I had a little scare this morning. I call this the “silly season”, meaning in these two weeks before taper, every little twinge or niggle in my body gets magnified all out of proportion. First, at the end of my four weeks in Colorado, my weight had dropped 4# in 4 weeks, and I was starting to get “skeletal” comments from my wife, and other folks in Denver who hadn’t seen me since the year before. I’ve been stuffing myself with food and water ever since, and am back up to simply “anorectic” now, needing to gain a couple more pounds.
Then, this morning, after a track workout last night, I got on the bike to commute to the Y for a swim. My right knee (usually the stronger one) was feeling a little funny, and by the time I was changing in the locker room, it was hurting even to lift my foot to take off my shoe. I got in the pool, started swimming with a pull buoy, and things kept hurting even when I did a flip turn – I actually stopped mid flip as my leg whipped around – and pushed off the wall one legged. Uh-oh. Here’s where silly season kicks in; for the next few warm up lengths, I began imagining I would have to shut down training entirely until this cleared up, or that I wouldn’t even be able to race.
But after 200 meters, I began the main set. Things were feeling a little better, so I tried another flip turn. No Pain! And it stayed that way thru the 3500m session, on the bike ride home, and up to now. Crisis averted! Something like this is always happening in the last 2 weeks before a big taper. I assume my brain just gets more sensitive to the normal wear and tear feelings that go with life and harder training. I presume that’s a sign of improved focus?
Fri/Sat/Sun, I did my long run, long ride, and long swim, then traveled Sun/Mon back to Pac NW. The run was great: 17.25 mi in 2:30. Last year, same place, 4 weeks before IM CDA, I was doing 16.5 in 2:29. I’m not any faster, but I think I have more “endurance”, meaning I can hold the pace for a longer time, hopefully being able to hold sub 10 min miles on race day.
The Saturday ride was a series of killer climbs. It was really hot – 90+F downvalley, and I didn’t want to go face that. So I strung together a bunch of out’n backs on the hills near my home, all between 7500 and 10,000′, where it was “only” in the low 80s by the end of the ride. 6200′ of climbing in 62 miles, with two climbs of 1000 and 1900′, and 4 more of about 700′. The downhills did NOT last long enough, IMO.
Sunday was a recovery run and a steady swim in the rapidly warming outdoor pool – they don’t expect it to get so sunny for so long (usually afternoon storms cool the air and the water). So the pool was bath-like, probably 85-6F. I trudged through 4150 yds. I try to deal with the boredom of steady hour+ pool swims by tricking myself in some way. This time, I did “intervals” of 2000/1000/500/250/125/75/50… pausing long enough after each to drain my goggles and stretch my shoulders. It did work, knowing each “interval” was half as long as the one before. “Well, you just did 2000, 1000 ought to be a piece of cake” (Heh-heh).
I kinda wish the race was in two weeks, I think I’ve got all the fitness I’m gonna get (CTL is up to 121 at this point). But I’ll work the next two weeks with good honest efforts each time out, and watch very carefully for excess fatigue along the way. The sea level oxygen should help a lot. I don’t go any faster, but I sure get less tired along the way!