Monday 21 September 2009

The countdown is ON!!!

We're into scary territory. It's less than 50 days until Ironman Florida (46 days as I type) and it's the time when I start regretting all the lazy days, start wishing I'd got my butt out of the door on those wet, miserable days and start wondering what might have been if I'd got the proper mentality to take this thing seriously. Still, there's nothing I can do about the past now, all I can do is knuckle down and work my ass off for the next 6+ weeks, we all know it'll never happen though and in 45 days time I'll be sitting there cursing my laziness once again.

The biggest development of the last couple of weeks is that my pile of crap Quintana Roo bike is yet again in the bike shop, this time a different bike shop so that hopefully a 'fresh pair of eyes' can solve it's creaking, cracking noise issues.

So the last couple of weeks have been pretty ordinary but thankfully my clubmates have saved my blushes by dragging me out for a few decent sessions..

I had a couple of rest days after the Marathon as I was pretty wiped out from the travel more than the actual race itself which was all good. I returned to action on the Wednesday when I took Rosie out for a steady 7.5mile run, that was followed up on the Thursday by a 50mile bike ride (not nearly enough considering I had the day off work) and another poor showing on Friday saw me dossing around after work and only making my squad swim when I've time to do plenty more. The weekend saw the return of my 'warrior' status with 2 bike rides of 75 & 65miles and a very tired 4mile run on the Sunday evening, a 12h20m week of training complete but with 8hrs of it crammed into the last 2 days.

This is the way my weeks tend to pan out lately, with early starts and long days I constantly feel totally wiped out on Monday and Tuesday when i do either nothing, or very little. Wednesday is another long day with an early start BUT as I'm supposed to be off on a Thursday it isn't followed by another early alarm call so there's no excuse for not training and it normally becomes the start of my training week. As Thursday is often a day off I've got all day to crack out some big mileage, too often though I sit here on the computer looking out at miserable weather and wasting the day. THIS CAN'T HAPPEN IN THE NEXT 6 WEEKS!!! Friday is my longest day of the week in terms of how long I'm awake. My alarm clock will be ringing at 1am for a 2am start at work, then all being well I'll be home by 3pm and free to train. My only regular swim session starts at 8pm and by the time all is dome and dusted I've normally been awake for 23-23hrs.

Then comes the weekend!!! There's no excuse for not banging in the miles at the weekend unless I'm racing and even then there's no excuse. So many people have family commitments, wives, kids, babies etc etc etc that mean their time is limited. My only limitation is my own laziness! Shelly is golden where training is concerned, she's been around Tri as long as I have and knows how much training I should really be doing. She'll happily shoo me out of the door for a long ride or chase down the road to meet me if I'm doing some daft point to point ride. Far too forgiving when I reappear early because I can't be arsed though. I've even got clubmates who're willing to come out and drag me through 4-5hrs which is brilliant, I can't always meet them and some of them have the family restrictions which mean they need to go out at 5am (not a chance), but having the option and the company is a great help to someone like me.

So as I type this (it's now Tuesday) my training week has not yet started, once again I'm having 2 days off which can't be good. I'm off on Thursday though so all should be good for a Wednesday start and if my bike is fixed I may well do last weekends 100mile aero ride on Thursday. That could be the start of a double header because I've an 80mile point to point bike ride lined up straight after work on Friday when we head off to meet my folks half way to the my Saturday destination where I'll be racing a Sprint Triathlon Relay with 2 of my clubmates, we all swim/bike/run individually but rest up inbetween while our team mates race (s,s,s/b,b,b/r,r,r). With another big ride lined up for Sunday it could be a much needed big bike block. That said, this is me we're talking about and it could just as easily all go very very wrong.

I've actually no idea how much sense this post makes so please forgive it if it's a bit jumbled. It's just one of the joys of starting it on a Monday and finishing it on a Tuesday when you've other things buzzing around your head. It has to stop now though or it'll be Wednesday, Thursday or Friday before it gets finished, so sorry if it's left you scratching your head.

2 comments:

Megan L. Killian said...

What kind of QRoo do you have? I have heard a lot about my bike (Caliente) having weird creakies, and it scares me. Almost makes me want to sell it and get a new one, even though I don't have any of the creakies.

Iain said...

Mine's the one below yours, the Seduza, although apparently the frames are all the same. In fairness to it I'm not sure my LBS's mechanic has done the best job it either, which only makes it look worse. I've still had more problems with it in 12 months that in my previous 3 bikes combined though.