After running the 1/2 Marathon, I then was programmed to run every day after for the next week. Now this must be what they call a "running" block. I was able to get through the early week sessions ok, however as the week got deeper, the session got harder. The weird thing was that it wasn't necessary harder on the body, just mentally. The sessions were not long or didn't have any quality, was just hard to get my mind going to get the job done. Finishing the week with a 2hr run in the hills was just what I needed to win the mind over body debate that was going on.
I got a further 70k's in the running legs last week and totalled just under 100k's in the 9 days straight of running. With a weekly total of 16 1/2 hours.
What gets me more is that I have more running in this week than last, however it is not daunting to say the least.
This week started well with a swim session Monday. My original plan was to get 4k of long easy k's in the arms until a mate of mine Gregory rang and we decided to do the session together. His call of 20 x 200's on a 3.20 cycle seemed reasonable enough, (I was thinking 10-15sec rest between). But no, we mixed up the sets in 4 lots of 5, some with paddles, some pull buoy, some band & some normal freestyle (That was Greg's anyway). Mine was 5 with paddles, 5 normal, 5 paddles, 5 normal. After touching the wall on an average of 2.52 per 200m, I was quite satisfied with the session, especially after how I felt during the latter stages of last week.
Another thing that has sprung to mind is starting to decide my race schedule for 2012. With most Ironmans selling out within 12 hours, and still not have even raced Kona yet (149 days away) I have to look at which races to do before I miss the boat and have a year out of Ironman. My original plan is to look at attempting 4 Ironman races next year, just finding the right races is the difficult part. I am going to head back to WA 2012 as a definite, however I would like to choose an early season race also.
With the talk of a few races being added to the calendar this part of the world, it might be a good opportunity to achieve the 4 without blowing multiple holes in the finance department!
I also must make a special mention here to a guy that I know who achieved a massive achievements. The first is Matty Lewis who after you read his blog, you will realise that not only is the guy lucky to be alive (after crashing his bike a few years back) the fact that he made the extraordinary effort to complete an Ironman is one thing, but to win his age group (i must admit I never thought he was 40!!) and qualify for Kona is one achievement that makes you realise that if you really want to achieve the dream, you can!! He made no excuses about training, he just got the job done!
A massive thumbs up Matty!! (nice race suit also!)
For me, this is another bit of inspiration to keep moving forward and ticking off those boxes. On that note, the running shoes are calling my name.
For now...
X-Man
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