Sunday was supposed to be my return to racing, but, as it turns out, my body had other things in mind. I'm not quite sure what happened, but I woke up on time for the race sick as a dog. I can't really say I woke up, more like I stirred from my all night restlessness in a cold sweat and nauseous. I've been fighting off some crud in my throat and I spent the hottest part of Saturday setting up the camper in Pedernales Falls State Park. Regardless, this all added up to my first ever DNS. It's strange, but it wasn't a hard decision to make. I have my sights set so squarely on a later race, that this was more of an afterthought. Racing sick is just a good way to screw up a couple of weeks worth of important training.
Speaking of training, I got the new, improved training schedule from my coach, and wouldn't you know it; it starts with a rest day. My favorite. So that gets me to Tuesday which was a scheduled 1:30 bike and a :30 run. I had an excellent roller ride for the 1:30 watching LeTour. Armstrong put in a monster effort to win the stage and I was riding along right there with him. Excellent. However, the run got scrapped as I needed to do some work around the house for the arrival of friends this weekend. I'm sure coach won't mind me "making it up" later on in the week.
Also, I've been concentrating on a couple of things related to training but not generally logged. I'm putting quite a bit of effort into getting good, quality sleep/recovery time in. I've upped my nightly sleeps by nearly an hour. I could tell a dramatic difference in the first week. I've also been focusing on better overall nutrition. It shows as I've lost significant weight since the first of June. That's all for now.
Kind of a slow week really. I wasn't planning on tapering for my FIRST race of the year this year, but sometimes life knows better.
I took Monday off because I bruised my knee over the weekend, still bruised but not sore. Tuesday, work intervened and I didn't get a thing done. Wednesday I managed a whopping 45 minute ride on the rollers, then work called again. Thursday I spent my calories mowing the pasture and moving hay, ain't life grand? Today so far I managed a good 1:15 ride on the rollers while watching the Tour, an excellent stage today. Hopefully, I'll get a short run in this evening, but I still have some packing to do for the weekend.
Okay, so I've actually been back for about 4 weeks, I just haven't had the chance to get all my ducks lined up so I can start keeping my journal online again. But, by-gones be by-gones, and here we are again.
First, let me post this thought. It was probably the first or second run of the current comeback when a thought came to mind: I've completed an ironman, several marathons, and innumerable triathlons and I can only run for 30 minutes?!?!??!!?!! That thought struck me as odd and more than a little de-motivating. I quickly grabbed onto that idea and turned it around. Hey, I'm healthy enough to get off the couch and run for 30 minutes, how cool is that? Altogether, this took about .008 seconds to transpire, but it was still there long enough to elucidate the changes that I've been working on mentally. I've summed it up in one quick mantra: In all things, quality in = quality out. Whether this is training, working, relationships, whatever, you can't expect a quality outcome if you haven't put quality work into it.
Anyways, enough of my diatribe, I'll be putting up more of my ideas in another section of the website that is still under construction. For now, let me backfill the last 4 weeks of training.
Training: All efforts listed here have been at easy to steady work levels. The running has been on one of two courses out of my front door and all rides have been on the rollers. I can't believe the difference that dedicated roller riding has made to my efficiency.
Date
6/9/2004 0:32:33 run
6/10/2004 0:47:19 bike 0:31:20 run
6/11/2004
6/12/2004
6/13/2004
6/14/2004 0:30:40 run
6/15/2004 1:00:16 bike
6/16/2004 0:30:25 run
6/17/2004 1:00:16 bike
6/18/2004 0:29:25 run
6/19/2004
6/20/2004
6/21/2004 1:00:14 bike
6/22/2004 1:15:08 bike 0:29:47 run
6/23/2004 0:50:16 bike
6/24/2004 1:00:20 bike
6/25/2004 1:00:11 bike
6/26/2004
6/27/2004 2:00:20 bike 0:30:37 run
6/28/2004 0:33:31 run
6/29/2004 1:30:30 bike 0:36:52 run
6/30/2004 0:45:37 run
7/1/2004 1:15:15 bike 0:26:41 run
7/2/2004
7/3/2004 2:00:11 bike
7/4/2004
7/5/2004 1:15:20 bike
7/6/2004 1:47:27 bike 0:29:55 run
7/7/2004 1:00:23 bike
7/8/2004
7/9/2004
7/10/2004 1:58:32 bike
7/11/2004 1:00:20 bike
My coach will be so proud of me for updating him, even if it is a month late.