Rainy Day in Missoula

Rain is perhaps too strong a word - perhaps drizzle or intermittent showers is better. But to be honest, this rain could not have come at a better time. I've been feeling pretty terrible today, trying to convince myself to do the smart thing and just take the day off. The rain is finally the kick in the butt that I needed. According to my plan, I was going to ride 50 miles today. (Averaging 15mph, that's 3:20 or so of riding, i.e. a long day.) I knew by mid-morning that 50 miles was just not happening, but even after lunch I'm still pretty run down, so a recovery day is definitely in order.

As you may have noticed, I've been away from the blog for a few days. I've been hitting the training pretty hard, so there really hasn't been the time or energy for it. So, briefly, here's what's been going on since I last posted on Friday.

Friday afternoon: tough bike hill workout, easy swim, strength training

Saturday: TOUGH but really good run - 90 minutes total, with 75 minutes at lactate threshold pace, for a total of 9.5 miles. Short swim after that (really just a float, zero effort), then a few minutes of pushups in the afternoon. I was pretty much dead for the rest of the day after that run.

Sunday: Medium-long ride of 35 miles in 2:16, then about 10 minutes strength training.

Yesterday: Long run (12 miles) and a half hour of swimming.

I'm definitely doing enough work to get tired, but to compound that stress I've been having trouble falling asleep the past few days. I lay down at night, and, although I am exhausted, I'm also wide awake for half the night. I'm trying a few different things to try and overcome the issue, including trying for some wake-up time consistency, cutting out midday naps to see if they are throwing off my sleep cycles, and even getting up earlier in the morning in order to induce more fatigue by bedtime. I'm guessing that the sleeplessness is also an (ironic) indication of building fatigue inside me, so a rest day is probably in order. Hopefully the combination of all these factors will get me straight again.

Ok, time for the weekly wrap-up. We just finished the 27th week of the year, and the numbers are looking pretty good. Total training time for the week was 15:23.

Swim: 1:41, 5000 meters

Bike: 7:15, 109.5 mi

Run: 5:26, 31.8 mi

Strength: 1:01

The numbers are telling some interesting stories:

- Training hours remained very similar to the previous week, indicating that this training load is reasonable and sustainable.

- That said, the fatigue effects I'm feeling now, coupled with the fact that I skipped a few non-essential workouts at the end of the week, means that I need to reevaluate how I am getting those hours and especially how I am building recovery time into the schedule. Specifically, I am reevaluating the general schedule of my training cycle to focus on key workouts and recovery.

- I have been on a very heavy running focus this year, especially in comparrison to previous years. This week I actually surpassed my total run volume for any of the previous three years I have been doing triathlon. That the vast majority of tha trunning is at a very slow aerobic pace means that I am really taking the time to develop my aerobic engine. That aerobic capacity will give me greater endurance across the board and lay the foundation for me to improve both running times and race times as a whole.

More later. Right now I'm really feeling the exhaustion catch up with me, so I'm going to lay down for a little bit. A day of taking it easy should put me right again, I'm hoping.