IMTX Training - Week 9

This past week was Week 9 of Ironman Texas Training. This week was a radical departure from recent weeks. This week would have normally been part of my current build phase, however this past weekend included my participation in the Texas Independence Relay. While I will save the bulk of my comments on the T.I.R. for a separate post, for now let's just say that I had fun. Not your run of the mill level of fun, but LOTS of fun concentrated into somewhere around 37 straight hours of traveling fun that left me as exhausted as I have been in a long time!

Here is how this past week of training breaks down:

Swim - 8600 yards, 3:23:03
Bike - 35 miles on trainer, 1:53:03
Run - 28.3 miles, 5:16:11 (mostly, though not all, at T.I.R.)
Other - stretching specific or other training workout, 1:45:00 (I did lots of stretching at T.I.R. to help prevent injury and to try to keep from being too tight)

Overall training time 12:17:17

Well, this was not too much of a build for the build week, although I think things worked out well for unintended reasons. Starting on Tuesday it seemed I had a strange spell of minor injuries over 3 days. I think it started at my annual physical on Tuesday (btw, my lingering concern from previous years had been blood pressure inching up to the top of the normal range, it has finally come down to the range expected of an endurance athlete and while I am still awaiting lab work, everything seems great). Anyway, he gave me a sample of some allergy medicine to try out which worked very well to clear up my symptoms quickly, however I did feel some otherwise unexplained joint pain over the next few days which made moving a bit uncomfortable, though was not enough to prevent me from doing any workouts--although I did take it easy and also skipped a workout during those days. By the time Friday rolled around I was feeling fine and beginning to also feel rested for the coming weekend.

As I said before, my T.I.R. weekend was great and will be the subject of a future blog post, however I do believe that doing the T.I.R. gave me a bit of a break from my grueling training routine and reinvigorated my desire to train, which had been slowly waning a bit over the last few weeks. My next training week brings with it my longest planned bike ride to date of 110 miles. It also brings with it the halfway point of my IM training program.


75 days until Ironman Texas...