Let the Taper Begin!

The time has finally come. I have completed my final grueling training weekend of my Ironman training. Whew. As of today there are 25 days until the big race. Wowser!

The Big Weekend

Not worth going into much detail about the weekend. The 20-mile run went well. I stayed in zone 2 the whole way and averaged 11 min/miles with my one-minute walk breaks every mile.

It was a nice day on the W&OD trail. Temps in the 60s with occassional drizzle. I came 'this close' to bringing a kitten home with me. But the cute little baby didn’t want to run the 2 miles back to the car with me.

Afterwards I did everything I could think of to mitigate the effects of the run to prepare for the next day’s ride. I stretched. I sticked. I ice-bathed. I got lightly massaged. I ate well.

I think my efforts paid off, but I was still sore the next day. Not as bad as it could have been, but my calves were screaming!

Sunday morning’s 5 am wakeup came quickly. The ride was out in Easton, Maryland - is about 90 minutes from home. The plan was to do 120 miles (though Ironman is only 112). We were supposed to do 27 miles out and back (54 miles roundtrip) twice (total of 108) and I guess find another 12 miles somewhere.

As often happens, I wound up riding alone. Not surprisingly, I was the slowest of the IM FL bunch again. No big deal. I wasn’t too far behind until the last 27-mile stretch when my calf pain became very intense in my right leg. For a while I thought my popliteus injury (the area behind my knee) had returned. After a while I realized that it was just the pain in my calf shooting up my leg. Ouch.

When I returned to the starting point at 109 miles (I added some distance when I circled waiting for a drawbridge to go down) I called it a day. During that last part I realized that if it were race day I could have cranked it out and gotten it done. But during this training ride I decided that it was better to stop than to push forward and make it worse.

Again I reminded myself that when race day comes, I will be on rested legs and I will kick butt. I didn’t let the shortcoming of the day bother me (too much).

Special thanks to my own personal sherpa who rode at my slow pace with me for a half hour of his 2-hour ride and then drove around for almost 6 hours looking after me. Oh yeah, and he drove me to and from the ride. Pretty awesome to have that kind of support. Thank you!

Fortunately, the day after was a holiday. What a blessing! It was so nice to sleep late and take a midday nap. I was definitely feeling the effects of the training weekend and about ten times I said how glad I was that I wasn’t at work.

Moving Forward

As I mentioned in my long post last week, this taper doesn’t look much of like a taper to me. I know it will be good, though. At least I don’t have any run/ride weekends longer than 12/50. I remember when that would be huge. Now it isn’t too big a deal. And no, I won’t blow off the workouts.

It looks like we’ll be swimming 90 minutes twice a week for the next couple of weeks. I wasn’t expecting that since the Lake Placid folks swam 90 minutes once/week for 6 weeks. So this morning I swam the full time and it was actually pretty good.

Looking ahead
Friday I head to Bermuda (yay!!!!) where I will complete the Round the Sound swim on Sunday. It is as good an opportunity as any for me get in the ocean and practice. Lucky for me, one of the distances offered is the same 2.4 miles I will swim at Ironman. Wish me luck!

Now I need to start thinking about what to pack and how to prepare myself for the day. I really can’t believe how quickly time is flying by. I’m excited about the race and I’m am really looking forward to completing this journey.