There are a lot of details to take into consideration when someone tries to stage a personal 1/2 Ironman simulation workout. Where to do each portion. Where to leave your (beautiful $1600) bike while you swim, and how to avoid it being stolen while you are swimming. How to plan a 56-mile ride that is interesting but still ends at your house so you can transition to running there. But the most important detail turned out to be one I didn't even consider:
The water aerobics schedule at my gym.
About 1000 yards into my 2100 yard swim I noticed some women removing the lane dividers from the pool. I looked up and saw a rapidly growing group of women congregating in the pool and passing around floaty barbells. I managed 350 more yards (7 laps) before I was officially kicked out of the pool.
I wore my wetsuit for the swim to get used to it. The bad news is that it still feels like tiny rubber hands are strangling me the whole time I have it on. The good news is that it made me almost 10 seconds faster per 100 yards! That is a huge deal! That is the difference between being in the back of the pack in the swim and actually being the sweeper!
Unfortunately, my swim was not the only part of the workout that was cut short.
My legs felt tired on the bike from the get-go, like they were full of lead. I figured I just needed to warm up. It did get better, but never really up to par. The first 17 miles of the ride were on a challenging course (the one that made me cry back in the early days of training). Slow uphills were to be expected on that, but once I got past that onto the canal path, I never really set a good pace. The canal path is flat, but the road surface is so bad that I just couldn't get going very fast. Even when I thought I was riding at a decent clip I would look down and I never saw a number faster than 15 mph on my speedometer. The whole ride was like that. I just never got going. About half way through I decided that I was going to call it a day at 40 miles. I just felt physically and mentally exhausted. I could have dragged myself through the full 56 mile ride and the 13 mile run, but I knew that as tired as I felt it would not be a quality workout, but it would still require a lot of recovery time.
Although it was not the workout I had hoped for, I couldn't help but notice that a bad day on the bike is equal to what used to be my longest workout of the week!
At least I know I am not alone. The triathlon forums are abuzz with athletes in peak training who are burnt out and can't wait to taper already!
Thank goodness my last long run (20 miles!) will be along the shore in Monterey, CA, where Karin and I planned an overnight trip for exactly that reason!
The water aerobics schedule at my gym.
About 1000 yards into my 2100 yard swim I noticed some women removing the lane dividers from the pool. I looked up and saw a rapidly growing group of women congregating in the pool and passing around floaty barbells. I managed 350 more yards (7 laps) before I was officially kicked out of the pool.
I wore my wetsuit for the swim to get used to it. The bad news is that it still feels like tiny rubber hands are strangling me the whole time I have it on. The good news is that it made me almost 10 seconds faster per 100 yards! That is a huge deal! That is the difference between being in the back of the pack in the swim and actually being the sweeper!
Unfortunately, my swim was not the only part of the workout that was cut short.
My legs felt tired on the bike from the get-go, like they were full of lead. I figured I just needed to warm up. It did get better, but never really up to par. The first 17 miles of the ride were on a challenging course (the one that made me cry back in the early days of training). Slow uphills were to be expected on that, but once I got past that onto the canal path, I never really set a good pace. The canal path is flat, but the road surface is so bad that I just couldn't get going very fast. Even when I thought I was riding at a decent clip I would look down and I never saw a number faster than 15 mph on my speedometer. The whole ride was like that. I just never got going. About half way through I decided that I was going to call it a day at 40 miles. I just felt physically and mentally exhausted. I could have dragged myself through the full 56 mile ride and the 13 mile run, but I knew that as tired as I felt it would not be a quality workout, but it would still require a lot of recovery time.
Although it was not the workout I had hoped for, I couldn't help but notice that a bad day on the bike is equal to what used to be my longest workout of the week!
At least I know I am not alone. The triathlon forums are abuzz with athletes in peak training who are burnt out and can't wait to taper already!
Thank goodness my last long run (20 miles!) will be along the shore in Monterey, CA, where Karin and I planned an overnight trip for exactly that reason!
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