week 24 in review

153

The sessions get harder and longer. I have rejoined the Z4 splits in my sessions. It means I started the week with a run with sprints. My legs were sore from the week before when I started to train but after a little while I felt good again. And I started to feel better and better through the week. I am talking about feelings and not performance at this point. It’s getting important to me to feel good because the sessions start to be long.

The weather is getting colder and there is less sunlight every day. And I have also have to start paying more attention to it because for example it rained on Friday when I wanted to go for the run and when I went for it I got caught by the rain.

Once again I swam in 3 different pools, just like last week, and two different sizes. I hope from now on I’ll be swimming in only two different pools, one in Girona and one in Barcelona.

I have also swapped two swimming sessions because I thought I would go to the sea to do the long swim but I did not go, instead I went to Girona to swim. I am quite happy with the total time of the 3500m nonstop swim; it took me 1h6mins and 30seconds. I believe in a 50m pool I can drop 30seconds, and I believe I could just go harder but the distance is long enough. I have to mention that I had swum the day before doing it, so I could’ve gone slightly faster.

I was also denied a single gym entrance in Barcelona so I had to wait to get home to ride on the trainer because it was too late to leave the house. It was very humid and I got extremely wet. It took my shoes more than a day to dry, and believe me it is not nice to have wet shoes on a Saturday morning ride.

The long ride was fun; I went from my town to Santa Pau through Amer and back. I did about 20mins more than what I was supposed to do because I miss calculated the turnaround point. I took the wrong exit in Santa Coloma and then I had to go back, and that’s what happened. According to my watch the total ascent was 1600m a lot more than what I was used to and I have no idea because my speedometer is still in the shop. The cadence was quite good to an average of 83rpm. Then I went for the run which this time was longer and I ran for 13,6km in one hour. I felt tired and it was fairly hot. I used arm warmers for the ride and I left them at T2. The T2 was fairly fast according to all the things I had to do, eating; removing the arm warmers … I also had to take my shirt off because I was getting a rush under my arm. I will need to fix this because the solution is not IM approved. I took a gel every 40mins and it didn’t feel enough although it is ok when I train.

On Sunday I went for the long run, I was going about the same average as the day before although I went for a lot longer time. I am still looking ok on the run, the pavement was soft and it could’ve slowed me down a little bit, although my bpm were fairly low, I averaged 147 through the whole time, I don’t know if I should trust it very much because I see some inconsistencies at the very beginning of the chart. The worst part of the Sunday’s workout was the ride. I still had my ass sore and I had to ride to high rpms. Even though the average is not the targeted, I was not riding a flat course either.

At this point I am not sure if I’ll race, I would like to but I haven’t bought the ticket yet and I am getting a lot of pressure from you to not race, well my balance is very low right now and I have to think twice or three times before I spend a penny. It is hard to decide, I have put a lot of effort, hours and money to it and I don’t want all this to go away.

On the other hand I think I know my future a little better and it is probably far from here. I just have to stay 3more months but I hope I can leave again afterward and talking to you doesn’t help my hope. And I appreciate your words, it is nice to know I have good friends and it is nice to know they will try to do their best to support me. Others who claimed to be friends aren’t helping.

The lottery is going to start soon and I hope I have a winning ballot this time. I want to have it, I had a ballot last year but I wasn’t lucky enough. I would not believe how happy it would make me.

This week you have acted weird, you had said to me that you weren’t this kind of persons well it looks like you were wrong.

I don’t know you haven’t even answered me, well I guess this is what you want, although I am not sure if you are trying to contact me the same way I had tried before. It is your choice and if you want anything you just have to speak up.

Have I missed you? I have to say a little bit. Was it enough? I don’t know.

I also realize that the Iron journey is leaving me lonely. I am ok with it but it would be nice to be able to meet you and to have more free time to meet. But the reality is that you don’t even call me or you don’t even answer the phone. Well I guess it is what I deserve.

I have also decided this week after visiting a few places to live and balancing my options for the future that I’ll leave with you until further notice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu6Mid2a428

week 23 in review

153

This week has been quite hard. It was hard to keep up with all the duties and the sessions. I have swum in three different pools and in three different cities, Barcelona, Platja d’Aro and Girona; and two different sizes, 50m and 25m.

