Wednesday was a great day. I had a morning 4 hour ride, a run scheduled after lunch and then an afternoon ride with some friends. I had a decent early morning ride, had to push off the run as my lunch with family ran late. I showed up for the afternoon ride and we decided to push 90 minutes in the hills. It was a great day in the saddle, but I could tell something was off. I had a slightly sore throat and was extremely tired. I went to bed hoping for the best and woke up to the bad news. I was sick.
Ironman training, at least for me, is many times conducted with a very small margin of error. We push our bodies to extremes. On a fairly regular basis. With me, I have to balance this fear of over training and injury with some of my consistent issues...Asthma and Sinus Infections. Knowing that I had a sinus infection, my Doc was good enough to call in antibiotics right away and I got started on my Z Pak that same day. I took the rest of the day off. It was extremely tough to do because it's not often that you have the ability to spend an entire week training without having to work. To be able to do that and yet be stuck in bed...well it was miserable. But remember that small margin of error I referenced? Well, I've pushed myself in that position before...the results weren't good. So this time, it was all about rest.
Friday I got out for about 90 minutes of easy spin on the bike, caught a great nap, and then finished the day with an easy 8 mile run. By Saturday I was feeling a little better. I was able to get in an 85 mile ride with decent intensity and some hills. Sunday had a 14 mile long run scheduled with a fair amount of half marathon pace work included. Coach advised me the night before that I had to back off. I cut the run to 12 miles and kept a close watch on my heart rate. I managed to keep my HR below 150 for the run and felt reasonably well. All in all, the training camp was a good success despite the illness. I had to cut out 4 workouts total due to the sinus infection. My overall totals included 285 bike miles, 25 run miles, and 4k in the pool. These totals were below my goal, but considering what I had to deal with...I'm happy.
I now have two more weeks until the Eugene Half Marathon. After EUG, I will really pick up the intensity and workload prior to tapering for Boise 70.3 I'm hoping I'll recover just fine from this infection and look forward to putting up a good time at Eugene. Thanks for reading!
-T
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