iron eyes for the normal guy

A Few Small Bumps in the Road (by P)

Nah, I don't mean the crater-sized potholes found in New England roads every spring that we all love.

The past few weeks have been a bit challenging - not only did my training volume go up, so has work volume. Not that it's a bad thing, just that the timing of these two changes happened to conincide this time around which is not conducive to high energy levels. In addition, part of my work involves a new role in an agency doing creative a few days a week. It's great, but the pace is fast, and a lot of the work involves things I haven't done in a few years, so there's a bit of a re-learning curve. I also have a lot of other work to catch up on the days I'm not at the agency - I do the catching-up in the evenings after I get home, sometimes weekends and on the one day I work from home. Anywho, at the end of the day, especially during the week, I've been sapped of energy. It's taken a bit of a toll on my workouts (not to mention my sanity hehe).

My mantra this year has been "don't let last year happen to me again" (my race results last year left much to be desired due to lack of preparation). Although there are things one cannot control in a race (IM New Zealand for instance), as for the things I can control, preparation is pretty high on the scale. At the beginning of the year, I committed to being consistent with my workouts. After all, I'm training for an iron-distance event - can't exactly take my bike out for a leisurely ride, jump in the water to splash around a few times, take a leisurely jog around Fresh Pond and expect to do well. Well, maybe some Ironman Veteran with 20 years experience can get away with doing that one season and still get by but certainly not a long-time couch potato like me!

So I gotta do what I gotta do to get out there. I'm lucky to have family and friends who also happen to be training partners :)

Daniel is great - he feeds me coffee in the morning - especially on the days of early morning swims. Gave me a good swift kick in the a** to get out and run with him the other day. He's also very patient with me on the bike - he can totally go much faster and drop me in, like, half a second whenever he comes out riding with me, we have a great time and he waits for me if I fall back.

My favorite part of triathlon training is the bike training. Even when I'm not too motivated, I can always look forward to rides. No matter how I feel before, after I go out and ride my bike, I usually feel much better. Nothing beats going for a ride with friends who also happen to be training partners. Not only do you get a great workout and explore new routes, but it's nice to chit-chat at the same time. Learned a new way to get back form Concord when I went on a ride with Carrie and Rebecca last week. Saturday, when I rode with Daniel, I finally felt comfortable going out towards Sterling without having to look at a map and I lasted 4.5 hours without crapping out :) Yesterday morning, I wasn't the happiest camper, but in the afternoon I rode with Patrick and felt much better after (and learned a new loop too!). Already looking forward to my next 2 long rides - tomorrow I'm riding with Nisha and Nancy - and next Saturday is a six-hour ride to Wa-Wa-chusett with my friend Beth - I'm already determined to make it up that hill in Princeton Center without crapping out! Just gotta remember to slap the 25 on my bike and bring a few extra Lara Bars :)

posted by supersonique @ 4:41 PM