37th week of the 2011 season

153

This week has had many ups and downs. I started the week with low confidence to then have the first high peak to lose all my confidence gained in one single session, to have an amazing boost towards the end to wrap it up with a bitter taste in my mouth.

The week started on Tuesday as normal and as normal started with a swim. This week’s swims have been fairly easy. And in this session I had to hold my t-pace for 500m, here is where I had my first disappointment of the week, I could not complete it by 4 seconds. Someone might say that this is very little time, to me right now is too much time, I should’ve been 8 seconds faster at least. Then I went to work and after work I had my bike ride and my run. Also as in the swim even though it was a fairly fast run, when I sat down to analyze I realized it was not that good of a run, so my confidence was low.

On Wednesday instead things changed a little bit, the swim was not timed as much as the day before, and it was a normal short swim. And after work I had my 1^st transition of the week, 45mins on the bike and 15minutes running or the 4.2km route that I usually do to transition. The bike was easy and during the bike ride I was telling myself that it was not a good day to run very fast, I was not feeling very confident and that I should keep it at a low pace, but when I transitioned I could not help myself and I started to run the fastest I could, I finished the run in 13mins 29sec averaging 3mins12secs/km. Even though it brought me in to high levels of confidence it also brought me some panic. Will I ever beat this time? It was a huge time for me.

On Thursday I had only scheduled a 75minutes run, no swim no bike. It is adaptation week and I need to keep in low. It turned out to be that I could not even do my run. I had to choose between my monthly massage and the run. After whatever was the decision I had to go back to work. I decided to take the massage, a hard massage that would make my legs loosen up a little bit. Another low confidence day.

On Friday I did not swim in the morning because I hadn’t slept much the night before. I got to work and after it I went to the swimming pool to do my monthly swim test, although at work they told me that I was going to have the vacations that I had asked for, the project had been postponed and I would be able to have 5 days off work. Amazing without much sleep I scored just under 90sec/100m. It was amazing, even though the first thought was that I could’ve dropped two seconds from the previous test I only dropped a little more than one second, but finally I broke the 90seconds wall. After that, I changed my schedule on the go because I took a 20minutes run, it is not usually scheduled but I was going to race on Saturday in the afternoon. After that I went for a 1h bike ride at home.

On Saturday I finally made it, I registered! I will be racing on the 11^th of September in Tenby. After answering some calls from work I finally started the training session, 2^nd transition of the week, I rode my bike for 3h, I took an easier route to have a pretty good split; it turned out to be my fastest average on a 3h ride, 32km/h. After the ride I ran. But this time I was strong enough to take it easier. I had to feel relaxed and easy and it turned out that I was running under 4mins/km which to be running easy it is amazing for me. I was pumped. I ate and I went to work. After work I raced 7.7km, I placed 17^th but I did not like it very much my pace was not as fast as I had expected. Was it because of the ride? Whatever the reason was, I expected to get closer to 3mins20secs /km instead I did 3mins32secs/km according to the organization statistics. After the race and talking to some friends I went back to work.

On Sunday I wanted to swim across the French border to Spain, but I did not have the guts to do it. It was too far of a drive, not enough sleep, my legs were very tired, probably one of the worse days, and I thought that it would have been dangerous to take the car feeling that why and I decided to sleep. I went to the swimming pool and then for a short slow run. In the afternoon and went to see a friend to win a tennis tournament and then back to work.

Right now the feeling is that Sunday I was sent back down to earth. Me, the man that is training for an Ironman, was not able to get up for a group swim. Something I had bragged around and that I know I wanted to do and was going to be a good training session. I bailed out. I was not strong enough to go. For the first time in a long time I felt physically weak.

This week has been crazy with all the work that I had. I spent too many hours at work that sometimes it makes me wonder if they really know the effort that I make. And sometimes I feel like I am too good for my position although the next day my stupidity reminds me that I might not even be good enough. It is hard to know. Also I had to stand up a couple of times in the last two weeks to my boss and I am not sure how good that is. It turned out that I was right and he seemed to not have a problem to admit it.

I am also feeling those stupid moments again where I don’t like them. Things need to be easier or not be. But how is it possible that you say you really want something and then when you start to have it you just pull away. Is it going to happen to me on the race day? Will I chicken out?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7X1PBKJRAI&feature=related

36th week of the 2011 season

153

Another very long week has finished. One in which my legs were very tired and I was not able to put in so many long swims due to different reasons; and where my two biggest proposals for the upcoming weeks were mostly thrown to the trash, although they might pick one up, although my hopes are near none.

