2011 - the year of too many races

2011 was the year of too many races randomly sprinkled through the year, no actual training, too much annoying knee injury, but lots of fun:-

 

(our wall of races, needs to come down now)

• 5x Sprint Triathlons
• 2x Olympic Distance Triathlons
• 2x Half Marathons
• 1x Thames swim
• 1x London to Brighton
• 3x 10Ks
• And a bunch of Parkruns, but they don't reaaaally count.

2012 looks like this:-

• 1x Sportive (February)
• 5x Sprint Triathlons (April to August)
• 1x Olympic Distance (May)
• 1x Half Ironman (June)
• 1x Ironman (September)
• (and a bunch of Parkruns, most likely)

NO ENTERING ANY MORE RACES BEFORE THE END OF SEPTEMBER! (Long running events, sportives and century rides are allowed -if- they fit with my training schedule and are treated as training sessions, but otherwise, NO!)

Learning some more

Whacked out, flattened, laid low and all that... I have a chest infection and it's knackering.  Short of breath sitting down doing nothing is pretty demoralising.  I napped twice yesterday, woke up dribbling. Snored all night last night and woke up with a cardboard tongue.  My chest aches and coughing is quite violent when it happens.

Still.

I have been doing a lot of lying on the sofa, reading books in between napping and reading articles on training, rest and recovery.  It's hard to be not training, but I fully understand that starting training too soon is actively counter-productive.  Yes, I'll be losing endurance, muscle mass, general fitness etc. while I'm ill but a lot of that is a direct result of the illness itself rather than the lack of exercise.  There is nothing that can be done about it in the slightest.  Training while ill can cause all sorts of problems, right up to and including dropping dead while training due to myocarditis.  So it's pointless.  Better to rest, recover relatively quickly (pushing yourself while ill can prolong recovery) and get back on track later when you're well again.

Hard for me to deal with, mentally, while there's events looming on the horizon; 13th January and 26th February aren't that far away and they both involve things I'm really not very good at... hills.  Tough poop though.  Gotta stack me some more Zs and stay out of the trainers/cycling shoes for a couple more days yet at least.

Runner's trots?

I think I had my first real case of runner's trots on Sunday.  Sparing the vile details, I just about made it to the loos on the Common in time, seconds from a horrible clean up operation and a curtailed run.  On the up side, my new Nike running tights (Nike Tech Tights) are lovely; soft, warm, easy on the waist and grippy at the ankles.

Today I are be mostly hiding under a duvet on the sofa, coughing, blowing my nose, trying not to eat my own bodyweight in analgesics for the headaches due to sniffling pretty much all day for the last two days.  *wheeze*

Zzzz...

I could -kill- a nap right now.  90km cycle ride today on a gorgeous bowl of porridge with raisins, banana and maple syrup, with a double chocolate brownie half-way around.  Sliiiightly under fuelled, but I didn't bonk.  It was colder than I expected (forecast said 12C, it was definitely not that warm as I needed to keep my long sleeved top on over the short-sleeved one, over my long bib tights) and windier too.  Not as windy as last week, but still a bit tricky on a few sections of the route.

For simplicity and lack of hills while I start to try to build endurance; keep HR as low as I can, ideally 135 or so on the flat when I'm properly trained; I cycled out to the Thames Turbo sprint bike leg route, went 'round it three times and then home again.  90km in 03:54 at an average HR of 153..  If you remove the hills, the average would be a bit lower, so I'm reasonably pleased with that.  It will come down over time.  Secondary learning was getting back used to riding again and more comfortable on the bike.  I still can't get down onto the tri-bars or drink on the bike (i.e. get the bottle out of the cage, drink and put the bottle back again) and I need to be able to do both of those.

I've been inhaling food since I got home around 4pm (started out a lot later than intended); a bacon and cheese bagel, a huge chicken salad (with more bacon in it!) and I've got my eye on something involving Marmite later.  I'll be a good 1400kcals under maintenance for the day most likely but seeing as I had a bit, fat pizza and potato wedges last night that's not going to be a problem.  I just want to sleep now that I've had dinner and a nice, hot bath.

The bottom step

Apparently I can swim now, so now the actual training can begin.  I can't wait!  How perverse is it to have done a load of work and be so pleased to be at the start of the actual work?  :oD