Weeks 9 & 10 of Ironman training - Excuses, excuses

Weeks 9 and 10 are in the books and boy do I have some excuses brewing.  If you're an avid reader of this blog (wishful thinking, I know), you noticed that I missed a blog entry last week.  I was out of town in Atlanta two weeks ago for work and spent all of this past week getting all caught up on work, life, and training.  This is my excuse for not getting the blog done, but I tell you the excuses were starting to come into play and influencing my motivation to get my workouts done too.

I got back from ATL last Saturday afternoon and was planning all along to get my long bike ride in upon my return.  I told Jess after the ride that it was my most difficult workout to date, for the mere fact I just didn't feel like doing it after my long week and flight.  I really had to push myself this past week to find the motivation for the workouts as I had so many things pilling up at work.  My legs were tired, I'm sick of working out inside, I needed to catch up on sleep, etc, we've heard them all before.  Then yesterday I packed both my weekend workouts into one day, first I tackled the two hour bike ride and then immediately jumped on the treadmill for an hour long run...and it felt great!

My point is we all have the excuses, they will be there every single day for the rest of our lives...if you can suck it up and push yourself through the difficult times, there's going to be greatness again on the other side.  I would estimate that 25% of everyone's workouts are terrible, 50% of them are just OK and sufficient, but the 25% that feel great are the ones that keep us coming back for more.  Keep pushing yourself through the difficult times and stay focused on the greatness of the 25%!

Week 8 of Ironman training - On the road

Greetings from Atlanta. I'm at a work conference this week which is severely competing with my workout plan for my attention. Another week of training behind me and so far so good. Last week was my last before a "down" week; every 4th week is a recovery week where time and mileage is dialed down a bit to give you a chance to rest a bit. It's not a significant rest, for example last week was 8 hours of training and this week is 7. I'll take the little victories where I can get them.

My challenge this week is getting all of my workouts in while being away from home. There are some adjustments to be made, for example there's no pool at my hotel so I'm supplementing my swim workouts with weight lifting. I'm making good use of the hotel workout facilities and hopefully will get a run or two in outside before I leave. It's around 50 degrees here, I'll be the only one outside in shorts and a t-shirt!  The training plan I'm using is made for the obstacles of work travel in that the workouts are all time based so I don't have to know my way around town I just need to go out and run for an hour.

The other big challenge is to avoid too many Miller Lites each night so I get the workouts in...this morning was a bit painful!