Tricks of the mind...

Last year I started blogging to document my Ironman journey comeback. Then I took the blog and used software from Blurb and made a 440 page book. Last night I was reading it and realized that, performance wise, I'm miles ahead of where I was last year and last year I even started my performance training 6 week prior to this year. This year I was getting really disappointed if I had a bike ride under 30 kph. Then I noticed that last year I was only doing 27 - 28 kph and that was enough to get me to race at 36+ kph average. This year I'm disappointed if I don't run a under a 7:40 per mile pace for my tempo runs, last year I was around a 8:10 - 8:40 pace and that was enough to run a 1:46 in a half Ironman. The only thing I thought was better this year than last year was my swimming, but when I look at the book, my swimming is around the same. I still suck at swimming.

If it wasn't for me blogging and then making a book I would have thought I was not making any progress. In my minds eye I was the same or behind last years progress. I'm so glad I was able to review last years training and see that I am improving. This year I also seem to be eating all the time. I'm in the pantry all night long. My daughter said that's what I did last year and I told her "no way". Then I started reading the book and she was right, as a matter of fact I think I was eating more. Another observation was that last year doing all the workouts was mentally and physically tough. I hadn't ever put in that sort of high mileage and every new long workout was like climbing Mount Everest. I remember my first 6000 meter swim and thinking this is nuts! I would also shuffle out of bed every morning with tight leg muscles and would need a good 10 minutes for them to loosen up.  This year I'm doing the same sort of mileage and it's a piece of cake. Now my legs are rarely sore, I hop out of bed without any stiffness and the long workouts are mentally no big deal.

I'm just so happy I blogged and made a book out of it. I originally did it just to record my journey to the Louisville Ironman and have a family "Heirloom". The unexpected benefit is me getting a "reality check" when I read it. I hope to keep blogging and do a book every year. After doing my first book, which took me a lot of time to layout, I've learnt how to make it flow easier for the next one by laying out my blog a little differently.

Today's training was uneventful. I had my after dinner nap and was off to the Y at 7 pm for to start my power weight training sessions and do a long swim. The swim was slower than I would have liked it but I figured it was because I did heavy weights on my arms and I just didn't have the strength to go faster.

Weights - 45 minutes

Swim - 1:05:19 / 3100 meters