When I talked to my coach yesterday, he reminded me that I'd managed to pour on back to back to back to back days of intensity less than 2 weeks after an Ironman. Maybe not the best idea? Ironically, I'd felt good in doing the hard swims, the hard bike and the hard runs. I also knew that I had a two day travel "break" right afterwards, and an additional day of babysitting my grandson. Now that I've finished with the whole week, I can comment. Probably a little dangerous, but it is a thin line. If I managed to get in a solid 14 hour week after one week of recovery from Boulder, and if I'm able to benefit from the efforts I just did on the swim, bike and run, then it will be worth it. If I get sick, or can't put in another solid few weeks leading up to Santa Rosa, then it wasn't. It's a thin line. As I told me coach, though, I've never felt this way before. Because of that, I felt the need to "go for it."
The two days of travel are not to be ignored, nor minimized. I was pretty tired today, but managed a 2 mile walk with my 3 1/2 year old grandson (and future ironman, I hope). I also walked another four miles while on phone calls later in the day. When all is said and done, I dodged a lot of bullets in the last three days. I hope. I'll know tomorrow, and I'll definitely know this weekend. If I'm able to put in a long run on Saturday and a solid bike on Sunday, the risk will have been worth the potential reward. But that's a lot like everything in life. Sometimes you have to take a chance in order to get the greatest reward. I'm hoping to compete at the Santa Rosa 70.3 in my age group as I've never competed before. What that means is that I'd like to actually be competitive in the swim, and definitely in the bike. The run is always the most problematic, although I know that I can hold my own.
In all of my years doing triathlons, and in all of my previous age groups, I've always been behind after the swim, and then lost a little more on the bike. Even if I improve my run, it won't hurt to be more competitive on both the swim and bike. Saturday's bike ride, albeit with both volume and intensity, in addition to the stimulus of the ironman bike, certainly opens up the possibility of a significant fitness boost for the 70.3. My 5k effort from last week and my progression run on Sunday, coming off the long bike, will also set my legs up well for a performance boost.
My coach did remind me that doing this amount of intensity isn't necessarily specific to Kona, and he's right. While my overall goal is to do my best at Kona, I'll never compete in my age group there, and I'm taking the opportunity to compete in my age group at Santa Rosa seriously. It's a thin line, but the "juice is worth the squeeze!"
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