Ironman brain

9 days until my first Ironman. The countdown is officially in the single digits holy shit it's so close! This past week has seemed like a bit of a roller coaster of feeling exhausted and feeling better. Feeling really slow and sluggish and feeling light on my feet. 9 days is still a long way to go for my body to finish recovering. Recently I've had a handful of days of complaining about being so tired again. Of course that is followed with a day of work where all I can think about is crawling under my desk and sleeping. My brain really does feel fried when my body is tired. Just like my sisters tell me how pregnancy brain is a real thing, Ironman brain is a real thing. To give some examples of the dumb things I've done over the last few months:

• I tried to put my dirty dish into the oven instead of dishwasher
• I walked out of the shower only using shampoo and forgot to condition hair, body wash and shave
• I used the hashtag #androadintoaditch .... road, not rode
• I found my phone in the kitchen sink
• I put the new container of almond milk in the sink
• I tried locking my keys in the car
• I put my car into reverse to back out of the garage, then realized I never opened the garage door

There seems to be a trend of doing dumb things right after finished training which is why they happen in the kitchen, shower or car. Hopefully my husband doesn't take my keys away from me after reading this. I joke sometimes when he comes home from work on a Friday after I've trained all day that he should just be happy I didn't set the house on fire. 

Recently I've been thinking back to the last several months. About all the hard work, long hours, frustrating short runs, swims where I can't hit my pace. The negative workouts aren’t what I focus on anymore though. I remember all the long hours on the bike and how I can stay strong (with the help of some caffeine) for 6 hours. I remember all the climbing rides I’ve done and how I feel confident climbing and descending. I remember how far I’ve come in only the last month with running. It wasn't that long ago my runs weren't longer than 30 minutes. I think about the few races I have done, how well they went. I think about the dumb things I’ve done with a foggy brain because it makes me laugh at myself. I don’t want to take any of this too seriously. At the end of the day I do all of this because I find joy in it.

So right now I’m holding onto all the positive thoughts best I can and trying to let my body recover best I know how with lots and lots of foam rolling, eating veggies (with a side of unhealthy crap) and sitting on the sofa (or floor). This morning I finally realized that I've crawled myself out of that deep deep fatigue hole and now my muscles are simply tired from the day to day training. Now I'm trying really really hard to shut my brain off and stop thinking about triathlons because I'm so close to the race where thinking about it can make me want to throw up. I'm so excited about this race but as the same time I'll admit... I'm nervous. 

Let the taper begin

I think I’ve typed the words “so tired” more than any other phrase to Katie these last few weeks. “I’m so tired”, “My legs are so tired”, “My brain is so tired”. I’m now less than 3 weeks out from an Ironman. I’m supposed to be tired! Knowing I’m supposed to be this tired does help. I enjoyed reading the threads on the Facebook Ironman Louisville page about how everyone feels right now. My favorite being “IM peak training can lead to horrible body aches, random uncontrollable tears and hangry action towards family members.” Umm… CHECK, almost, and check.

Horrible body aches: Oh the pains. So many pains. I thank my body every day for not being injuries but that does not mean I’ve been pain free.  New pains are constantly popping up or old pains return. For the most part they all go away though. I might have had a bunch of injuries this year but I am so thankful that my body is holding out right now when I need it the most.

Random uncontrollable tears: I’ve had several moments where I’ve come close to crying about the stupidest things. Exhaustion had taken over and when something goes wrong, it brings me to the brink of tears. Or even when I’m just really hungry and can’t figure out what to eat when I want to EAT ALL THINGS! This would bring us to…

Hangry actions: I’m sorry Bill, I really am. This is why I like to plan out meals ahead of time. When I’m hungry, my brain shuts down. I can’t think clearly and I become irrational. It’s in everyone’s best interest that I never be hungry.

What’s worse is that the people in your life, they don’t understand. They don’t get why you are so tired. Sure they know it’s got to be tired to ride your bike for 6 hours and then do a long run the next day but they don’t reallllly understand. No one does unless they have been through it themselves. They don’t get why you aren’t super chipper and happy and why you want to sit on the couch (or lay on the floor) in silence for hours and not move with the exception of occasionally digging into your muscles to get them to calm down. And when you do move because you can’t sit for that long without your body freaking out, why you are moving slower than a 2-year-old going up the stairs. The deep, deep exhaustion takes everything out of you. It’s amazing how this level of physical fatigue even takes your brain over as well. Ironman brain is a real thing!

