Good Tired

After a solid week of training capped off by a long open water swim Friday evening, a long run Saturday morning at a good clip, and a long bike/short run on Sunday morning, I feel generally tired all over (mitigated by a good night's sleep last night) but not sore or injured, and I'm mostly happy and confident from having completed another weekend of training.  Trust the process:  others have done this before and codified what I need to do in a plan -- if I keep adding eggs and milk and sugar at the right time and in the right amounts, I have to trust that the recipe will turn out!  A friend shared with me "train now, find the motivation later."  That's about right.  Got to drag myself out of bed and get to the session, and then I'm glad to have done it.  What is really going to make this fearful is if I shuck the training or half step it.  I feel very strongly this cannot be "winged."  I know this is going to hurt and at times even be miserable, but I can control how well trained I am to face it.

Riding That Train....Triathlon is the Fountain of Youth

Riding that Train:  Signing up for Ironman Florida 2013 was like buying a train ticket.  The months that followed were full of a mixture of excitement, fear and other emotions swirling around the fact that I have irrevocably committed to undertake the hardest challenge of my amateur racing career.  Like standing on the platform, watching the trains, being excited to take a ride.  And I had a lot to say about those feelings.  Well, I am on the train now, and there's less to say, but lots to do.  I am working out six days a week, going to bed earlier than I ever have, losing weight (10 lbs.) and slowly building the foundation that will take me through to the finish line in November.  So now that the train has left the station and the scenery is whizzing by (20 weeks to go), there's not as much to say.  Just training hard, trying to stay healthy, and I am pretty much tired, hungry and sore all the time.

Becoming Fitter than Your Younger Self - Triathlon is the Fountain of Youth:  People would be less inclined to call us "crazy" if they knew how fun it was to get better at something physical as you get older.  My friends that do this loco stuff all look 10 years younger than they are, too.  Keep that a secret, or we'll never get into a big race again!  I am much fitter than my 43 year old self!  What prompted that thought was...

EZ Heart Rate 10K Run Today, Alternatively known as 2010 10K Race Pace Run!:  After my 6.2 mile (10K) run this morning at a nice 10:09 clip in Heart Rate Zone 2 (aerobic), for a total time of 1:02:40, driving home I reflected that relatively easy run was faster than my first three 10K races in 2009-2010, that I flat out raced, in Heart Rate Zones 4-5 (anaerobic)!  In fact, I did not break 1 hour for the first time in a 10K until November 2010 at the Turkey Trot, again going flat out.  So, that was encouraging.  This is a year when I have not been racing much, more like going long, building a foundation, but I do have fears that the lack of racing is making me slower.  Not so.  But I think I am going to run a July 4 5K just to see what I've got in the tank!