You Will Get Tired...

Coach Dave really knows how to deliver an understatement.

"You will get tired", he said.

How about: "You will become a walking zombie who will not care if the house burns down around you as long as you can pull the couch or lazy boy out in time so you can have a snooze.  You will cease to find your husband at all amusing when he tries to make a joke.  Your body, while not suffering from aching or sore muscles, will insist on operating at quarter speed while it recharges every single cell which has been systematically depleted over the last two weeks through the schedule of swimming, biking and running that I am about to give you."

That would be a more accurate description.  But no, all I got was "You Will Get Tired". 

And, to make things worse, or to test my dedication to ironman, it all happened over the Christmas/New Year period. 

A time when everyone is drinking and eating up large.  
A time when exercise gets forgotten in favour of socialising and catching up with friends and family.  
A time when everyone is mentally recharging and resting in preparation for the new year.
A time when it is socially acceptable, even expected, to put on a couple of kilos.

Yes, that happens to be the time that training is ramped up and I turn into a walking zombie.

The easiest way of illustrating the time I've had is simply by reproducing the "highlights" of my training log notes.  I send my log to Coach Dave at the end of each week so he can see what I've been up to and there is an option of adding notes if there is anything particularly noteworthy that he should know about.  Throughout the year the notes section has been pretty sparse.  I've done the sessions, ticked off the distances and everything has been pretty straightforward.  

These last couple of weeks, however, my training log has turned into a novella.  Yep, the pressure is on and you'll see the first week I became obsessed with nutrition while in the second week I just got tired (and grumpy) ...  It did finish on a high note though.

Wednesday: (3 hour bike plus 40min run)

Faded on the run – not enough nutrition on bike?  ( ½ one square meal, 1 cheese/marmite sandwich, ½ bottle Horleys replace drink; TOTAL CHO = 81g.  Then had 1 leppin squeezy at end of ride immediately before run; 25g CHO).

Thursday: (90min run)

Awesome run (why couldn’t yesterday’s run have been so good?!!!).  Took 1 Powerbar gel at start then each 30min (3 gels in total – 81g CHO)

Friday: (3 hour bike plus 30min run)

Went out to Blue Duck and then around bottom of Cashmere incl hills so cadence slightly lower.  Had a PowerBar gel every 30min plus one in bike/run transition, plus bottle of Horleys Replace. (6 gels in total plus drink =  200g CHO)

Saturday: (70min swim/2 hour bike/60min run)

Good swim, good bike, excellent run.  Food went well and it seemed to make a difference.  Had Em’s Power Bite in Swim/bike transition then on bike had 2x Em’s Power Bite cookies, 1 PowerBar gel and 1 bottle of Horley’s Replace.  Then had another Em’s cookie in Bike/run transition and had a gel 30min into the run.  166g CHO for the whole session.  Seemed to go really well. 

Sunday: (4 hour bike ... planned)

Awful day – really strong winds blowing me all over the road (barely got onto the aero bars), tired and now the not so proud owner of a saddle sore.  All combined to make biking totally miserable so I called it a day and came home then went and did an hour in the pool.  If yesterday’s session was 8/10 then today was 1/10.

(It makes me feel infinitely better to know that Dave also cancelled his ride that day due to the winds...and he got a flat tyre too!)
 
Wednesday: (4 hour bike)

Epic Fail.  

Got puncture 4km from home.   

CO2 refill wouldn’t work.   

Walked home and pumped up tyre.   

Rode to John Bull to sort out CO2 system.   

They discovered attachment was faulty and give me a new one.  

Try to buy more CO2 canisters off them.  

None in stock. 

Ride to Scotty Browns and buy spare CO2 canisters.   

Start bike (2 hours later).   

4km down the road it starts bucketing down with rain.   

Throw toys out of the cot and bike home.

Thursday: (4 hour bike plus 2 hour run)

Hard ride – got v windy around Brighton and Sumner but glad I got it done after Wednesday’s disaster.  

Run good but started getting gastro troubles an hour in.  Was taking a gel every 30mins.  Had a toilet stop at 60min and then needed another 12 minutes before the end.  With 5mins to go I bonked.  Got finished but felt crap all evening (and nauseous).  Not sure if it was gel related or dehydration (I was regularly taking in water – we had a water pack with us - but it was stinking hot) or just some random stomach bug.  Most likely dehydration I guess.

Friday: (2 hour bike)

Still feeling v average after previous day’s efforts on the run.  Didn’t feel like a quality workout – just ticking it off. 

Saturday: (80min swim/1 hour bike/30min run)

Much improved swim on previous weeks.  Wind got up on the final leg back to the start and it was quite choppy but that didn’t bother me.  If anything it gave me something else to think about other than how far there was left to go!   

Bike was a grind – biked from Pegasus back home and had a strong headwind the whole way. (Turned into a 1hr 20min bike.)

  

Sunday: (180km bike plus 40min run)

Really happy with ride (and run).  Slower than I would have liked (6hr 45min for the bike leg) but I was still pretty tired I guess from the last couple of weeks (note my own understatement here...!).  Also concentrated on doing the distance (rather than focusing on speed/time) and keeping the legs in reasonable shape for the run.  Could have easily continued biking, the only thing giving me any grief towards the end was some lower side back pain.
Now shattered!