This was something that was told to me by my coach as we talked about the very long distance part of the training schedule. Dark as in , “IS IT GOING TO EVER END!!!” I like training, I like swimming, running and especially biking but as I am in the middle of the most intense part of training, the shear boredom really causes me to start looking at this as work instead of fun to a certain extent.
It has been a while since my last entry and that is really because of work, training, coaching football, kicking off my foundation at Appalachian State and trying to balance all of that with family time. It really leaves little time for anything else. I can’t wait until I can recapture my time on the weekends once again which I am now using for training. That’s 9 hours of daylight!!!! I will get back.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not complaining, these are just some of the things I think about while I am on the bike for 6 hours at a time covering 100 miles or out for a 3 hour (18 mile) run.
Health wise I think I am holding up pretty well. The quad tendonitis I had last year which caused me to cancel the last half of my season, gives me a tweak every once in a while especially after a bike ride with steep hills. It seems to quickly subside by the next day, but I am very careful to stretch it well and I see Mike Dannenberg who is a certified ART (Active Release Technique) specialist who I work with every couple of weeks right now just to help prevent injuries. After my run on Wednesday, my outside quads (IT Band possibly) were sore for a couple of days which is unusual since I have been running 15/16 miles for a while and nothing has bothered me. I had pain in my right foot as well not quite down to the arch but below the ankle. My first thought was stress fracture, but I will see how it comes around this week during my “rest week.” I think it came on too fast to be a stress fracture after the run, but I am being very careful.
The last two weeks have not been interesting enough to really talk about. Nothing of an educational nature has happened, no excitement, just long hard miles.
On the swim: I am up to 3600 yards on Mondays (about 2 ¼ miles). Again, there is no physical limitations just a very, very, very long time in the pool. I have stopped swimming the lake for now. The water is just too hot to swim in, probably around 90 degrees at the surface and you can really get dehydrated quickly in that type of heat without water to drink during the 1 hour + sessions.
The run has me amused. 18 miles sounds a lie a long ways and it is, but physically it’s not a challenge at the pace I am running which is about a 10 minute pace. This pace includes walking a minute every 10 minutes and taking time to refill water bottles. While I am running I often think about just how far I can run before I really get tired and just can’t run any further. I guess this is a testament to my coach who has eased me along over the past months. Let’s just hope I have the same feeling about the run in my upcoming races.
That’s all for this time around I will try to get back on schedule with a once a week update next week!
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