08 June 2006

Fit to Be Fried

With little more than a month and a half to go before IMLP, I've increased my workout frequency, upped my run mileage, and upped the bike mileage. Most weekdays I'm now doing two-a-day workouts; gym + run / swim + run / gym + swim plus the daily bike commute. The commute doesn't count for much though, it's just not that long. I'm going to have to work in a bike ride mid-week, either a fast 50k or a good set of hill repeats.

I've started a stroke improvement swim clinic once a week too, and I think it's going to have a positive effect on my swim. I'm a decent swimmer but haven't had any real instruction since 2001 when I started racing. Time to correct any bad habits that've crept into my stroke over the years.

The only downside to all this training (and I'm really not doing this in a scientific way at all) is that I'm feeling like my body is right on the border between fit and fried. I'm sure I'm not getting enough sleep most nights - when 3 cats decide that they want to be let out at 5am every morning, it's hard to sleep in. Even when B gets up to take care of the little darlings, it's hard to get back to sleep. That together with late nights taking care of web design clients and the racetracker.ca site means not enough shuteye, a situtation I'm going to have to resolve soon if I want to stay healthy.

Rest is a large part of proper training, sayeth the triathlon oracles, so that will be my challenge. A week spent in London wasn't much of a rest - B loves to walk, and we put in a total of 140k over the 7 days we were there, taking the tube only once. A great way to see a city for sure, but definitely hard on my back. Run 20k? No problem. Walk 20k? Agony, the kind of agony that can be relieved only by frequent pub stops and liberal application of English ales. Not much mention of that in any of the tri books I've read.

Next up: the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour, a 180km x2 bike ride from Ottawa to Kingston to Ottawa. A perfect training session for IMLP.

www.ottawabicycleclub.ca/rlct.php

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