Kelly the Culinarian: Training Tuesday: Easing into the Ironman

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Training Tuesday: Easing into the Ironman

My basement induces euphoria
Last week was tough for me. I was commuting a lot and logging a ton of hours at work. No regrets, my career is important and I'm going places ... but that little Ironman thing is rolling around in the back of my brain all the time. I follow a Facebook group and keep hearing about four-hour brick workouts and mid-winter centuries.

And I can't even manage to get all my laundry done and tuck myself into bed before 11 p.m. 

I had a moment last week. Where I thought about the whole idea of "having it all" being a load of lies and crap. And panicking about how the hell I can take on any more than what I'm doing now.

However, there's no way to get over this other than going through it. I had a fabulous 16-mile run Sunday, followed by a one-mile swim Monday morning. Alyssa and I put a ride on the docket for the evening because the weather was awesome and we wanted to break in our new tri bikes.

Then this happened:

Go home, Illinois weather. You're drunk.

Instead, Alyssa toted her bike and trainer over to my basement, along with this DVD. It's a first-person view of a criterion race in Downers Grove. I've never done such race, or a video workout quite like this. It was vomitously intense, but also awesome. It gave Alyssa and I chance to chat (in between gasping and over the sound of my loud trainer) while trying to channel those summer miles where we sweat and whined about how hot it was.

Today I also did a double - 45 minuted on the bike in the morning, then six miles running at lunch. It's not perfect, but at least I'm getting to all the sports in a single week and running feel a bit easier.

In fact, I'm feeling awesome. My pace today was 8:34, and my pace this weekend for the long run was 8:41. I don't know what the secret sauce is, but somehow, a switch has flipped.

It feels amazing to be back. For however long this lasts.

6 comments:

Losing Lindy said...

wow you are very speedy

Pete B said...

Congrats on the "switch flipping"! Hopefully the speed will last a long long time! :)

Unknown said...

YAYYY! You're back!!!

kathyo said...

I think you just got to do what works for you! Nobody ever gets it all done...my house is a permenant mess and I never think I train or work enough but something's working for you if you are getting faster!

Zenaida Arroyo said...

You're amazing! Looking forward to reading more about your training.

Zenaida Arroyo said...

You're amazing! Looking forward to reading more about your training.