Patience is paying off

I haven't posted in over week because I've been feeling less than inspired by my race preparation. But today I am waking up after a big weekend feeling better about San Diego International in two weeks. I have been patient to get through the frustration of training while injured and not get too far ahead of myself. It's been tough at times wanting to pull out figuring "I go big or not at all". Other times I just do what I can and enjoy it. I'm in a place where my ribs are day to day and I have two weeks to decide whether I'll toe the line. I'm feeling surprisingly fit, considering the spotty training. There is some hope.


Training recap.

Sunday.
My long run was scheduled for 2 hours. This is the longest run I do and this one was at some intensity Zones1-4 and some 5 on a hilly course. I really wanted to run, and hit my route out to the point (SDIT bike course, I know this like the back of my hand) and down a walking trail, which is like one mile of trail at 6-10% grade. I was basically running how I felt and it wasn't until after I reached the top of the trail on the way up that I started feeling the 4 hour ride from Saturday. I still hit a negative split on the way home from my checkpoint but was shelled getting back towards home at 1:45 where I planned a cooldown for 15 minutes. My legs hurt and I decided to finish my cooldown on the trainer for 25 minutes to keep the engine going but give some relief to the quads and solius. My last long run was 1:30 and I figured that 1:45 was close to 10% increase of that, for injury's sake. Feeling my legs today that was a good recovery technique in addition to kicking it on the couch with the legs up watching the Padres. Ran with very little discomfort otherwise.


Saturday.
I'm so stoked I got to finally ride some new areas near our place in the mountains. I'd only previewed the ride on Google earth and figured 4 hours was enough time to get lost and found. I'd been trying to get someone to recon this with me for a long time and I finally got my buddy James schedule to align with mine. The kid is up for anything. We found a lot of stuff that was great and some that allowed us just to spend time in the saddle. I felt really good on this ride I don't know if it was the energ-ease that I took prior or what. The only problem was this hideous squeak from the bottom bracket that kicked in about 30 minutes into the ride. It made the epic sound like a beach cruiser and I'm sure was robbing power, but I was really afraid of breaking down in the backcountry. I mean deep. nobody. We made it back after a brutal 1300 foot climb during the last hour. Pitchy as hell, inhaling face gnats. Other than that we did a little over 5000 ft of climbing total, (5000 on the MTB feels like 7500 on the road) in about 3:30. I lubed my chain when I got back, fixed. DER! Beautiful day. awesome country. we're going back!


Friday.
I had an open water on the schedule, but couldn't make it at 6:00pm with the triclub. I hit the pool for some longer tempo sets:

200 WU
500(30S)
1000(60S)
500
200 kick
200 CD

This felt good and was definitely a confidence booster not to have too much pain.


Thursday.
I was supposed to race the Aquathlon but couldn't pull the strings to get to the race at 6:00 pm(baby action) in addition to not feeling too hot on account of the ribs. I got in the trainer workout I skipped on Tuesday. It went REALLY well and have a new respect for trainer workouts. I'm really happy to see such improvement on the bike. It was a Tempo workout consisting of 4x6 minutes. I was trying to keep the workout from getting too far into LT so I stepped them up 10W per int. just to keep an eye on HR. I haven't tested Power zones on the bike in a while so I have to go by feel/ballpark.

Thats:

241W

250W

260W

285W Average Respectively.

HR barely reached 160 except the three minutes on the last interval.

Wednesday.
I did a swim and a run down at the strand. I did them consecutive to test myself for Aquathlon.
I was hurting pretty good on the run. My legs were still hurting from Sunday and my chest was aching. I got in an hour run after 2400m in the pool.

Tuesday.
I'd had enough. My schedule was tighter than ever and my ribs weren't getting any better so I decided to take two days off in a row to see if that helped. I had a swim and a trainer workout planned but I figured if I was still going to race at least I was more confident blowing off the trainer workout. How much more could I lose taking an extra day off?

This next week will be pivotal to determine my fate for race day. If I'm feeling good by Saturday, I'm all in. If not it's a wait and see scenario. Trying to stay positive.