This past weekend was my last BIG weekend of training before starting my taper… FINALLY! Most people talk about how they hate to taper but I’m looking forward to it. My body is ready but now it needs to recover and shed some of this deep fatigue. I’m sure in about 2 weeks I’ll be going crazy but right now I’m happy it’s taper time. I had my second and last 100-mile bike ride and it went really well! I even got to wear my new surprise thank you gift which I’m in love with. It’s so pretty!! I did an OWS swim race on Saturday and that didn’t go as well as I hoped. I wanted to do this “race” so I could experience swimming 2.4 miles straight in open water. Straight OWS swimming feels so different than swimming the same distance in the pool especially with stopping at the wall between sets. So not the best swim but at least I feel more prepared having experienced the distance before IM. Yesterday I did my longest run ever. I did just over 16.2 miles so that I could tell myself it would be less than 10 miles to go. It’s all about the mental games. The run went really well and I’m feeling much more confident about the run portion now. My body isn’t exactly thrilled about running that far but I’m managing. So now I’m back to being so tired and wanting to sit on the couch and do nothing all day and going back and forth between wanting to eat everything and not wanting to look at food. Clearly I’m ready to taper.

Long training weekend

I don’t often go into details about my training but this was a long weekend of solid training and I feel like sharing. Read on if you are interested and feel free to close the browser if nothing sounds more boring. Friday I did my first 100 miler ride! It was great. The weather seemed perfect to me. Compared to the normal 90+F cloudless sky days, I was thrilled to be riding in the rain with strong wind. It was cool and no sun and that make me so happy. I had no issues hitting all my numbers and I still felt strong at the end of 100 miles. I even had a good run off the bike. The next day I had a long run. Now at this stage my long runs should probably be longer but I’ve been slowly coming back from injury. I was very happy with the fact that I finished a two hour run which is the longest/furthest I’ve gone since NOLA 70.3 in April. That’s a big step for me. The run wasn’t particularly fast and it was very tired given the training from the day before but I held strong. I didn’t let the fatigue wear on me and mentally, that’s something I know I need to hold onto right now. For the first time my thoughts changed from “how the hell am I going to do a marathon after swimming and riding ALL DAY” to “… I can do this”. Another big step for me. Although I’m still wondering how the hell I’m going to do this.

I ended the run at my in-law’s house where we made “gravy” aka tomato sauce, not to be confused with the brown stuff you put on mashed potatoes. Every year the Italian family gets together in NJ to make a years’ worth of gravy for everyone. This was the first time they did it in SC by themselves and also the first year I participated. Participated is a loose term as in between helping I laid on the truck bed or pool chair trying to give my legs a break. After several hours of that, we headed home to head right back out to go couch shopping. Finally, at the end of the day I was able to get off my feet which I should have done many many hours earlier. I was hurting. But before I could sit on the couch, a quick swim. Sunday was an easier day with a swim and strength. Even for being a not very challenging swim, it was a struggle because I WAS SO TIRED!

Since Monday was Labor Day, it meant I opened my schedule for more training. I got a 4 hour tempo ride on my schedule based on HR. This made me nervous as my HR is always low on the bike and I knew I’d have to put in a strong effort to ride in that range. I got up early to make sure I was riding as soon as the sun was up to beat as much of the heat as possible (ug it’s still summer). Unfortunately, my HR strap had decided sometimes between the run I did on Friday and my Saturday run to stop working. I assumed it was the watch but apparently not. So I once again tried another strap. Nope. I then pulled out a crappy strap that came with my first running watch which was mostly made of hard plastic. After sitting on the ground wearing three HR straps on the verge of tears (because I’M SO TIRED), I finally got the old shitty one to work. I couldn’t seem to shake the grumpy mood from the HR monitor issue with sounds ridiculous but when you are tired, your brain is not functioning properly. The ride was hard. I had to ride a bit harder than I excepted and all I wanted to do was quit. My legs were so unhappy about having to ride at all, let alone ride at this harder effort for several hours. I felt like I was riding a 70.3 but it felt more tiring. All I wanted to do was soft pedal home and not move for hours. I went on for a long time thinking about quitting and yet my legs kept chugging away. Even my PowerBars were giving me a hard time as this box contained some messed up bars which were 100% stuck to the plastic forcing me to scrap at it with my teeth and pick out the plastic I was eating. A bag of chews dropped out of my jersey so I swung back to pick them up and text my husband I was still alive. I do this during all my longer rides so he knows I’m safe, especially since a cyclist had been killed earlier in the week by a driver on one of the roads I ride often. Although his response was simple, it picked me up mentally. It was the boost I needed. I started thinking more positively and started riding a bit stronger. I was riding my bike on a pretty morning on a Monday instead of being at work. And here my husband was home working on the house like the awesome husband he is while I was "gallivanting" as he puts it. What did I have to be unhappy about? Other than dropping the chews AGAIN at some point which I think is the 5^th pack I’ve lost during rides this summer. I was very happy to be done with the ride when I got home though. I slowly changed into running gear and headed back out the door for another run off the bike, this time not feeling nearly as great as Friday. This morning I continued to trash my legs on a run after struggling to get myself moving in the pool again. My legs are toast.

So training is going well overall. Some days it’s great, other days it straight up sucks. Most days it's just work. In the end I know it will all be worth it. It’s all part of the journey.