IMMT Training Weeks 14 and 15: The meltdown

The rollercoaster ride continues. Two more weeks that taught me new ways of rising and falling, with a huge meltdown in the process. It took a good cocktail of adrenalin and endorphins to get over it, but below is the tale of how it all went down, literally.

Swim

The last two weeks have seen some decent swims, whenever I did not skip them. Yes, it did happen twice for various "reasons". I actually had some valid excuses for once, so I won't get much into the "why". Just trust me on this one. The 4 swims that I did had everything I could wish for. Fast intervals, long intervals, bands, pull, paddles, flip turns and non stop bouncing between walls. One even had an underwater camera since I had to test it for our tri club's swim stroke analysis. No, I didn't analyse myself, but I certainly noticed the boob drag and the revealing view all the way down to my navel that I get with my vintage swim suits. Time for a complete wardrobe replacement!!

One of my favorite swims was this one, which I did last weekend after the 5K race/11k run:

Warmup:
200m free
300m pull
Main set:
8x50m (25 fast, 25 ez) on 1:15
100m breast stroke
2x300m pull 30sri
2x200m (150m free, 50m breaststroke) 20sri
4x50m (25 fast, 25 ez)
Cooldown
100m breaststroke

The next Tuesday I did another long, uninterrupted swim, the longest so far with 2500m straight pull, concentrating on THE "perfect stroke". Scored the perfect goggle marks too.

I recently came across this excellent blog post by Mama Simmons (thank you!!) and something "clicked" in my head. The key words were "lead with your wrist". I've always paid attention to have a high elbow and finish my pull with the hand near my thigh, but never really thought about the angle that my arm had under water. And I realized that my elbow was indeed leading, not my wrist. Since I've been paying attention to this, I noticed an increase in speed and overall more water resistance against my arm, which means that my "feel for the water" is now better and my stroke more powerful. I could definitely feel my lats engaging, and that, my friends, is quite an epiphany. One that needs more muscles in these places, alas. It makes for a HARD workout!!

You can definitely see me leading with the elbow in the video below, dating from last October (mostly because I drop it too low).

Now all I need is a new stroke analysis video and hopefully we can see the difference ;-).
Here's before and after the eureka moment. It seems that I managed to save 1 stroke/length and 4sec/100m. Hey, I may not be the fastest swimmer, but progress is progress!

Bike

Ahhh, the bike.... Or rather, AAARGH!!! the bike. Whose idea to increase my FTP was anyway? That's how you progress, I know, but damn... I did not get a break at all! I was so looking forward to my "recovery" week and what do I get? more sweet spot and MVO2 intervals!! I had to send my coach an email begging for less intensity during my recovery weeks, at least to have some rest to look forward to. These last 2 weeks broke me. The good news is that I managed to last 10 minutes more than the week before at sweet spot (before crashing and burning again) and that I nailed the MVO2s.

But trying to do a double 20min threshold ride after 7 days of workouts and no rest was a lousy idea. Given my increased tiredness and stress at work which led to having to take a full day off from work for physical (and mental) exhaustion, I obviously failed miserably, even though I managed to break 4 more personal records in the process.

In retrospective, maybe I should just stop saying that I failed, because all these ups and downs are part of the journey, but I can't help it being hard on myself and getting more and more discouraged when it happens week after week. Just like this past weekend. On Thursday I tried kickstarting my strength training (again!) with a few squats and lunges and my legs and glutes were so sore afterwards, despite having the Friday off completely, that I spent most of the Saturday long bike ride on the trainer crying my eyeballs off. I had to step off after 2h15, only to return later in the day to finish the 3h45 workout. Every single pedal stroke was a battle of the guts and pushing through the physical pain was downright infuriating. I knew that it was only muscle soreness, and that sometimes all you need is a good dose of HTFU, but I just didn't have it in me that day. More emails to coach followed, interrupted by endless crying spells. I must have spent as many hours crying on Saturday as I spent on my bike. In the end I was ordered 2 full days of rest and a good dose of protein and carbs after EACH workout. Coach is worried that I do not recover properly afterwards, given how I usually go straight to bed after my workouts and neglect fuelling those aching muscles. We'll see how it goes. Maybe I will see the light sometime in the next few weeks. If it were easy everyone would do it.

Run

I had some challenges in this department also, but hopefully they are not as alarming as they feel. I started getting some post tibial tendon pain, like shin splints above my ankle, on the inside of my leg. They would come after 1km, 8km or not come at all. So random. I tried changing shoes, but the results were not consistent. I even saw a podiatrist who said that it's nothing serious that a bag of frozen peas won't solve. So I've been icing, stretching, massaging and staring at my leg, imploring it to stop bothering me. Not sure whether it heard me, but thankfully it allowed me to do all my long runs, including the Mississauga Half Marathon on Sunday (race report to follow) with little to no pain at all.