This time the week started on Monday with a swim. A had been sick the week and last Sunday was the first one that I rejoined my normal schedule, therefore I decided to have a swim on Monday.

As always Tuesday was one of the longest days of the week. Since I knew the opening hours of the swimming pool are not my desired ones and I did not need to work on transition I started the week with a run with hills at the beginning and tempo after them. Then I went to work and after it I went to the swimming pool for the long swim, too bad I had not been able to put more of this; this past week. After the swim I jumped on the bike for some anaerobic endurance and endurance.

On Wednesday I started with a swim in the morning, shorter than I wanted it to be because of pool summer opening hours and work. Nevertheless I have been putting around 3km per swim session on short swims. Then I went to work and afterwards I started the second session of the day. I did a long bike ride mostly about muscular endurance and then a transition to run. During the run I felt quite fast which it was a nice surprise, although I was far from the 4min/km I was probably 4 or 5 over it, not too bad not good.

By Thursday I was very tired, my legs were stiff but my motivation was high. I started with a 1h swim in the morning and instead of technique work I decided to shift it to a force one. Then I went to work and afterwards I went for a 30minutes run with a friend and then I took off on my own, I decided to take the bike lane and I came back that it was dark and hard to know where to put my feet. I ended up doing the last 5km in 20mins 15seconds, 15 seconds above the desired pace but it was a good average since I did not have any references for most of these 20 minutes.

On Friday I had a swim in the morning and then after a long day at work I had an easy bike ride for nearly 2h followed by a 45minutes run. Even though it was not the day that I felt the best I actually beat my farthest distance in the course.

On Saturday I started fairly early for me at around 9.30, then I went pick up a friend who was waiting for me in St Feliu and up to my hometown, but before we got there we decided to take a long ride, I can get to my hometown from my normal starting point in 80minutes, this Saturday it took us 165minutes to get there. On my way back it was hot and windy, as hilly as on my way out but the sun was hot, the wind warm and I was slightly tired. I transitioned and I started to run, even though I ran under 4minutes/km it was not the fastest run even, in fact I was 30seconds above my minimum acceptable time. Although checking the conditions in which I ran, I can consider I ran fairly well. In the afternoon I wanted to swim for a little bit but it got too late, and I was too tired, also it was not part of the plan so in the end I did not swim.

Sunday was different than most Sundays. I had a swim race, probably my first swim only race of my life but I did not even consider as such. Also I don’t usually take the bike on Sundays and I rode twice, first a 90minutes till the race and then 60minutes until home. The race consisted of not even 1km, because my friend and I considered it was too short and we are not fast, we go long, we decided to swim from the finish line to the start line and then we raced. I did fairly well but with less volume I could’ve done a lot better I guess. Also before the race started I felt lazy and I did not want to get into a fight to have my spot, but once we started I got all my laziness off myself and started to race, 13:12. Then in the afternoon I went for a run. My legs felt like concrete, they were extremely stiff but I managed to make it to the minimum.

Also this week my two proposals were turned down after being approved. So at this point I don’t know what I am going to do and I went through a tough weekend all along. I was lucky enough to have a lot of training scheduled to restart fresh and careless. Sometimes people lie and sometimes things just take longer than expected. So what is it this time? Does it just take long or he lied?

I had to put a lot of mental strength to get over it and stay focus on what I have to do. I have one goal, or maybe two or even three, who knows? I do who knows my goals; I do know them and no one else. And I am not keen enough to share them yet. Maybe someday I will share them or I could just keep them to myself even if I achieve them.

Can it be that I am in one of those moments that I don’t want to happen what looks like it is going to happen? There are times where you want something and that is impossible and there are other moments where you don’t want it and it happens. Which one of them is now? Or none of them? So many times that I have been wrong that I don’t even want to know the what if.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysLaSkXi-R4

35th week of the 2011 season

153

This week went past very fast, I was sick with flu until Thursday, so there hasn’t been much training. Even though I had some argues I will not take them serious I know they try their best even though sometimes they should ask if they act correctly.

It was Friday when I rejoined my schedule, as a precaution measure I decided to cut my training by half, so I barely swam 45 minutes, I biked 1h and I ran for 15 minutes. Well it was not actually in this order, I 1^st biked outdoors, I transitioned to run and then I went to the swimming pool. I wanted to give myself a few extra hours to fully recover from the flu and since the pool opens 30minutes later and closes also 30minutes later I had time to do it this way.

