10 Weeks to Go!

It's remarkable that there are just 10 more weeks prior to St. George. I've been negligent about blogging, but balancing ironman training, work and family is a challenge that I've actually been managing pretty well (another blog for another day). The last month has been amazing! I've felt a lot of the different things that one goes through in ironman training. The highs of completing longer workouts than ever before. The lows from fatigue and occasionally not nourishing enough. Just this last week I went from an incredible day of fatigue to a day of high energy! What is most amazing is that I know that I could do an ironman now if I needed to, I'm that ready. The good news is that I have 10 more weeks to prepare.

Today, Sunday, is a day off for me, the first real planned complete day off I've had in awhile. No training whatsoever. I'll even try not to think about training today, except while writing this blog! Over the last 3-4 days my mind and body have been telling me it's time for a break, which is good. If I didn't learn anything from my accident and subsequent lay off about the value of rest, I'd be pretty stupid. I took 8 weeks completely off from running, and my running is now, just 8 weeks later, as good as its ever been!

So, let me review some of my recent accomplishments. In the last week I did a 4,000 yard swim workout, which didn't seem that hard! I also swam 6 x 500 yards in 50 minutes. Both of these results bode well for my 2.4 mile ironman swim. A week and a half ago, I ran 2 1/2 hours on a very hilly course. My average pace was close to 9 1/2 minutes/ mile. I'd like to get this down to about 9 minutes/mile pace for the hilly St. George course. That said, my recovery from these runs has been excellent. Yesterday, with tired legs, I ran 7 miles on the treadmill at 8:53/mile pace. The effort was very comfortable the whole way, never having to breath hard at all. My biking continues to go well. I'm gaining power at lower exertional efforts and have ridden 4 hours in doors. In fact, last weekend, on Saturday, I swam 4,000 yards, and then between Saturday and Sunday rode 112 miles indoors and then was able to complete a solid run. A few days before doing this, I essentially ran a marathon over the course of 2 days on hilly courses.

Next weekend I'll be in St. George at Triathlon camp! I'm looking forward to riding the course.

Also, I've managed to find my run mantra, "I am strong". It came to me one day while running after a very hard bike. It has stuck with me ever since. I plan on using it to get me through the marathon at St. George. What was most exciting was that I wasn't trying to come up with a mantra at the time, it just came to me in a moment of clarity!