Recovery Week

Last week I finished up the last week of my swimming block. If I never see the pool again, it'll be too soon. As best said by a friend of mine, swimming is a "production". With the longer swims I did during this period (well, long to me) every swim workout was at least an hour and ten minutes, if not more, and that was just the actual "in water" portion. Prior to actually being in the water, the morning would go like this: 4:55am alarm goes off, snooze, 5am, snooze, 5:05, snooze, 5:10 - drag myself out of bed. Stare at the mirror trying to blink sleep out of my eyes. Dress in grubby clothes, grab all 4 bags (bag of pool toys, gym bag, purse, lunch bag) and my hanger with my work clothes, and a mug with tea, and drive to gym. Put all the stuff previously mentioned in a locker, zombie down to the pool, and submerge myself in freezing water to start swimming. All by 5:34 - 5:40am. Swim, then back up to the locker room, shower, get to train station, pass out on train with mouth open and actually drooling, get work around 9. Rinse, repeat. Basically by the time I get to work I have been up already for 4 hours. That's RIDICULOUS. But, I signed myself up for this and I can't complain, I actually kind of like the satisfaction of knowing I have my workout done already and can just relax and basically drink caffeine all day like it is going out of style. Still it was a tough three weeks. I know that the running and cycling blocks will be just as hard but in different ways, but still. Getting enough sleep in while doing all this training and working more than full time is tough.

On that note, this was a three week block that had me in the pool 4-5 times a week, along with cycling and some running. Every Wednesday I go to a computrainer class at my local tri store, and you have to be there at 5:15am to set up, calibrate etc to get going. I live about a mile away, so it's not far and it's very easy to get to. Anyway, I think just from the sheer exhaustion from the pool, I set my alarm per usual to get up and go, snoozed once per usual, and rolled over at 5:20!!!!! 5:20!!! 5 minutes after I was supposed to be there, and 10 minutes before the class started. I literally leapt out of bed, jumped into my clothes, and got there at 5:29. They set my bike up and I was fine, but still...annoying. Caveat - you have to pay for the class even if you miss it, so I was relieved to not have to burn the $25 per class. So, lesson learned - set two alarms, and get to bed earlier before the 4:45am Wednesday morning wakeup call.

Finally, last weekend was a doozy. My coach suggested our little team meet for an hour of extra cycling prior to the 7:30 class on Saturday morning. Under normal circumstances this would be fine, but unfortunately due to wedding planning, we had to drive to Hartford to listen to a possible wedding band on Friday night and got home at 1:45am. My alarm went off at 5:40am. Not enough sleep AT ALL. We rode from 6:15 to 9:30 and it was the first half of the LP course. My calf has been hurting and I am pretty sure this is the reason why. I am super mad at myself for agreeing to go but I just want to get the wedding band vendor locked down. Not a great call on my part - I was exhausted all day Saturday and Sunday, and I made some majorly bad food decisions out of sheer tiredness. I was also exhausted all week and am now just catching up.

At least this week was a recovery week. I went to the doctor on Monday for my hip and back; he said it bursitis of the hip and will be fine, and the my back was a hematoma and that will be fine too but will take a long time to go away. Basically my issues have issues and I have to remember that everyone that is training for an ironman is going to have small injuries here and there and being honest with my coach and tailoring the workouts to take them into account is what is going to help me in the long run. I actually skipped Wednesday morning's cycling class to rest, and slept 10 hours last night and am feeling better. Amazing!

This weekend, we are going our Valentine's day dinner tonight - our favorite restaurant has price fixed on V-day and you don't get all the options on the 14th, so we opted to go today instead. Plus getting home at 8pm from work and then getting up at latest 6:15am (on a day I am not working out) really makes me a zombie during the week. Tomorrow morning I have the usual cycling class, Saturday afternoon I'm headed to PA to help my mom pick out a mother of the bride dress, Saturday night a few people are coming over, Sunday morning I will ride my trainer for an hour, then meet a fellow Lake Placider for brunch, then get my hair done, then go to my friend Kelly's for the night to go shopping on Monday for bridal shower outfits. Busy much?

Finally, and 100% off topic, but I stumbled into the get off my internet (GOMI) forums about the healthy living blogs. I am so happy I did because I realized that I what I said in a previous post about how the HLBloggers are kind of frauds and I didn't understand how they promoted processed food and fad diets and I wasn't interested in health tips from people that have 0 qualifications other than not working all day and getting free stuff. I feel moderately justified that other people think blogs like Carrots n Cake, Run Eat Repeat, Skinny Runner, etc are just kind fake and ridiculous and their posts and content are awful bids to make as much money as possible without actually doing anything. I don't think my blog is very good, but hey - I work 50-60 hours a week, commute 3 hours a day 4x a week, and am training for an Ironman. This is as good as it is going to get, and that is the reason that I choose to support other bloggers that are in the same boat as me.