10 weeks...

With less than ten weeks until Hawaii, the focus becomes more centered, the training more strict, and the shedding the peripheral things that might keep me from getting better.  Throughout these next weeks, each week is designed with different goals.  With that in mind, I will do my best to put a brief post each week highlighting my focus.  

This past week the goal was rejuvenation.  I've been very complacent the past 2 weeks or so with my workouts.  The tough part of training for an Ironman is the delicate balance of pushing yourself to the brink without overtraining.  I've been overtraining as evident by my lack of enthusiasm in completing my workouts.  That's a very dangerous place to be.  Part of it is sleep, partly work, partly not recovering well enough.  Overtraining does not occur with the same workload for everyone, all the training plans I look at and reading I do to set up my training plan tell me more is better.  And I’ve been pushing myself to do as much as possible in the confines of work schedule and holding back at times to avoid injury. 

Fortunately a part of my work schedule that was busier this week and would inevitably knock out a training weekend with 3 overnight weekend emergency room shifts was this weekend.  Since I would lose out on any high-quality training this weekend anyway, it gave me a good opportunity to let the weekend go from a big training day and just do a few shorter light workouts.

Now this upcoming week will be working on getting a couple good runs in and one of two long day workouts where I go long in all three disciplines.  After the long Saturday workout, I will be giving myself the day off entirely on Sunday, something I set as a goal for myself to do once every three weeks, but really haven’t taken any days fully off.  My off days to this point have been light lifting workouts which to me is pretty much the same as a day off, except perhaps mentally not workout out may have prevented the mental stagnation I’ve had for the past couple weeks. 

PSA

Just a quick reminder to ALWAYS wear your bike helmet, no matter the distance or type of ride. As a doctor I do regularly tell my patients to wear their bike helmets but this was all too often preached more than practiced as I skipped the helmet for the freedom of the wind flowing through my locks when commuting on my mountain bike and saved my helmet for the more serious riding during a workout.  This was until this spring when I regularly got scolded by a friend and colleague (thanks Rob) who would ask if I wore my helmet each day and then a month working in the ER seeing patient after patient come in after getting hit by a car to have gravel picked out of the head or a scalp laceration repaired or sadly, in the case of one, a skull fracture all because they chose not to wear their helmet.  I thought I was impervious to getting hurt while going at the relatively lower speeds and easy maneuverability that my mountain bike has to offer. 

A bike I saw in the ER after a head on collision by two bikers on the Lake Shore Path. Fortunately these guys both had their helmets on..

Just over a week ago I biking to work on one of the really hot days (95ish) and was slowing down to stop at an intersection between a car going straight and the one turning right with ample room between them.  As I approached the stopped cars going no more than 3 mph, I hit a pothole I didn’t see, my sweaty palm slipped off the handlebar and I hit the pavement shoulder first followed by head and knee.  My head was fine (thanks to my helmet) but my shoulder and bike were both slightly injured.  The bike suffered a bent derailleur and my shoulder suffered a 1^st degree AC sprain (not very serious and I hope should get better with time).  Even though I log about 150-200 miles per week on a bike, the fall during such a simple task of approaching a stoplight was a good reminder that an accident can happen at any time.