoy” my ice bath. They just waltzed right in a space in the window
frame to help themselves to some water.
Didn’t even knock first! I gave the interlopers plenty of time to leave
on their own, and then I was forced to squish them all. Oh well, on a more positive note, I made it
through my 3 hour bike ride without getting up and walking around! I even felt powerful and motivated at the
end, mostly due to watching the video below repeatedly. I
considered doing some pushups when I was done, but came to my senses and
stretched instead.
Sunday 2/5/2012
I had a terrible dream last night about Ironman. It was ten minutes before the race started
and I hadn’t set my bike up (water bottles, race number) or checked it in to
the transition area, I hadn’t been body-marked and I couldn’t find my
wetsuit. Of course I missed the start of
the race and tried to convince an official to just let me jump in the bike
portion. I’m sure that was just the
first of what will be many Ironman bad dreams.
Yay.
On a workout note, my muscles were really sore and tight
again for this morning’s run (how shocking…).
They felt better half-way (45 minutes) in, but I think I’ll try to go
for a massage tomorrow to loosen up for the coming week.
Motivational Video:
Sounds like a pretty stressful week! Hope this week has more of a flow to it. xoxo
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