Surprisingly, I can swim 500m faster in a 50m pool than in a 25m one, quite funny. At first it was hard to get wet but once I was in I completed it without much more problems than usual. In Girona I was not allowed to use my paddles nor my fins instead I had to use neoprene gloves. I did not like them a lot, they are very heavy when you lift your hand and they don’t give you much push in the pull; I found them too hard for my back.

The rest of the normal sessions were smooth. I did not suffer much and nothing out of the extraordinary happened. It might be good to say that on Wednesday I rode to Santa Pellaia and then I was able to run 7,75km in slightly less than 30mins, I averaged 15,6km/h.

On Saturday, it was raining and I had a very long ride to do. I set up the trainer and I rode on the trainer for 5h. It was not as hard as I expected. Checking back on some data from old weeks I averaged the same bpm and slightly higher cadence, which is good. Although maximum values were not met yesterday. For instance the maximum beats per minute on a given outdoors day is 153, and on Saturday the maximum bpm was 140, although I averaged 125bpm both days. It was very boring to seat in front of the same wall for 5h I hope I don’t have to do this workout very often. Then I left for the run and I did pretty well, I ran 10,5km in 45mins, which is 14km/h.

During the ride I decided to try energy bars. I had planned to eat 5 of them, I know it is not enough but I decided to go with that. I can’t eat them at all. It took me more than 3mins to chew every bar. They are hard to swallow, and they leave my mouth dryer than what it already is. I ended up taking only 4 bars because I just couldn’t eat the last one because I was having a hard time eating them.

On Sunday I did my recovery ride first and then I ran. And I am not sure why, whether it is because I did the bike first, because I did not die on the bike the day before, because I feel better and I am in a better shape or because I took some gels and it wasn’t specially hot I ran faster than usually. 28km in 2h.

During the run I decided to take an energy gel with me and it felt great. I had it at the 30mins mark, I lost a little bit of speed while I was eating; I lost 1km/h for 30seconds, well worth it because then I was able to run for a longer time. Also, I should have taken another one at the 75mins-80mins mark so it would kick in the last 20mins of the run, when I needed some extra energy.

Up until Friday I had something bothering me. On Saturday I wasn’t as mad about it and I was able to focus on my life. On Wednesday, my friends and I decided not to live together anymore. The circumstances have changed for me and I can’t commit for more than 3 months and I they needed a commitment from me. Then I received this ugly phone call that kept me thinking for a few days. The call itself was not so bad, the worst part was the action taken after the phone call. If you don’t trust me why did you decide to live with me?

Everyone changed their mind in the last few days. You can’t say you didn’t know because I had told you about the situation. And it turned out bad for me. You can also jiggle the numbers as much as you want but you just have to admit your decisions weren’t good for me either. Just be straight forward and say it out loud and don’t be afraid. We thought we wanted the same but we realized we did not. And the initial agreement had to be broken because none of us was committed to the old agreement. And outsiders should have never been brought. They are not doing any good for you unless that is what you wanted and you were just afraid to say it.

On the other hand I have to apologize if I have been away. As you might see I have had many problems this week and I just didn’t want to bother you with my problems. Sorry, I can be very jealous of what bother me. I don’t want to end but I know it has an end and I might not be helping much to keep it alive. It is hard to keep up with this distance and my daily chores. I am very sorry if I don’t do what you expect, but a dashboard between us doesn’t help either.

And I guess it is that time of the year were I get melancholic and saucy because by the time that I am writing these words I am just hours away from becoming 2. I still remember it and I can’t get it out of my head. I haven’t heard from you in a little time and I don’t know why. I don’t know if my words hurt you, it was something I had to tell because that’s how I felt but I can’t do because of our agendas. You know I can’t be mad at you. And I still have thoughts to departure with you.

Is this the week to remember the past? Why did I receive such phone calls? And I haven’t received one that would have made me happy.

Right now the Ironman is in jeopardy because I had to break the bad news and that is not nice. You are mad at me, so am I. Do you think I like the result of everything? Fortunately I am moving on, slowly but moving, it took me awhile though. I can’t spend much time with you because you pretty much hate me. I am sorry I am such a failure to you. I know I’ll never be who you want me to be but I have to be who I want to be. And I need to leave my life. Although I agree I should start settling down, and that’s what I am trying to do. And hopefully future decisions and promises will be more accurate and better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejGdQ2Xg5GA

week 22 in review

153

This week I have tapered for my first HIM race simulation. During the week I felt like I was in a constant rush, going to Barcelona many times and moving from one place to another, such Terrassa or St Pol. It has not been an easy week to train. I also felt like I wasn’t training enough, nor tapering well either.

