It's now 11 days since I completed Ironman Boulder, and I think I'm finally starting to get back to "normal." I rode my back for 90 minutes this morning, and it wasn't by any mean leisurely, nor was it super hard. It was a solid 90 minute ride at close to half ironman intensity. I realized while doing the ride that I'll soon be increasing from two loops on my neighborhood course up to four loops. Four loops will take me about 3 hours, which is longer than what it will take me to do the bike course at the Santa Rosa 70.3 in about 5 weeks. I'm expecting in the next couple of weeks to make that 3 hour ride the norm for a "daily" ride. I was hoping to ride every day this week, but my body wasn't quite ready. Today, I felt good the rest of the day after doing a solid ride in the morning. No other training today, but that was also ok. I worked on a number of other projects that I've been procrastinating on. I feel like I'm getting back on track.
It's pretty remarkable what an Ironman does to you. It's important to respect that and not to forget it. That's how you get into trouble. It's also important in terms of planning ones life. If you really want to do the type of training that it takes to compete in Ironman and half ironman distance races, you must take into account what it will do for the rest of your life. Naps help. In that regard, I haven't done as well the last week and a half as I'd like to. Today was no exception to that. I didn't nap. Of course, I did nap yesterday. On the other hand, I did have a good night's sleep last night, and slept in this morning.
We'll see what tomorrow brings. Depending on when I wake up, I'll do some sort of training in the morning, but then I have some errands to run. I don't want to overdo it tomorrow, as I'm riding with my tri club on Saturday, 56 miles with nearly 8,000 feet of climbing. Definitely a good way to see where I am from a cycling perspective. I expect to test my running legs out on Sunday. I'm traveling on Monday and Tuesday, so that automatically becomes rest days!
It feels good to get back on track. My inner angst is quickly diminishing and my confidence is building. Soon I'll be visualizing my race in Santa Rosa. One step at a time, and for now, my focus will be my next race. That's as it should be.
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