Time Flies By

I realize it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted to the blog so this will serve as my two-weeklong recap and plea to those who are still reading. Between March Madness, crazy days at work, friends visiting, and of course higher intensity training, I haven’t been able to sit down and put pen to paper (or keys to screen) so I have to apologize for that. Here’s a rundown of what I’ve been up to and what other things have been stealing me away from posting.

First, the non-training recap:

Simply put, work has been extremely busy and that, combined with friends visiting, has resulted in my blog updates being placed at the bottom of the priority list. I hated to do it but sometimes life just gets in the way and we don’t have as much time to sit back and reflect. Although I guess I could have spent a little less time staring at tournament brackets or sports tickets.

March Madness is quite the time suck. At first I thought I wouldn’t care as much because Boston College was embarrassingly terrible this season, resulting in my apathy towards college basketball, but then I realized how desperately I wanted to repeat as champion of my family tournament pool. Sorry, I can’t help myself. For better or for worse, sports obsession is in my DNA and there will never be a tournament or championship that I miss. Thankfully though, the first two rounds are completed and I’ll have much more time to spend on other things. And the World Cup, aka the greatest sporting event on Earth, starts during my taper period so I won’t have to worry about compromising my training.

Now, onto the good stuff:

Training has been consistent and strong, despite my above distractions. Over the past ten days, I’ve done quite a few fitness-testing workouts to see where I am in my program. Some of these were just by coincidence but others were intentional so I know what I need to focus on in the next couple weeks before I get into the meat of my training.

Run… In the past ten days I’ve comfortably built my endurance back up to my original marathon capacity by running one 15-mile and one 16-mile run at sub 8:00 pace. Additionally, and most exciting of all, is that I’m getting closer and closer to my fitness level from high school. Last week, I did the typical three-mile loop by my house that I usually run once or twice each week, and this time I was able to shave 1:20 from my time, which is quite the feet for me since I suck at running. I never thought I would be able to run sub 6:00 miles after graduating from high school but now with this recent 6:12 x 3M time, I’m thinking I can work my way towards that before the year is over. Obviously, it doesn’t matter much for my Ironman times since I’ll be clocking somewhere around 10 minutes miles for that run but it’s still a nice little accomplishment to add to the list of things I once thought were impossible 12 months ago.

Bike… After what I thought was a fairly successful endurance test during the bike ride with the Swedes, I knew I wanted to test some of my climbing and intensity skills to measure where I was halfway through training. Long story short, I’m way beyond where I was two months ago and while I still have plenty of work to do so I can manage those tough 6-7 hour rides, I’m more confident that I won’t die on this leg of the race.

Swim… While my endurance increases, I feel like my technique is progressively getting worse with each trip to the pool. I know, I know I need to get a coach or join a Masters team but up until now, I’ve had very little desire to spend too much time on the swim since this is the one leg I’m actually not afraid of.

Overall, training is good but my life balance sucks.