R&R - down time.
SATURDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER 2008
Today was officially rock bottom.
I’m tired and fed up. I think this Ironman lark is a stupid idea. I feel cold all the time as I’ve got minimal body fat and, and as much as I love food, I just cannot keep up with my energy requirements and the need to eat (In fact, I feel like I’m chucking food into a tractor tyre – and as hard as I try, nothing is touching the sides or filling it). When I’ve reached the point where I say I’m fed up of eating, then I know I’m as low as I can go!
My feet, bike wheels and arms feel like they are ploughing through copious amounts of thick mud. My body feels like it has been put on the extra stain cycle in a washing machine, spun at 1000rpm, mangled and tumble dried. I ache all over……and did I say I’m fed up?
By 8am today I’d done my 2.5K swim (meagre!), seen Ange in the pool who incidentally, gave me some words of encouragement, obviously sensing that I was sluggish. I was on the boring old turbo trainer by 9am, forced there because it was raining on and off, and I just couldn’t face another ride where I got contaminated by a single drop of rain.
There were four distinct highlights to my morning. The first was the new magazine in the Saturday Waikato Times, which meant that an extra 30 ‘painful-turbo-reading’ minutes passed relatively quickly. The second was the fact that there were very few rain clouds in the weather section for the up coming week. The third highlight was that my friend, and work mate Chris, called in and provided an entire hour of distraction therapy from the monotony of peddling. It was the worst bike session I have had - It even beat the one a couple of months ago (28th July), where I had to get picked up in the car because of gale force winds and driving rain!
So the turbo prison sentence over with, I set forth for my 30 minute run and I did something that very naughty but necessary – I turned back after only 5 minutes. That was my fourth highlight of the morning! Realising that I’d had enough today, and needed to give myself a break.
I have done my schedule (almost) to a T and it is psychologically traumatic not completing what I’m supposed to do. There are times when you’re training hard, where you benefit from stepping back from it all and taking a breather. Today was one of those times
Today was officially rock bottom.
I’m tired and fed up. I think this Ironman lark is a stupid idea. I feel cold all the time as I’ve got minimal body fat and, and as much as I love food, I just cannot keep up with my energy requirements and the need to eat (In fact, I feel like I’m chucking food into a tractor tyre – and as hard as I try, nothing is touching the sides or filling it). When I’ve reached the point where I say I’m fed up of eating, then I know I’m as low as I can go!
My feet, bike wheels and arms feel like they are ploughing through copious amounts of thick mud. My body feels like it has been put on the extra stain cycle in a washing machine, spun at 1000rpm, mangled and tumble dried. I ache all over……and did I say I’m fed up?
By 8am today I’d done my 2.5K swim (meagre!), seen Ange in the pool who incidentally, gave me some words of encouragement, obviously sensing that I was sluggish. I was on the boring old turbo trainer by 9am, forced there because it was raining on and off, and I just couldn’t face another ride where I got contaminated by a single drop of rain.
There were four distinct highlights to my morning. The first was the new magazine in the Saturday Waikato Times, which meant that an extra 30 ‘painful-turbo-reading’ minutes passed relatively quickly. The second was the fact that there were very few rain clouds in the weather section for the up coming week. The third highlight was that my friend, and work mate Chris, called in and provided an entire hour of distraction therapy from the monotony of peddling. It was the worst bike session I have had - It even beat the one a couple of months ago (28th July), where I had to get picked up in the car because of gale force winds and driving rain!
So the turbo prison sentence over with, I set forth for my 30 minute run and I did something that very naughty but necessary – I turned back after only 5 minutes. That was my fourth highlight of the morning! Realising that I’d had enough today, and needed to give myself a break.
I have done my schedule (almost) to a T and it is psychologically traumatic not completing what I’m supposed to do. There are times when you’re training hard, where you benefit from stepping back from it all and taking a breather. Today was one of those times