Silver saddle lining

 Today I arrived at Universal Studios for a vacation with my dad and two of my sisters. I arrived hours before them so I decided to eat at a bar by the pool which naturally led to a margarita. WholeDay30 officially over… 10 days in. The time to myself (with a little alcohol) gave me time to really think about Chattanooga 70.3 which is in a little over two weeks. I’d been debating for a while if I’d really be able to race given I’m still effectively running. Time away from work, away from training, away from day-to-day life, it’s what I needed to finally make a decision. I’m not going to race. I might still go to do the swim and bike but I haven’t decided if it’s really worth the cost to travel for a DNF. At the end of the day my main goal this year is about the full Ironman and I want to do whatever is best for that. That means not putting my body through another (after doing it twice already) race while recovering from an injury. Instead I’m going to focus on recovering and fixing all the issues with my body causing all these problems.

But instead of focusing on the fact that I won’t be racing or that I’m not running, I’m trying to look at what I am doing. This is giving me an opportunity to focus on riding more and improve my cycling fitness. I road 5 out of the last 6 days. I road 13 hours, over 200 miles. That’s the most I’ve ever ridden in that time frame. None of the rides were nice relaxing efforts either. Each day had serious efforts, several days had max efforts. My legs are done. It’s tiring to walk up stairs and I don’t the energy to do the public bathroom toilet hover. My special place hurts to the point where I’d whimper while sitting on the bike seat and I’ve debated about going commando all day.

 

And you know what? It’s all worth it. I’m seeing real progress in cycling and for a while I’ve considered myself a weak cyclist. Today at the end of my last ride, which was a long ride, I did a 20 minute hard tempo effort and I was 10 watts higher than the first time I did an all-out 20 minute power test 6 months ago. So yea, it’s been a lot more cycling than my body is used to this past week but I’m damn proud of where I’m come. Of course that bubble got burst the minute I looked at the bike camp schedule in 3 weeks… oof that’s going to hurt.