I should also rethink about my IM goals, are they too high? Are they too low? Let’s think about them.

The split times where S:34m 30s, T1:4m 5s, B:2h 54m 6s, T2:1m 34s, R:1h 29m 30s. I am quite happy with my swim leg, I predicted to be around half a minute to a minute slower than what I did. My T1 was slow, but I had to do a lot more than the last time, I dropped my gels and I had to put some anti chafe on armpit to avoid any possible rush, I was also distracted by some people from the tennis club while I was getting dressed. The bike leg was disappointing; I was 20minutes slower than what I wanted to be. It is true that I was carrying 5 bottles of water because I did not have a support crew this time, so it was harder to go up the first hill. It is also true that I found a lot of crosswind which it slows you down no matter what direction you take. I also suffered a lot from my lower back, for the last hour I felt some discomfort leading to pain; I had a hard time pedaling the last 15km or so. The course was not considered flat either. According to mu watch I ascended 750m and I had a temperature of about 30ºC. T2: was good as always. And the run was not as fast as I expected but considering the bike and the heat I did fairly well, I averaged 4.15mins/km. Running under 90mins was not bad and it was within the limits of being acceptable. As an anecdote, my weight before the beginning of the simulation 74,5kg (I had had breakfast and 0.7l of sports drink), my weight after the simulation 70,4kg (having drunk at least 4l of fluids).

The week before this one I was not able to do the two most important sessions of the week, the long ride and the long run. Also when I swam on Tuesday, it was the first time in a week, and I only swam half of it, and because of the tapering, I hadn’t swum more than 1,5km for over a week and actually the swim leg was the best of the three and the one that I probably felt the best.

The week started on Monday doing half of the training, half the swim and half the run to rejoin everything on Wednesday, although it was already tapering time.

Probably my mind hasn’t been working properly this past week because of all the University problems that I am going through. My future is wide open right now and I don’t know what is going to happen. I was also unhappy with some of the decisions that one of my flat mates had made, although I want them to be good decisions after all. They also look worse to me because of the uncertainty of my future.

This week I have started to see someone. I am not sure where this is leading to but I am not too confident about it. It doesn’t help that I don’t know what is going to happen to me in the near future and it doesn’t help that she doesn’t leave far from me or close to me. We are both very busy and I need a lot of time. And meeting her after being highly disappointed by my exam performance did not help to make things better. I don’t know if I can make things better because there will always be problems, but this last time sure was hard for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4jR9P9YJGo

week 21 in review

153
This week was not supposed to go the way that it turned out. This week was supposed to be a pretty hard training week; instead it has become hard because I have not been able to train. I had to choose between doing the most important sessions of the week or to study. It took me long to understand that I had to study this week.
I trained pretty well up until Thursday where I did not have time to swim. Also during the bike I had a few cramps or the beginning of a cramp. I got a little scared and since it was late and dark and I hadn’t slept much during the night I chose not to swim.

I also did half of the training on Friday and nothing Saturday and Sunday.
My diet has not been the best either, I have been drinking lots of soda, and I have been eating crap.

My anxiety went skyrocket. I sat on a chair for 2 days, I have barely slept, I ate crap and I did not train. I felt bad and I did not have the results that I expected. I also had problems with the future flat. I believe that I have a flat but my flat mates are not 100% happy with it. Having these problems did not help to concentrate anywhere.

I don’t know why but the only thing that I don’t leave for the last minute is my training, the rest takes me forever to do.

Uni is over, for good or bad I have finished or maybe not. I’ll know it soon. I hope I am lucky and I have to keep going, I don’t want to leave all this projects that I have right now in my mind. I feel pumped to start a new year.

I have gotten very close to someone know but I am still not sure if I want to take that extra step. I talked to you and some of the things that you said scared me. I don’t know if I have the time that you deserve and I don’t know if I feel what I have to feel.

I have met with a very good friend and we talked a lot. I feel very sorry for what he’s lived and I valued the way that I live. We also talked about the past, the future, the near present and the problems that we have. Thanks for your support. I appreciate our friendship and I love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHPipLK5Yfw