Sometimes life throws you a curveball and you just have to deal with it as you move on. That's why I love the following quote:
“Everyone has a plan ‘till they get punched in the mouth.”
Since I have done some basic training for a month and then two "real" months of training I planed on taking a week long break after week 8. But then I got "punched in the mouth" or to be more clear I started feeling pain in my left hip.
It's nothing serious and something I kind of expected to happen sooner or later but nevertheless I had to stop last week after my Thursday run. I have done some stretching and massaging so the pain went away and a little time on my bike to and from work with minimal hip impact while still moving the joint will make me swim/run/bike in no time again.
I still have more then 7 months until the race so I'll gladly miss a training or two than a whole week or two (unplanned).
Because of that I wasn't really able to train much but I still had some good sessions which you will find below. Before that I just have to look back at the swim trainings (from the last two weeks) which are shorter in distance but higher in intensity and I love this kind of work. I know I can swim the Ironman distance in my "regular pace" in something around 1 hour and 15 minutes (based on quite a few 3 km swims in less then an hour) since I finish training calm, relaxed and not really out of breath. I guess I didn't kick it up a notch earlier because I was afraid of taking to many breaks and never reaching my "dream distance" of 3 km. I just shifted into a lower gear where I could sustain an easy pace of 55 to 60 seconds per 50 meters. But the last two weeks have just been amazing because I switched up my swimming a bit with 200 meters of easy pace followed with 50 meters of shit-just-got-real-I-have-to-keep-pushing speed (at least that's what I like to think of it ;)
It's just an awesome feeling to swim a fast 50m while you feel your body raise out of the water a bit. It's a bit annoying to bump into a lot of people which are in the same lane as I but you can't have everything at once :)
I also did a smooth ride on last Tuesday while rain was pouring from above. My favorite spot to ride during the week is the Jarun lake here in Zagreb. It's flat and you can just "get low" and keep pushing as hard as you can. I sometimes get lost in thoughts and don't even notice the laps (something around 6.6 km) go by.
I didn't really like the rain but since it was already dark and wet outside there weren't many people there and especially no cars which you have to keep an eye on as well.
All in all the week didn't turn out as I hoped but then again, it rarely ever is :)
This weeks numbers are:
| Distance | Time | Pace | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swim | 2.5 km | 1:00:00 h | 24 min / km |
| Bike | 33.98 km | 1:22:35 h | 2.45 min / km |
| Run | 12.98 km | 1:09:22 h | 5.3 min / km |
As you can see above I was above 5 minutes per kilometer again but I'll just forget about it as soon as possible :)
The total numbers are now:
| Distance | Time | |
|---|---|---|
| Swim | 35.05 km | 13:13:00 h |
| Bike | 484.10 km | 23:00:07 h |
| Run | 132.54 km | 11:19:42 h |
As I won't have anything to do this week I'll focus and write about some other aspects a little bit. I will keep adding more things related to sport in general a bit more in order to keep this a more personal view of a life changing experience than just a pure time/distance tracking log.
Until then, don't forget to be awesome :)