by Something happened after I did an Ironman. After all those workouts and the intense focus, every other workout seemed easy. Oh, I don’t mean that I didn’t work hard or that an individual workout wasn’t tough –I just mean that suddenly, ONE workout or a workout of “only” a couple of hours didn’t seem intimidating. When you know you can workout continuously for 16 hours and 32 minutes, a lot of fear factor is gone. And when you’ve gotten used to go doing multiple workouts in a day, one sometimes just doesn’t seem like much at all.
So once that bridge got crossed, I set myself up for some bad decisions. I love to workout…and if you can throw some friends into the mix along with a great location, there is really no arm twisting needed; if I have the time and the funds, I’ll do it. Marathons, trail runs, back-to-back races, another Ironman — shoot, I’m IN. And I genuinely WANT to do all those things.
I think that’s how I got hurt (or at least a big part). After I recovered from all the health issues surrounding NYC, I had no real focus or goal and I lost my brake, something to tell me “you shouldn’t do that workout.” A lot of days were 2-a-days simply because I had a friend who wanted to workout and then there was another workout I wanted to do later. No rhyme or reason, other than it was appealing to me.
So a couple of weeks ago, Jen and I sat down to talk about scheduling and she pointed out my tendency to do “junk miles.” And she’s right. Somewhere along the way, I got away from quality and went to quantity, just because I could. Lately, I’ve been really battling myself on this. I’m trying to make the smart decisions to ensure that my hamstring gets completely well and I get back to where I need to be.
So as much as I’d like to show up to Peak Performance workouts on Thursday nights, I can’t right now…because I’m already doing an easy run in the morning and my focus isn’t triathlon. As much as I’d like to be in Galveston doing the half or the Olympic, I’m not because I’m going to Nacogdoches on Monday and it would be too much in one weekend. As much as I’d have like to have done the 30K at the Loop, it was the smart thing to do the run I did…and the run I’ll do next week, and so on.
So, the Pocatella relay is next and my workouts should be geared around that. I’ll do some sprint triathlons (Danskin and Pflugerville and maybe Couples) to work on getting that speed back and when the season is over, then it will be time to head back to the trail. And then the question becomes, when am I biting off too much?
Certainly, I’ll train for a 50-miler again…but can I do more? I’d love to shoot for the 100 at Rocky in February. But if I really want to go back to Coeur d’Alene in 2011, then maybe that’s more than I should do. I think the question becomes what is the best build for the ultimate goal. And without a doubt, the 100-miler is the ultimate.
So maybe that best build is a 50-miler on the trail, well done and with ample recovery in 2011, followed by an Ironman that June, and the 100-miler in February of 2012.
OMG…it’ll be my 50th birthday in February of 2012.
I gotta sit down after that realization.
