It was one of those sleeps you have after an Ironman. A post Ironman sleep is the worst. Again you think you'd sleep like a dog, nope, not after an Ironman. Maybe the second day after but not the night after finishing.
The sleep was nothing but tossing and turning and putting the covers on and taking them off. The body was burning up at times. The highlight of my night was getting up to take a pee.
Now for most this seems like a weird statement. For me it means only one thing, I'm getting in shape and losing weight.
When I was in the best shape of my life, Kona shape, I got up every night to pee. It was annoying. Then when I got out of shape I noticed I didn't pee. Usually it takes some time for me to train and then about 3 or 4 weeks later I start to get up at night and pee.
Looks like I'm at the beginning of week 2's training and I'm starting to pee. This is an unexpected bonus.
The bummer is it wakes you up, normally in the middle of an awesome dream. I try to keep my eyes closed and keep in the dream as I shuffle to the bathroom. This is one of those rare instances where I sit, so I can still try to sleep.
Today it didn't work. As I sat I felt the rim. Doh. I forgot to put the seat down last night. Thankfully I have a super fat ass and I was held up by the rim. The bummer was that that moment of ass to porcelain caused me to get out of my dream and wake up.
The next thing I know I'm wide awake and it's 6 am and I can't sleep. Again, training does that to you. It causes you to wake up early whether you like it or not. It's very counter intuitive.
On this post I'm not going to get into detail what excessive training and 4 Ironman's in one year does to your libido or lack there of. Prior to this situation I always thought Viagra was for guys who's wives didn't age well and they needed a boost.
I woke up and shuffled down the stairs. Yes shuffled. Again I haven't had that since heavy Ironman training. I've come to realize that in 2009 and 2010 when I was an animal with my training I over trained. Even though I made Kona I realize I could have been faster had I taken more recovery days.
Shuffling down the stairs when you are in the best shape of your life is a definite sign that you need a recovery day. It's something I've since learned. It took me until now to learn that.
My training for today was weight training and a swim. I started working early and frankly was working to avoid going to the gym. First off the weight training isn't too bad but the swim is not my favourite and after weights your arms are pretty sore.
It's been a long time since I've done a structured swim session with sets. It's been forever since I did a speed work swim session. Today I got my chance. It was tough. I hate swimming and wanted to quit after 45 minutes, after all 45 min of swimming is respectable.
In the speed work sessions I warm up with the butterfly and other strokes. The butterfly is hard. I toughed it out. I got to the 60 minute mark and had done 2500 yards and could have bailed and instead toughed it out to the end and did 3500 yards. Not bad for my 3 or 4th swim of the year.
To put how bad my swimming is my fastest was about 1:47 for 100 yards and near the end it was 1:58 per 100 yards. I used to do about 1:20 per 100 yards at my best to put it in perspective. I'd be super happy with 1:35 per 100 yards.
I got out of the pool proud. Proud that I toughed it out. I knew that if I didn't do that last 1000 yards which is about 20 more minutes I'd be upset with myself. It was a win in my books. I've often said doing the actual Ironman after all the training leading up to it is the victory lap. The real Ironman is persevering during all those weeks of training leading up to the race.
The one thing that kept me going was thinking about going with Alice out for some beers afterwards and to enjoy the rest of the evening. We did do that and hung out at the Judge and Jury for a bit. I'm doing my best to eat healthy and am dedicated to ordering salads. I even ate from a vegetable platter this morning. I have so far to go, although I did weigh in about 2 lbs lighter this morning.
I do love being back home. I realized I love humidity. I need it. It feels so warming. Even when it's warm out with the humidity it always feels warmer. I took a video when I got back on my Gopro and finally figured out how to download it. It's a time lapse of just over 2 hours of riding in my backyard in the Niagara Escarpment. It's absolutely beautiful. I've included the video in this post.
So the good new is the first two days of this week I've done over 7 hours of training just one hour shy of what I did in the whole of January.
On the snacking front I'm getting better but not great. As it stands now I had 3 beers, some pretzels and a little popcorn today. It's the two steps forward one step backward approach to Ironman training.
I do feel a lot better than last week, my first week of training. A lot better. There is still a long way to go of training and I need to put in a solid 8 weeks of training or I'm going to suffer big time.
On the making this the greatest summer ever front I've been spending almost everyday outside. Today I worked outside. I've also become a Canadian redneck and have the pellet gun out. As strange as this sounds I'm an amazing shooter. In a former or future life I could be a sniper, at least with a pellet gun. Lets just say we don't have too many birds hanging around the backyard lately.
That along with my Carlsberg Beer target fastened to the fence that I shoot at I'm honing up my skills. Alice told me the kids saw the target and asked what it was and then they referred to me as a redneck or trailer park type person. I can't recall. All I know is it's fun.
For the past two days I've been forced out of the house or downstairs. Reid is filming a short movie for a school project. All I know is the rules of the school are no drugs, alcohol or killing. I guess it's part of the school districts rules.
So Reid is shooting a movie about drugs, alcohol and killing. He's got all the props and his buddies have come over to help him all dressed in suits. He's got cornstarch and red food colouring for blood.
I'm sure once this is all done and edited we will be getting a call from the school. I really don't care. Have you watched TV lately? Frankly I'm just happy that he's engaged and taking it seriously. He wrote a script and is directing, staring in and editing his own film. To me that's what learning is all about.
Weights - 45 min
Swim - 1:25:13 / 3200 meters
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