The Last Recovery Week

Hi, it's Laura,

Once again I find myself playing catch up. Thank goodness this is recovery week in more ways than one.

Sunday, The Husband, Ms. Long Island and I attended the Big Apple BBQ and had a lot of fun. Too much fun.

Too much fun left me tired and out of sorts on Monday. I slept in and considered bagging my whole day and "calling in sick". Being this close to race day, I decided that was not really the best idea and needed to formulate a plan to deal with the early part of the week.

Between the weather and being under the weather, I came up with a plan. It has seriously rained more in the month of May and June this year than it did all of last spring. I do not remember having to try to manipulate my week in order to accommodate all of this rain.

Once again, I have no problem running in the rain but riding in the rain is just dangerous.

I can see a little drizzle but the rain has been downpours which are just not conducive to bike riding.

On Monday, instead of a 60 minute run outside, I headed to the gym. The run may not have been pretty (I ran at 5.0 which is almost embarrassing). Like I said, I was feeling under the weather but at least it got done. The swim however was going to have to wait until another day.

I realized that one day this week was going to be a very long day for me trying to squeeze in a swim and strength training and a ride/run which every day I figure it go happen.

I decided it is best to get it done sooner rather than later.

Tuesday morning I headed to the gym for strength training. Happy that was out of the way, I then headed for the pool.

Swimming tired makes me nervous. I am afraid of drowning first of all, and second, I am never sure if I am capable of swimming medium fast or medium slow when I am tired.

The pool was not that crowded so I figure I would start in medium fast and if I wind up holding up the lane, I will move.

I was shocked at how far 25 meters is when you are tired. I felt like I swam my first lap forever. I got to the end and waited for a full recovery. My warm up was only 100 meters and with one lap down, it was going to be a long morning. I am not usually this tired when I swim over the fear of the whole drowning thing.

Lap 2, lap 3! I can feel the fatigue in my arms. I am thinking to myself that I am not going to be able to finish. I push through lap 4, ended the warm up and let myself rest. The next set is flutter kick drills. In flutter kick, you use a floating board to keep your head up water and isolate your legs to propel you forward. I find these easy enough. I may have neglected to mention my entire lane was filled with men. This is somewhat unusual. I swim mostly at the "woman only" hour, not for any reason other than that is what fits into my schedule.

When it came time to drop the board and start the freestyle, I was a little concerned again that I would not be able to keep up.

During my first set of 200 meters, I feel rushed and a little breathless which can be hazardous in water. I want to make sure I keep the lane moving. I get to the end and look behind me. No problem. I held my own. I start to not feel tired but only because my competitive spirit (which has a mind of its own) shows up.

I start out for my second set of 200 meters and I start catching on the guy in front of me. Oops sorry (I am so not sorry).  I start feeling my groove and finish the set and the next one as well.

The pool is a weird place, workouts don't seem to last very long people tend to rotate out every 20 minutes or so. By the time I hit my 4th set, the lane I was in had 100% turnover. We are now all women. With my fatigue completely at bay (for the moment), I am happily annoyed that the women in my lane are not swimming fast enough. I keep catching them and passing them. Go me. I finish and head home for breakfast.

One more to go.

After breakfast, I head out for an hour long bike ride. It is recovery week so my workouts are a bit lighter than they have been or will be. I am always saying that I can't move things due to the length of the workouts. This week is the exception. I don't know if I made my choice on Sunday because I knew I had a lighter week coming up or did I just get lucky in making that bad decision? Probably a little of both.

I did not want to ride. Normally I enjoy it. But after breakfast, tired came back and the last thing I wanted to do was put out more effort. I was not teaching myself anything by going out tired but I know, on race day, if I didn't do everything in my power including training tired I would be disappointed in myself.

I got through the ride without incident. No injuries, no aggravation. Done and caught up.

A few weeks ago, I made a comment in my blog about signing up for a second triathlon after Labor Day weekend saying that "I do that on Monday". I felt a little awkward after I published that thinking the statement was a little braggy [Editor’s note: Yeah, I know it is a made up word but it worked for me]. But on Tuesday, it was almost true: a 1200 meter swim and a 12 mile bike ride with a one hour strength training session almost covers it.

Don't try this at home.

Laura