not very calm for a taper week

Yesterday was 2 weeks out from Ironman Florida…cool!

…and for me, last week was the beginning of my ‘taper’  where I begin to trim back some of the training, to be rested and ready for the BIG day.

As it turns out, this wasn’t a very relaxed week…other life tensions, including some work issues that cropped up, added to my body/mind stress…and I’ve definitely seen over the years, that I need to factor that into my overall stress load at any point.

…my last 2 weeks before this past week were 17 and 18 hours of training, so I came into this week with some residual tiredness that actually lasted all week…my workouts felt pretty flat all week, so I shortened a few, and kept the intensity down

And even yesterday my 3 hours on the bike followed by a 1 hour run, also felt like ‘B’ level legs instead of my ‘A’ game…I was able to push out the numbers that I wanted, but for a relatively light training day, it would have ideally felt easier and smoother…so I just got it done, and glad to be finished.

A fun weekend though, catching up with two Iron buddies, Iron Jane and Iron Jana…a couple of nights of decadent dining, rousing rounds of craft beers, and many bottles of fine wines, was a fitting finale to the official end of ‘training’ 🙂

…this past week was still 13 hours of training, so not wimpy…but next week drops to 8 hours, and then in the week prior to the race 3 hours, just to keep things moving

So the trick with the ‘taper’ now is how to rest the body, let it recover from training stress, and still maintain a high level of fitness…and show up at the starting line fresh, and ready to go…this means primarily reducing the volume of training, but still keeping in the frequency and some intensity so that the legs don’t get stale

…my main ‘trick’ is to bring down my life stress along with the training stress by going down to Florida a week ahead of time

…and take a week of soft work hours, and catch up with my open water swimming at the race venue

…and my afternoon naps…have a few relaxed parties…some great dinners with friends

…and be ready to go at 4am on Race Day for the 7am swim start on November 5th

I stay at the same condo every year…right on beach…wrap around balconies…Gulf of Mexico views in all directions…and lots of elbow room to spread out.

Iron Daughter will be down for the week as well…we both get in the Saturday before the race…so that’ll be an extra bonus this year.

The end of the week before the race, Wednesday through to Saturday gets a bit busy, as folks come into town, registration lines for this year…and next…a couple of group dinners to attend, a couple of afternoon get-togethers…and staying relaxed and watching the nutrition in that last week

…and ‘hoping’ that we stay healthy…and don’t get that last-minute cold…as the body inevitably throws in phantom aches and pains for the next 2 weeks…as it’s healing, re-energizing, and rebuilding to become impossibly strong on race day

…so here we are…the culmination of a year/lifetime of training…about to put it on the line…me for the 5th time…my daughter for her 2nd…fun 🙂