Settling down...

After yesterday's speed work my heel felt fine. Then, an hour later it started hurting when I walked. It is a really strange injury because I can run, bike and swim on it, but it hurts when I walk.

I also noticed last night and especially this morning that my legs are sore. I look and feel like an old man when I get up from sitting for any period of time, or getting out of bed. For being a well conditioned athlete I sure don't walk or feel like one. The training has pushed my legs to build and build and build to the point of extreme soreness. It then dawned on me that now is time to mentally relax, race and recover. 

For the past 4 months I've been doing well over 600 miles of training a month and building a strong endurance and speed base. I'm reflecting on last year and realized that I was in similar shape for my first race and it carried for the entire season. After that first race I didn't do much speed work or heavy weights and I took days off to recover and taper until the season ended, and I had awesome results.

I know I'm in much better running shape this year than last, I've already set an all time PB for the half marathon, beating my previous best by over 4 minutes. My biking and swimming seems at least as good as last year, although I won't know for sure until my first race. 

I don't think I need to push my training any harder and I don't think there will be anything more to gain by doing so. My guts are telling me that if I push it too much harder I'm going to break my body down and get a major injury and all my training will be for not. It would be like starting over and with my first race in just over two weeks I don't want to miss it or perform poorly.

Today I've mentally made the decision to closely monitor my body and err to the side of caution. With all the base building and speed work I've been doing, I think as long as I don't miss more than a day or two, I won't loose any fitness, which will allow my body time to heal. I'm also going to make sure I eat as well as I can, and take my supplements. I've already started to make ice and Advil my two best friends. 

After this weekend, my training schedule changes until the end of the year. My schedule is giving me much more down time for tapering and recovery. If I can make it until the end of this week without any major injuries I think I can make it until the end of the year. And then, my plan at the end of the year is to take my mileage down considerably and let my body heal and then start it up again in January. 

I remember hearing that getting faster is a 3 - 5 year journey and that if you push your body too soon before it is ready you'll injure yourself and set yourself back. I think this is true. Last year was my first year training properly and now I'm in my second year and doing nothing differently and I'm getting stronger and faster. I'm just imaging if I can stay healthy this season and have the same increase in performance next season I'll be unbelievably happy and maybe even be good enough to qualify for the Hawaiian Ironman.

It's taken me 43 years to understand that I need to be patient. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I didn't make this decision too late and that an injury doesn't spoil this years progress.

I planned on biking today but it rained all day and this evening I had a High Reunion for the Alumni that moved to Toronto. I went to St. Paul's High School in Winnipeg, a Catholic, private all boys school, run by the Jesuits. This was the first annual get together for the alumni that moved to Toronto. We had people who graduated from the 1940's up until 2003 show up. 

One thing about St Paul's is that no matter what year you graduated or your position in life, there is an incrediable sense of camraderie and acceptance. Some of the graduates have moved on to run multi nation insurance companies & banks, but if they come to one of these events they get no more respect than when they were in high school.

It was fun to see a couple of people I haven't seen in a while. After 25 years I didn't recognize them and they didn't recognize me. One of the guys told me that I'm the only one that looks in better shape now than any of us looked like in high school. I didn't expect that and it felt good. 

The one thing that hasn't changed is that most of St Paul's graduates are still crazy deep down. It was fun to finally go to event where people had more than one drink and by the end of the evening the booze was pretty much gone. There was lots of stories about teachers and getting in trouble. It was a school that still had the strap.  

The function ended by 10 pm and it was to dark to do my ride and the pool was closed. It was worth going and missing the workout. It looks like tomorrow will be a double workout.

Rest Day

2.5