On Saturday I nearly cut the plan in half as I did the day before. I biked for 3h instead of 2h and a half and I transitioned to a 15 minutes run which was already scheduled like that. During the ride I felt very good at the beginning and I actually accomplished one of the goals of the season, under 80 minutes from Platja d’Aro to Cassà through Romanyà and Caldes. On my way back it was windier and even though the way back was not as slow as I could think I did not average the same as the way out, during the run I felt slightly slow but I nearly made it in 15minutes, so nothing to be ashamed of.

On Sunday I started to work out as normal. I went to the pool for 75 minutes and then I went for a 90minutes run. During the run I was very slow at the beginning and then I started to do some speed training, 30 x 10seconds extremely fast 50 seconds easy, on my way back I was feeling faster and lighter, even at the end of the run. Even though it was very hot I enjoyed the run.

This two weeks of missing sessions are making me wondering if I will be fit enough to meet my goals, although, at this point I don’t know why I worry too much because I don’t even know if I will be able to race.

Also this week seemed that some projects that I had in mind might fall apart. I want to take them through more than I wanted before, but they will be hard to manage. It is time to do them on my own and I am not sure I will have the resources to face it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3553DGF71g

34th week of the 2011 season

153

Tough week. Probably the toughest week of the season; and one of the toughest weeks since I started training triathlon. I was not able to start de week because fever, headache and stomachache and by the end of the week I had to train under the effects of Ibuprofen because I was not feeling good either. Also, many doubts have raised and I am not finding the support that I need.

This week I did not start training on Tuesday because I was too sick to get off bed. I could barely go from the bed to the bathroom so no story to tell about it.

For some unknown reason when I planned the week I had moved the second toughest day of training to Wednesday. Well the reason is that I copied week 30 and I remember I was going to be very busy and I was not going to be able to fit everything in on Tuesday or at least that is what I thought at that time. So I started in the morning with a swim that was slightly shorter than planned but it was ok, I had been many days without swimming. Then I went to work and after that I had more than 2h on the trainer and a 1h run with hills. I just couldn’t have had a better way to come back to training with two very hard sessions. Even though I should’ve rescheduled the session to a lighter one I went ahead with it, very tough training.

On Thursday I thought on rescheduling again to put some bike into it but no changes were made. I had an easy short swim in the morning focused on technique. In the afternoon I had a 105mins run. It was very hard to run, my legs were very heavy and stiff. Luckily for me even though my stomach was not feeling good, it did not give me many problems on a complicated session like that one. Doubts started to rise here, because I had a very hard time picking up speed and I ended up being tired. Also I was having a harsh time eating. I knew I had to eat and I was doing my best but it was very hard.

Friday was even tougher my legs felt even stiffer in the morning. I felt like I could not use my legs to swim and that they were actually make me sink. Then I went to work and in the afternoon I had a fairly long but easy bike ride to loosen up. My stomach was not feeling too good.

By Saturday and started later than I wanted to. Then I had to start taking some pills for my headache and then I made a very bad decision, I decided to take a slow ride, one that is very curvy and hilly. I have had many doubts during the week and I take that decision, the ride became a nightmare. It was hot, I ran out of liquid and I had to stop to put some extra water. Everything was annoying me, my mind had plenty of thoughts and I just could not turn them into positive ones. After more than four hours and a half I transitioned to run. Luckily I did not lose much time that other runs. My stomach did not give me problems and even though I was still not good I made it through. I was even hungry after the session which this week it has been abnormal; I did not finish my food, though.

On Sunday I was feeling like shit. I had to take some pills again and when I started to swim they hadn’t even kicked in and all I wanted was to quit because I was not feeling good. In the end I finished the session and I stretched it a little bit to and instead of time based and went distance based. Then I went to run and my legs were slow, it felt like the turnover was low and in fact I did not reach the normal distance, on my way back I felt a little better but not good by far.

All these physical problems, my sense of lack of support and some talks that I have had with mates made me feel with a low self esteem. Doubts increased, will I be able not to complete the distance in the desired time, and the problem is that I have started to have doubts about completing the distance at all. I am questioning my training regimen; I am questioning everything that surrounds me.

Also during these hard moments I felt like I needed someone next to me. She came to my mind but that is impossible. Also I have tried to meet new people and it does not work either. I am losing interest on everything, I don’t even know what like means anymore and I don’t even know what I like anymore. I know it would be impossible to have one, so why do I want one now?

I have a hard time getting excited to do things, because I am not sure they will like me but how can I like something when I don’t know what “like” is anymore.

Also I am feeling that I have an age already and I have not accomplished much. I am trying hard now, but it takes time and this is what I am running low of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7DHk_MGUvc