Recovery Week into Race Week.

For the first time since the volumes started climbing heavily in early June, the weekend training load backed way down, for a recovery week.  Boy, did that come just in time.  90 minute run on Saturday, followed by a 3 hour bike ride and 30 minute run on Sunday.  For the run, I started at Tri Beach and ran toward the Key and back, a total of 8.25 miles at a nice easy clip.  I actually felt really good by a few miles into it.  At its best, my run feels like my body is being propelled forward by a force being generated from within, like gliding or flying, and my feet are hardly touching the ground.  And I had moments like that on my 8+ miler.  Honestly, I had not felt that way in a while.  My longer runs, the 18 and 20 milers I did recently, felt like painful plod fests, pounding the pavement until the watch said "20.0" and being glad it was over.  

I don't read too much into workouts like that.  The show must go on, they say in show business.  That means you have to show up and do your best regardless of how you feel.  Sometimes you will feel it, the energy and the motivation, and sometimes you won't. As an aside, I think that is one abiding Iron Lesson, if you will - with apologies to Nike and 100 motivational slogans - just suit up, show up, and do the work.  Just do it.  Keep moving forward.  As my friend Gema shared with me, "train first, find the motivation later."

BUT, all that said, at the root of things, I don't do this for a PR, to watch the numbers get better - though that is fun and it does honor to the fact that the sport involves a "race," not a jog or Sunday ride.  The best way I can say it is I do it almost as a physical form of Zen meditation - for example - in my second half marathon ever, March 2010, in Sarasota, I had reached about Mile 8, coming back into the city over the bridge from the beach, I was feeling good, in touch with my body, and I could see the sun rising over the city skyline as I felt the cool breezes blowing off the water.  Right at that moment I felt that my mind and body were one, that I could fully and thoroughly enjoy the beautiful day around me, and I felt united with the procession of runners all around me in both directions, grateful that I and they were healthy and active and able to do this together.   Those moments don't last, but they are the "price of the ticket"  and anyway, after three and a half months of hard buildup, I had lost touch with that feeling entirely, and it was so nice to feel hints of it again, as I flew over Bear Cut Bridge onto the Key.

Then, on my Sunday ride, I was by myself, riding a route I've ridden with others dozens of times.  I was alone with my thoughts as I pedaled through the palm tree farms in Homestead, watching the sun break over treeline and the wind rushing in my face.  I felt very light on the pedals coasting along for good stretches at 20-21 mph in my lowest heart rate zone, shades of how I'd felt on the run the day before.

So after a nice recovery weekend, I get one more reprieve - instead of another slogfest high volume weekend, I get to race on Sunday - Escape to Miami.  I think with two weeks off from the slog, I will be ready to slog for a couple more weeks, because I'll have 1) had a break and 2) the "taper" will be in sight.  Starting to see the end game here.


I needed this!

This Is Ironman - Become One

In case you missed the broadcast of Ironman Kona... great ad. 

Strength Training Thursday.

I want to thank "Triathlon Mami" Cristina De Molina Ramirez for the generous offer she arranged with Fitness Together Miami to offer a free trial workout to readers of her blog.  I took her and them up on the offer and met Gabe at the Grove location  yesterday and had a great core/abs workout with Andrea.  He had me chopping wood (with cables), squatting, doing pull-ups, step ups, planks on a stability ball, and lat pulldowns, in two circuits of three exercises, two sets each.  The workout is focused and intense and you get the job done quickly.  I liked it so much I signed up for eight more sessions to occur over four weeks (then, of course, I will be tapering!).  I don't know about you, but I have a hard time making my "sport specific" training goals each week (swim bike run) so it's been easy to neglect strength training, as important as I know it is.  So it was good to be guided through a workout.  I can't help but think even as few as nine intense focused workouts will be of great benefit to me in the race.  Because increased strength will help me hold my form longer, which will help me keep my pace longer, and, in sum, increase my endurance and speed over the long, long haul of the IM. 