Another notable mention goes to the first run of the year in the rain. Hubbs and I went to the track for some speed intervals and surprisingly enough, I enjoyed it.

The proof is in the smiles!!

In a nutshell

Mentally, I've hit rock bottom. I am scared because it's still early in the training cycle and there has to be enough room for crashing even harder. I know I will. Fuelling appropriately and recovery/muscle soreness may be related, and living with the feeling that I already eat a lot, too much maybe, is a constant challenge. I may not be fuelling at the appropriate times or the right stuff. I know little about recovery science and about the foods that I put in my mouth beyond them being healthy or not. I need to make some changes, but they are not guaranteed to work. Maybe I should just believe more...in myself, in the process, in being able to turn my mojo around and enjoy training despite the (occasional) pain (in the ass).

I think it's time for some swimsuit shopping and signing for a race or two. It should help, right?

Memories should last forever

There are days when I wonder what the purpose of my blog is. I have been writing for over 10 years at this address, but I never had a blog with a "theme" so to speak until I started this one earlier last year. It just happened that today marked the 10th anniversary of one of the most significant blackouts in North America, and people had been posting all day long memories from that day. I realized that I had none, like my brain had been wiped out. Not surprising though, since I barely remember what I did last week... but thanks to the Wayback Machine and some pages saved on my computer, I could dig out the tale of that day and share it with my friends on Facebook. So today I wonder, what will become of this blog 10 years from now?

My photography motto has always been "Memories should last forever", but it means captured on film or digital memory, then transferred on paper (if ever). Will the memories of today and this past year, in which fitness and well being have taken such an important role, remain? Will I remember? Maybe the reason that I want to do an Ironman IS to remember... maybe I'll get that tattoo as a mnemonic more than anything. My body may not be the same in 10 or 20 years, and for sure, some of the scars I got while running or biking will remain, but what about the memories of today, tomorrow, everything that's going to keep me moving until then?

This. The sweat, the salt on my skin, the dryness on my lips, the burn in my back, the ache in my stomach, the tiredness in my legs, the thirst - oh that thirst! - this is what this blog is for. It has my ups and downs, my (small) victories and (big) defeats. The days when I was counting visits or comments are way behind, like 10 years behind. I still appreciate them and they truly make my day, but I find it a huge waste of time (and source of disappointment) to always wait for someone else's approval. Blogging is like a book club of sorts, where fitness is the main topic and instead of books, we read into each other's diaries without asking for the key. I am an open book, I've always been. I may not be the best writer or fastest athlete out there, but I put my sweat and soul in everything I do. So today, I have no problem telling you that I feel defeated, that I had to take one more day off because stress and exhaustion were creeping in.

I know the signs well by now. After finishing one of the longest and toughest training weeks ever, I had Monday as a rest day, but then I saw 1h30 of hill work on my bike, followed by 1h swim on Tuesday. I started battling with my will to even get out of bed. It also didn't help that I was still in much pain from the sunburn and I hadn't had the greatest sleep for several nights in a row. When I returned from work that day, I found myself a good reason not to go with Zin scream up and down the hills - it was extremely cold for a summer day and windy as hell. If there is something that scares the bejeebus out of me, is handling my bike on the downhills with cross winds: 35km/h NW, thanks but no thanks. So I buried myself in the basement and managed to spin my legs for 1h, then called it a day. I watched "Troy" on my bike and cried, then I went on my couch and watched "So You Think You Can Dance" and cried some more, even when no one was dancing. It was because of all emotions going through my system, from feeling guilty of having had an ice cream, to having missed my scheduled workouts and everything in between. I was trying to rationalize it all, to no avail. I emailed my coach and spilled my guts: I may need another rest day.

And here I am now, in my bed, having skipped today's speed work on the track. And I feel less guilty already, even though I ate ice cream again and had a cranberry scone from Starbucks with a gazillion calories in it (please don't tell me) with my second coffee this morning. Oh, and I had pasta for lunch, and for dinner too. My scale will be cranky at me tomorrow, but whatevah. I am aware of the risks of over-training and I wouldn't want to jeopardize my first half-Ironman for anything in the world. I already worked hard enough to get here and I do remember well how I felt when I had to pull out of my first marathon. Not pretty.

Tomorrow I will most likely go for my open water swim, in my cold bubble of bliss, then for a quick loop around the lake. Friday I have a long 18k run, which I will take easy, then on Saturday I'll be having fun on the Mt. Tremblant bike course before volunteering the next day at the Ironman. I apologize in advance to all athletes whose energy I will use as a fuel source, because there is no better inspiration to start your own Ironman journey than being immersed in one, or a thousand of them. I promise to pay it forward.