Breakdown number 1 has arrived

Well, I was feeling that I wasn't training enough a few blog posts back, and now I'm starting to burn out again. This past week felt intense and I'm still nowhere close to where I need to be. This heat is really getting to me and perhaps my general attitude needs an adjustment. I'm starting to question why I want to do this and getting a general apathy altogether towards training. Is this normal? I don't want to get into my personal life here, but I have to admit, I'm hitting a negative spiral and I don't like it. I have no motivation, nothing to get up for, and what feels like nothing to look forward to except a very expensive trip to Hawaii by myself. I think I need my happy shot now.

Last Saturday I did a 2.4 mile open water swim in Lake Travis and I came in last place. I don't think I did too poorly with an overall time of 1 hour 40 minutes. That is only 10 minutes off of my Ironman St George time for which I had a wetsuit on, and only a minute off of my Ironman Coeur D'Alene time for which I also had a wetsuit on. I didn't realize a wetsuit could make that much of a difference, apparently it does. The swim felt like much longer than 2.4 miles and it was hard knowing I was the only one left out there. I had my own personal kayak escort which was kind of nice. I got a couple of suggestions from some people observing my swim on my stroke. Apparently I wasn't catching enough water. Anyhow, the next day I did a 43 mile ride in Luckenbach with the Red Licorice Events team. It was fun and a challenge to keep up with the group. I just have to accept that I am a slow triathlete and that I have been given a huge privilege to compete in Kona, and accept that if I'm lucky I will finish by midnight.

Two workouts a day, training in Houston, and Rednecks oh my!

Ironman Hawaii is only three months away now and my training has started to get a little more intense. My coach is giving me two workouts a day now more often and this week, I get the pleasure of training in Houston, as I'm visiting family. Boy what a difference a three hour drive makes in terms of humidity and heat. Yesterday, I did an hour long run and I burned 626 calories. This is over twice as many calories that I would normally burn on an hour long run in Austin, if that gives you any idea. Today I got the pleasure of cycling in and outside of Kingwood. I only got honked at three times for my hour long ride. Apparently, people in Kingwood do not realize that a road bike is meant to be ridden on a road and not on the greenbelt. Some guy passed me in a truck, honked at me and pointed to the greenbelt and flipped me off. I guess I've been spoiled living in cycling friendly Austin. I really hope I don't have to move to Houston for work....
I also had a lovely experience swimming at the YMCA close to my mom's house. Full of kids and kids peeing in the water. The pool was filthy and a kid peed right next to me as I was swimming laps. Nice! I don't think I'll be going back to the Y any time soon.....

According to Ironman the average age grouper does 7 miles of swimming a week, 232 miles of cycling a week , and 48 miles of running a week…..

Seriously, if the above statement is the norm then I must be a miracle! In the two ironmen that I have done, I can honestly say I did not reach that level of training and have no desire to. Does that make me a bad triathlete? Discuss amongst yourselves…

Well I wish I had more of an exciting life that I could update this blog a little more, alas… it is not to be, I lead an incredibly mundane life right now…. My days are filled with sitting at a computer looking for a job, and training in the evenings. My coach still has me in transition mode, so my workouts have not gotten ridiculous yet. The weekend before last, I actually rode more than what he had down for me. I have a private coach that writes up a plan for me daily. His name is Shawn Bostad and he runs Pure Austin Coaching at Pure Austin gym. If you are looking for a triathlon coach, I highly recommend him. The one thing that I really love about Shawn is how emotionally connected he is with his athletes.

So two weeks ago, I rode with a few Texas Iron athletes and we did the Lost Creek/Barton Creek Dam loop and I have to say it was really tough. I had not ridden the Lost Creek hill since before Ironman St. George, and all I can say is that it was hot, it was humid, and it was tough as nails….but I did it. We ended up riding about 50 miles and the whole time I felt like I was still on my 11/23 cassette. I actually double checked it to make sure I had the 12/27 on there, so I don’t know if that means that I have a long way to go training wise or if the heat was just getting to me. Anyhow, this past weekend was the 4^th of July and I will admit that I was guilty in going to parties and drinking which ultimately affected my training. I went to a really fun party on Friday night and drank a bit too much and paid for it all day Saturday. Due to the rain and me not feeling 100%, I pushed off my long ride until Sunday. I had gone out Saturday night as well, but was good and didn’t drink. One of my friends is loosely related to Willie Nelson’s harmonica player, and we went to see him play at Saxon Pub. We also, got to hear Willie’s son’s band play as well. It was fun, but for some reason, Sunday morning I had the hardest time waking up. I didn’t start my two hour ride until 11 am. Not ideal in this summer heat. I decided to just ride up and down Parmer since I was riding by myself. Going out towards Georgetown was easy, wind at my back; but coming back was a brutal headwind. This is good for me, as I need to practice cycling in strong headwinds for Kona, as I’m told the winds can get up to 50 mph there. So all in all it was not too difficult of a ride, and I tried to make up for the fact that I didn’t do my 55 minute run by doing a 1.5 mile run at 4 pm in the afternoon. …. That makes up for it right????

Oh well, we can’t all be perfect triathletes… and I’m not going to beat myself up over it. I’ve got plenty of time. Three months to be exact….. By the way, here is an interesting statistic that I pulled from the Ironman World Championship web page Frequently Asked Questions….. The average age grouper in preparing for the Ironman World Championships does 7 miles of swimming a week, 232 miles of cycling a week , and 48 miles of running a week….. My jaw dropped when I read that. I’ve come nowhere close to that in the training that I’ve done for the two ironmen that I have completed. I can say at my peak that I swam no more than 4 miles a week, rode no more than 120 miles a week, and ran no more than 26 miles a week, and that was definitely not the norm. ….