Numbers

Well I have been neglecting my blog lately. Things have not felt normal since the begining of the year and a lot has happened in terms of training, work, family, etc. I was hoping to chronicle my Ironman training weekly but here I am in week 6 and not one post. Oh Well, better late than never.

Where to start? In a nutshell, I have had my head burried in this one project at work for the last month. My desk looks like a bomb went off. Training for an IM is a lot more work than I ever expected. I feel like it is more than twice the training as for a Half Ironman. It probably is not when you look at it time wise but I end up doing a lot of longer distance workouts which are hard to fit into the rest of life. The stomach flu made its rounds at my house in the last two weeks and only a few days ago everyone started to feel normal. I only missed one day of triaining but even the workouts since have been sluggish. I have no idea how a bug that cannot even be seen with the naked eye can bring a human to his or her knees for a week.

So with all that lets get back to training!

I have been stressing lately about my training volume. When is it appropriate to cut a workout short and at what point are you doing your self a disservice. I tend to obsess over numbers so if my schedule says a 2 hour bike ride I usually make it a 2 hour ride on the dot. Over the last few weeks I have had a couple of long workouts that I have had to cut short by 15 or so minutes. I keep telling myself that this is nothing. That the bulk of the work was done and +/-15 minutes is not going to gain me any fitness, but if race time comes around and I bonk the first place I am going to look for blame is that one workout where I did not put in the extra time. I know, I know, it is ridiculous to even suggest it but there has to be some point in a workout that is critical to complete otherwise training plans would come with a disclaimer that reads, ALL WORKOUT TIMES ARE SUGGESTED LENGTHS, MODIFY AS NEEDED AND DON'T WORRY ABOUT NOT FINISHING THEM YOU WILL STILL KICK ASS IN THE RACE!!

I can only do the best I can at each workout and remember that deadlines at work slide, restaurant reservations get cancelled, meetings go long and sometimes you miss a workout completely. Other times, like 2 weeks ago, you get lost and add 10 extra miles to your bike ride trying to find a shortcut around a giant hill. Yes I was trying to avoid this ugly hill (I just did not feel like doing it that day) and in the process I not only got lost and added 10 miles but found 2-3 more nasty hills that I was forced to go through. I still ended up having to do the original hill too!! By the way, I still could not find the shortcut even when I drove the route the next day in my car.

More later, and this time not 2 months later.