I've been experiencing the ups and downs of training in a pretty hard week followed by a pretty good week.
Just over two weeks ago I had my birthday but for some reason I still felt full when it was time for dinner. I put it down to my body still working on the mid-afternoon meal, although it did seem to be taking its time. So I pretty much ended up skipping dinner.
The following day we went out to Orana Park for the day to see the animals. We hadn't been there in a few years so I was looking forward to it. Because we spent all day there I missed another meal, and lunch was a bit smaller than usual. Plus I may have dehydrated a little as well.
On the Sunday I had my long training session for the week, in this case 100km on the bike. I got through the ride in reasonably good shape but it left me feeling very tired. Plus as usual I didn't hydrate enough.
The next few days were really hard, I was feeling dog tired and struggling to stay awake during the afternoons. It took until Thursday until I started feeling human again.
It was bad enough that I thought maybe I needed to revise my nutrition since my training is increasing, so I went through the numbers again. It turned out I was still eating enough, which is when it dawned on me that I'd missed a couple of meals.
I'm not sure if missing meals is what kicked it off, or maybe I'd picked something up. Perhaps the flu injection I had earlier in the year was turning something nasty into something mild. I don't know. But after revising the numbers I felt relaxed that I would come right, which I did.
The past week has been a breeze by comparison even though the training hasn't been much different. Of course, I have a repeat of that 100km ride tomorrow so we'll see what happens.
But last weeks ride - a hard 80km with a couple of shortish climbs, went very well as I actually managed to hydrate a lot better than usual. That is something I need to get used to as I'm still in a short-ride mindset where you can afford to carry less fluid. But when you're exercising a lot during the week, then going out for a long session in the weekend, you need to be a bit more careful. I need to get back into the habit of weighing myself before and after.
On another note I had a good swim session last night. I've been changing my technique a bit after reading a few things and thinking about them, and it seems to be helping. I'm not making huge strides but together with the strength training the little differences are adding up and the crucial change is that my breathing is much more relaxed.
A Race Coming Up
I'm starting to get a little nervous now about my upcoming race, the Rolf Prima Half Ironman. It looks like my leg won't be quite ready to run a half marathon so I'll either do the run as a run / walk or simply plan to pull out after 10 or 15km and call it more of a swim / bike / transition training session.
I am disappointed about this but as it's a "B" race it's not too bad. But I do want to be able to actually push myself and race a 70.3 reasonably hard some day.
The thing I'm most worried about is what the temperature of Lake Hood is going to be. I don't like cold water!
As far as the race goes I would prefer to finish so I'll probably go with the run/walk plan. I wonder if I could still beat my Wanaka Half time... which I think would have exceeded the cutoff for this race. I'm thinking about smashing the bike section a bit harder than I otherwise would because the run is going to be so sedate.
