4th week to frankfurt

This week led to the first race of the year. I had considered this race as a B+ priority race, which means that I wanted to do well as always but I was coming a little rested into it and I would have changed my daily routine for it.

The week was supposed to be easy and it was fairly easy although there were ups and downs that made it a little difficult.

Because it was a resting week I had planned to do my tests plus getting ready for the marathon. I had two tests on Wednesday which they turned out to be completely opposed to what I was expecting. The first one was the bike test and I was 5 watts below the last test which that was very bad, it meant no improvement plus some loss. When I analyzed the previous days I had realized that I did not come with the same rest as the previous test, plus I thought I scored some results which they were actually higher so that did not help either, so after the analysis I don’t consider it to be a real loss. In the afternoon I did my swim test of the 3x300m and I actually swam faster than ever before. I had not done this test for a long time and I did not have any near reference but it was amazing because I was faster that I had even expected, that was a boost in my morale.

During Thursday’s running session I started to feel better and that was also a boost, but the race was still yet to come and it is a very long race and it is faster, plus I had only raced a solo marathon once, 4 years ago, so the routines are slightly different from a triathlon, the pace is faster and the competition is just different. I was gaining confidence even though I had been worried and nervous.

So it comes to race day. It was very cold, colder than expected and trained. Temperature at the start of the race was around 0ºC. I start the race and I feel fairly good, there is a group of 5 that take the lead, I am the last one of them, we opened a gap in the 1^st two Km and we leave the road to start running on the trail, I feel good and I know the guy next to me is going to drop soon I can hear his breath and it is tough, the first 3 guys are gone, we keep overtaking one each other until km6 six where I take the lead and by km 7 I opened a gap. I was running alone, form this moment onwards I knew I could not fail to come in 4^th, it was in my hands. I reach my town and I see my family, they are extremely quiet and far away, although it was new to them to see me run, I wave at them and I keep focused. After that I started to feel some soreness on my quads, I could not believe it but it was not slowing me down yet. By the time I reach the half marathon I feel lonelier than ever I don’t see anyone ahead of me nor behind me. On my mind I was thinking that I was the only one who could screw it up. I start to feel a little more soreness in my legs and but I am still fine. I enter Llagostera and I feel pumped again I was still running on target but it started to be harder to keep up with the pace, there was no one around me and the km ran started to pay off. I start the downhill and my legs are getting worse I have the 1^st thought of willing to walk at some point and I tell myself that from that point my mind needs to lead me to the end, it is km 30 where fear for the wall starts to kick in. I keep on pushing, not as good as before but I am still there, I start to need more energy and I think that I will change my energy intake a little bit. I will need to make use of that extra gel that I was carrying. I keep on running and we start to go a bit uphill, all I could think at that moment were how many km were left, there were still 6km to go. I was not feeling fresh but they tell me that the guy in front of me is not having his best moment and he is not that far ahead of me, deep down I know that we were all exhausted, but I push to see if I can catch him. I reach the top of the hill and my legs are very sore but it is only 2 more km to go. I slow down a little bit during the downhill and then I pick up the pace again. In the end I finished 4^th 2minutes behind the 3^rd and I scored a PB of 2h48m11s.

On Wednesday there was a change in my life, something that I had wanted for a long time and that makes me happy. Since Wednesday I don’t feel as irritated as before and I feel more confident. Some of the fears went away. I hope I can make it work this time, I am willing to do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWAdb1vgoik

3rd week to frankfurt

I am glad to say that I have been able to make it through this week, it has been a very challenging week and I hope it will help me in the future and that I learn from it.

This week I had a little bit of all the bad things that can happen to screw up a training week. I have had to miss a session and reschedule, I have not felt good, myself esteem is very low, I even was able to enjoy some left foot discomfort that has been with me for a couple of weeks and my mind was not focus, I hope I am not missing anything because the list is quite bad.

I started the week pretty happy because I was about to start the last week with weights. So yes I am done with my weight lifting program for the season or at least until IM Frankfurt, I am quite excited to see some results to the hard work and now it is time to convert all this training into performance.

But everything started to get complicated on Tuesday, that’s the day that a one hour meeting became in an awful all afternoon meeting. The meeting itself was not the best but it is not only that the problem is that it though off all my week. I had to reschedule so the rest between strength training had to be shifted to have less rest so I could fit in the missing session as it was a very important session for the upcoming marathon and that meant that I was not fully recovered for the series on Friday and I was flat out for Saturday’s ride.

This week I started to feel that my legs were not fresh from the beginning but they just went to worse. Also my low self-esteem was set to the roof and since then I have not felt good physically and mentally. On Wednesday I had to pull off the water after only half the session because I was cold and I was not feeling very well. Something similar also happened on Thursday and I have been taking pills to feel better and I don’t like this at all.

And just when I thought it just couldn’t get any worse we had a cold Saturday where I had to wear the long tights and they are tide, I could not go very fast, my legs did not have enough juice to go fast and I met a cycling team from Poland that I joint a little bit and it was a disaster when we headed a port, they were one month away from the beginning of the season and I have just started to train 3 weeks ago towards the first tri goal of the year, I just could not feel more humiliated. I could not produce any wattage at the beginning of the climb and they just left me behind with ease.

Next week will be very important, I need to overcome the adversities and be ready to race. I need to raise my readiness and race spirit. I need to want to do well and then perform. There are some aspects that I still need to work on but the physical work is mostly done.

