On A Roll

I feel like I'm back to Ironman training lately... even though I do not have an Ironman on my schedule!? I would say that it's weird but the reality is that the "long" stuff coach had me doing in prep for Cabo wasn't really that long. After ~7 months with him now I've learned that he's clearly a believer in stacking moderately hard days back to back to back to back. To back. Or something like that. So now even though I'm only training for a 70.3, my recent weekly schedules have just looked like those same moderately hardish days back to back. And honestly, all my best 70.3's have come when I was training for an Ironman...

It has occurred to me recently that there's definitely been a shift in what type of training scares me. As in, not many sessions scare me at all anymore. Not even the 4 day blocks coach likes to give... the ones that go swim/bike/bike, then run/swim/run, then long bike, then long run. I had that block on my schedule last week and it occurred to me (while I was happily cruising through the long run) that the first time I tried that block back in January, I failed miserably. The 2nd time (February) I made it through but it put me in a bit of a hole. Last week I saw that block show up again and I didn't even blink! Pretty cool. Not that it was easy or anything but I got through it just fine and sent an email to coach all proud of myself something about feeling great and all systems go, etc. Maybe I should have known better because an hour later I opened my Training Peaks account and saw that instead of just an easy swim on Monday, like I expected, I had hard swim, 3 hour bike with intervals, then run OTB. HA! I almost fell off my chair. Then I looked at today (swim/run hill repeats/bike) and tomorrow (bike/run Tantalus) with my jaw dropped open like maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut about feeling good. WHEN will I learn??

But the thing is, I'm on a roll. I really do feel good! Monday was one of the most solid training days I've had in a long time. And jogging off for hill repeats this afternoon I was shocked at how light and easy it felt. When is the last time I've felt like that on the 6th day in a row of such solid work?! Seriously, never happened before. 

I can tell I'm near the edge though, primarily b/c my core body temperature just feels high like all the time. It's summer in Hawaii, so it's not cold anymore, and I'm having a hard time staying hydrated when I'm training in that heat like all the time. I just feel like I'm radiating HEAT. Everything else feels ok at the moment though. I've taken between-session-recovery very seriously (in my recovery boots every day recently!) and trying to eat clean and go to bed early enough, etc. I've also been on top of all that mobility stuff that I haven't shut up about in the last few months so my body doesn't feel like it's on the brink of breaking like it did in February (when I was last training like this but ignoring mobility work).

That said, don't be surprised if my next post is titled CRAAAACK! Lol. Typically that's how the cycle goes after a big/extended block like this. We'll see. Thursday is an easy day so if one easy day is enough for me to 'recover' enough then maybe I'll be able to keep the ball rolling a little longer!?