Rest on the Trail during long ride on 8-31-13.

On a very long ride down into farm country, you can look forward to stopping for a drink or a smoothie at Robert is Here fruit stand.  In fact, with all the delicious fresh fruit for sale, if you were not riding a bike, you'd want to stock up on that too.  This was the second to last day the stand would be open until Nov. 1, 2013, so it's all over as far as the Iron Year is concerned.  There are gas stations nearby with Coke and Gatorade for sale, and rest rooms, but somehow it won't be the same.

Catching up, or Riding that Train Revisited.

More than any race I've trained for in the past, training for this race has become a way of life.  An absorbing one too, in a life that was full to begin with.  The last three or four months have been a complicated juggling act, and I just hope my loved ones and all the other shareholders in my life have the patience to put up with me for two more months, when I will shake this temporary insanity called Ironman triathlon.

The training is, there is no other way to put it, a grind and a chore at times.  A constant cycle - wake up early, train, do life, go to bed, repeat.  It is going fine on paper - the numbers are going up.  In my distance/endurance training, my long swims, rides and runs are approaching race distance. 

For example, I recently rode the race distance in just over 6 hours and 40 minutes, which was just an absurdly long ride.  We were not racing, but finished exhausted nevertheless.  To think of running a marathon after that long trek (all the way down to the entrance of Everglades National Park, past "Panther Crossing" signs on the road, plus several 10-mile loops through Homestead farm country) puts into the spotlight how challenging race day will be despite all the training.  And how much more work there is to do to build that endurance.

To the readers of this blog (if any), I apologize for my radio silence since July.  It's not that I don't have anything to say, it's just that the routine has become so ingrained, so intense, and so demanding that it is hard to get it out in writing, polish it up and post it.  I was going to write that I've been too busy and/or tired from training to write, but that's not exactly true.  It's partly true, but when I logged on to the blog, I see I have started about seven posts and not finished or published any of them since my last post in July.  So the real truth is I have been too busy and/or tired to complete my thoughts!

Here is one example pulled from those drafts - for the sake of journaling the experience - polished up a little for publication:

July 25, 2013:  "Do No Harm:"

One thing I am having trouble distinguishing is "listening to my body" when it needs rest, but not listening to it when it wants to be lazy.  It comes down to a high level judgment call, really:  is anything wrong?  Soreness?  Higher fatigue then normal?  Or is it just "don't feel like it"  Because I have to override the latter every day!  Confession time:  after x weeks of doing high volume training, I hardly ever "feel like it" anymore.  I don't wait for the motivation - I just do it (apologies to Nike). 

Here's a contrasting example of not listening one day and listening another - test case is the same, a pool workout.

1.  I had a pool workout last week (2.2 miles), where I felt good, but kept getting the impulse to stop, a powerful impulse from my mind, and at least 9 or 10 times, I overrode it and made myself finish the workout.  I had no basic reason to stop other than inertia, getting bored of the workout, feeling uncomfortable and unmotivated.  All of that = override. 

2.  This week, the day after my race on Sunday, I had a pool workout, and it was supposed to be 3200 meters (2 miles).  I was smoked and beat.  I did 1000m, and my body just said "no more" and there was no room for doubt.  I got out of the pool, showered and went home, without a pang of guilt or a second thought.  It was good to flush out the lactic acid a little and move a little, but after PR'ing at an International Triathlon on Sunday and running 15 miles on Saturday, something had to give, and it did.  = Listen to your body.  

The tough part is making that call.  If nothing hurts I will err on the side of doing the workout.  But the bottom line, the reason for this post, is that with the fitness level where it is now, the only thing that could really keep me away from the finish line is Injury.

Comment:  Yeah, I am still making that call every day.  Time will tell if I am right or wrong.  At this point, I am erring on the side of never missing my weekend workouts, which I call "money in the bank" but not stressing if I opt for sleep over a tempo run or lap swim here and there.