This week my IronMan training derailed. We left on Saturday night to Spain and have spent the week walking, sightseeing, and being total tourists. I had three chances to run in the morning, but that would entail only five hours of sleep and in truth, I wasn’t willing. We are visiting friends and we stay out late. It doesn’t even get dark until 10:00pm and even the boys are going to bed past midnight. I tend to go down at 2:00am so a 6:00am wake up call is kind of tough. I was able to drag myself out of bed at that time twice, for a spinning class. There were only four of us in the entire gym and I understand why! Those days if I was in the car, or on the metro, my head was bobbing up and down. It took numerous shots of Spanish coffee to keep me up. And since running is my struggle, going through that for a run … well, that just didn’t happen.
My only consolation is that I was not sitting on my butt and not doing anything. I walked, and walked and walked. My poor kids walked the equivalent of a marathon for their little legs every single day. We also went up and up and up stairs just to make myself feel better. I knew this week would be tough, and today we leave for the second part of our trip where we will spend four weeks based in Caminha, Portugal. This is where I will do a half ironman on July 14th. So hopefully things will get back to “normal” then. What I did manage to do was a long bike ride with a friend. He lent me a mountain bike that didn’t quite fit but was good enough. He told me that we would go on a dedicated bike path (what used to be the old railroad tracks), and there would be no hills. Because of our timing, we ended up riding on a secondary highway. We climbed steadily for about 3 hours with two steeper 8% grade climbs. The way down took two minutes, and then we had a last climb to get to his house. My back was screaming but I did make it. The ride was great training and I noticed that 8% inclines are pretty manageable on a mountain bike. Let’s see how 18% on a tri bike goes …..
As far as workouts (or the lack thereof) goes, here was this week:
Sunday: NADA. We arrived in Spain and got settled into our apartment
Monday: NADA. Major jet lag!
Tuesday: Bike. Spinning at a local gym
Wednesday: NADA. Was meant to run but exhausted
Thursday: Bike. Spinning …. The one thing I seem to be able to get up for
Friday: NADA. Again, went to bed past 2:00am and could not get up in time
Saturday. BIKE. 53 miles on a borrowed moutain bike throughout the Spanish countryside. Not bad.
Sunday: NADA. We drove to Portugal where I hope my training will get back to some semblance of normal
Next week I will be in Portugal where we are staying for the month. Things should be easier then, less hectic, and I have found a training group that I can tag along with in the itty bitty town we’ll be in so I feel hopefull.
How was your training week?