Sometimes I don’t understand you, the inputs that I get are contradictory and I am confused, well right now I am devastated, confused is not the word anymore. I don’t understand your actions with your words and I don’t know how much time is time. I know what a month is but not what time is. I feel bad with the situation in a very bad moment of the season this is not good. I know what I want but I don’t think I am ready to fight for it when I only hit a wall. I am getting tired of hitting this wall, it is too hard and I just hope that it is not a payback. I understand that I might not be the most trustworthy person but this is who I am and I tried to make it better but you did not want it anymore. I wish I still had some hope.

Next Sunday I have a race finishing in St Feliu, it would mean a lot to me if I could see you at the finish line. There are a lot of changes that I would like to do to my life but they depend whether you are there or not.

Let’s pump up to get those legs and mind ready to face this 26.2mi race ahead of me. It will be a fast one probably I hope I am ready and I hope I can focus and forget about the rest, I have a week ahead of me to achieve it, time to get psychologically ready, the battle will be hard and I want to make.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WaazNvsI-I

2nd week to Frankfurt

The second week of the plan is over. I am still highly motivated although I have had my ups and downs already and this is just the beginning when legs still don’t hurt much at the end of the workout but this is the foundation to build on.

The first strength training of the week felt surprisingly good but the second one because of the rush it did not feel so easy, I am still in my maximum strength phase and I am still doing the exercises although for the last two weeks I have increased when rep per set.

I am still easy on the bike, I have completed 4 sessions of different lengths but they felt good enough, it is still very early in the season for the bike so all I have to do is to build endurance. It is never easy to put 2 solid hours on the trainer but this is what it takes.

I am still not swimming as much as I would like to but having a marathon in the near horizon and having 2 sessions of strength training per weeks makes it difficult to fit in the swim, at the same time if the pool decides to be on holiday the day that I have chosen to swim it just makes it a little more difficult. I wanted to do 3 sessions but since I could not do the third session and there was a mistake in my second session plan I ended up doing two long swims and a test in one of them, it was an 800m test and I did it fairly well.

The sport in which I might have had a huge difference of feelings from the beginning of the week to the end of it has been the run. I started off very solid with two runs in two days that I thought they were pretty good runs but then at the end of the week I did not feel so well, maybe because it was windy I did not feel that I was working enough and I don’t like that specially when the marathon is around the corner.

I am not sure if my good feelings are due to the more rest that I get or that I am just training better and smarter. I am putting many more hours of sleep this year and that must be good. The quality of my sleep is still not perfect and I wish I would sleep better but at least I am sleeping more, but it is still too early to come to a conclusion.

My mind is still not completely where it should be. There are still too many thoughts and too much insecurity. I want and I need inner peace and I am not having it and I am not having it because there are still chapters of my life that need to be foreclosed or reopened but being nearly closed is not an option. There are too many inputs that make me think too much and it ain’t good. I am happy on what I am doing but of course I could be happier, I am missing something that I wish I had been understood, but I cannot control all aspects of my life because not all of them depend on me. But I am grateful that I am coming clean. Some time ago I wouldn’t have said any of the things that I have said this past week but my credibility is too low so too bad. Thanks anyway to the person who taught me that one needs to be open and say whatever it feels right because it pays off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ovcNw8xr64

1st week to Frankfurt

It's been a very long time since I lost wrote an entry to this blog, I have had enough time to complete another IM distance triathlon and to do some damage.

But here it is a new season, here are new goals and here are some goals that have not been met yet.

I will be training for the Ironman European Championship in July and in the meanwhile I will be taking part of some shorter races around me that I will feel like doing.

So, I have just finished my first week of training, let me clarify that it is the first structured week because I had been putting some weights in my prep time to get ready, and even though the intensity is mild it was hard to go through it. I have had 10 sessions of training in which 2 of them were weights and I rode the bike for more than 1h for the first time in more than a month.

Even though It is the beginning of the season I have a marathon in three weeks time and that changes the schedule a little bit. I should be training at low intensity and jut putting miles on my legs and arms but if I want to do well in the marathon I have to put some extra work on my running and alternating series with weights is tough. What the hell!!! What am I complaining here I want to be an IM so what is wrong that I have to do series? I will be exchanging weights for hard days on the bike but I guess my overall fitness will be better by then.

Since last year I learnt a lot and now my mind is focused on two things. I clearly was not ready to balance 3 or 4 aspects of my life and that took a lot of energy from me. So this time I will try to focus on these 2 aspects and try to forget the rest.

Sure it will be hard to forget the rest when there are still open wounds. But I said it long time ago and I meant it and I mean it now again, I want to focus on these two aspects and I am ready. Sure I would have wanted to be able to juggle 3 balls but I can only do two at a time because the third does not only depend on me and my needs are not the same of others.

So out of the 3 possibilities that I had to choose of the third ball I think I ended up with the most convenience one for me even though it was not preferred one, but it was all or nothing because the 3^rd option was not given to me, that would have suited it me perfect but since I could not choose it I am happy with my decision and I will try to stick to it.

I must admit that I have been a little irritated these past few weeks, I would like to apologize but the stakes are high and I don’t know if I will be able to meet them. Anyway I am committed to my actions and in case that someone is not happy, there is always a way out.

I might not be titanium but here it is the song for the post. I was nearly broken down but I am not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqiD0TZsPCw