Medical Tent

I’ve had a very productive weekday training week. My coached stated that is was supposed to be an easy week, something that I thought I needed considering the high volume of training I put in over the past couple of weeks. However, upon looking at the schedule, I saw nothing easy about it except for some reduced mileage on the bike workouts. My schedule went from a total cycling distance of 148 to 105; basically midweek I went from 24 to 20 and tomorrow I will go from 100 to 85. Other than change in distance the workouts themselves were just as hard as they have always been.

Today I swam sets of 20 x 50 yards, 20 x 100 yards and 10 x 50 yards on 10 seconds rest with a 400 and 300 warm up and cool down. It took me 1:14:00 and I felt pretty snappy in the water. I think part of my snappiness can be attributed to the fact that my lane was invaded by a bunch of newbie triathletes while I was in the middle of my workout. Subconscientiously , I must have pushed myself harder to show them how a real triathlete swims – with speed grace and sense of purpose. I have reached a sort of Zen with the water. I will never move through it with the speed of a dolphin, but I am happy enough with my swimming technique that I no longer fret about it.

My run was very strong. Actually, what I should say was my mental focus was very strong. My legs are definitely fatigued. However, I ran my 4 x 1 mile intervals with alacrity and purpose. I remember thinking that it was feeling hard to run at the pace I was maintaining, but the more difficult it felt, the harder I pushed myself. My HR felt like it was higher than my monitor was indicating, but I think that was my body telling me that it was tired. I did not allow those signals to slow me down. I ran the 1800 yard intervals (40 yards over 1 mile) in paces of 7:26, 7:12, 7:04 and 7:40 respectively – add 10 seconds to each pace to find the 1800 yard times.

I was discussing my new found sense of training purpose with my coach. He pointed out that I really have reached a new level of training. I can now push myself through fatigue and maintain a high level of intensity. Previously, I would have backed off or been unable to maintain the intesity.

He pointed out that finishing Ironman Lake Placid fast was more important to me than the fear of blowing up and DNF’ing. This is definitely true. I no longer care about finishing an Ironman. I only care about finishing it fast. I would rather risk a DNF, than finish slower than my potential.

Earlier in the week during my previous 1 mile sprint sessions, I kept myself running hard by repeating the phrase “Medical Tent”. It was my visualization of me crossing the finish line at a fast past and collapsing as I crossed the line. I am looking forward to racing the whole thing hard and leaving nothing out on the course. I imagine I will be hurting badly once I cross the line and I look forward to that feeling with intense anticipation.