On occasions that seemingly happen far too rarely to let them pass by, someone comes into our lives that immediately grabs our full and complete attention. A couple of weeks ago one of those people showed up in my life. Everyone say hi to Lori :)
The ironic thing is that we almost never met....After seeing my blog, one of my musings really seemed to jump out at her: Ironman is a lifestyle, not a sport. As she put it, if I recall correctly, a very very disciplined lifestyle....Well, in some ways she's right, and as she's finding out, in some ways not so much....Life doesn't always revolve around triathlon (if I keep saying it enough maybe it'll come true)....
I'm always fascinated by peoples' perceptions when it comes to IM training, even my own family's. It's easy for people not familiar with the sport to assume that training for an event like ironman requires living life like a professional athlete, and doing nothing but training for hours and hours every day. As a lot of people new to the sport find out very quickly, that's a recipe for ending up overtrained, burned out and injured....thus the principles of periodization, measuring intensity with heart rate, rest weeks, etc....but I digress......
As I've mentioned before, tri training is one big juggling act. In fact, it's the ultimate in cross training, trying to fit 9 workouts into 6 days (I most definitely need one day off). The key for me is getting all of my workouts onto my calendar at the beginning of the week and seeing where else the rest of my life fits - work, friends, family, finances, reading, relaxing, contribution.....Does that mean that the workouts are my top priority? Hmmmm....interesting question that I sometimes ponder; yet, I always seem to come back to the same conclusion: There's a really really nice thing about scheduling in pencil - flexibility.....
Ok, now back to our regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.....
I'm definitely enjoying the shorter workouts of the rest week. Last night was a 30 minute run on the treadmill. Fortunately we have really nice treadmills that have heart rate control - simply put in the target heart rate and the rest is automatic....the treadmill speeds up and slows down to keep hr constant - gotta love modern technology. I did 30 minutes with the target hr set at 155, ending up going a bit over 3 1/2 miles with an average hr of 149.
This morning I almost took the whole flexibility concept too far. I had a 30 minute form ride on the trainer scheduled. It's so easy to justify moving or blowing off a shorter workout that I don't want to do anyway, especially at 6 am. I found myself thinking that I'll be home from the pool by 8:30 tonight and will get in the ride then. What are the odds of me actually putting my bike on the trainer tonight after swimming? Yip, you guessed it - no chance in hell.
Fortunately one of my beliefs is that if there's something I really don't want to do, than it's something that I probably really need to do (think swimming practice twice per week). So.....I dragged myself onto my bike and got in this morning's workout:
15 minute gearing pyramid (19-14), 3x2 ilt and a couple minutes of easy spinning to cool down.
Of course I felt great (and awake) after the workout, and am proud of myself for sucking it up and getting it done.
I guess Lori's right (something tells me I'm going to be saying that a lot), ironman is a very, very disciplined lifestyle....except when it's not.....
Live with purpose.....Enjoy the adventure.....
9 months ago
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