Recovery Week…. Ahhhh. (I mean AHHHH!)

Last week of training was pretty hardcore.  I can tell that 140.6 is somewhere on the horizon. I am scared to look at my own countdown clock. But I think it’s like 9.5 weeks.  Eeeeek.

My friend (and athlete), Precious, was back in town from New York for work and stayed with us a few days.

We did swim, bike and run over the weekend.

She borrowed my ROAD bike (named Antonia) and ended up loving her.

So she bought her!

I said goodbye and shipped Antonia yesterday to NY! She is a great bike, and going to a great new home. 🙂

I have put down lots of miles and meters–hitting all of my workouts– including a little Sunday half marathon on my own.  The weather was pretty awesome during the week. Cool enough one morning to actually sport the arm warmers on the bike!

But then it heated back up.

And Sunday’s 13 mile run was interesting.

It was HOT outside.  I ran 2.5 miles and felt like I rockstar.  And then I felt it…. the impending puke.  I sat down on a picnic table.  Whoa.

Then I looked at my arm. My shirt was soaked. I was sweating insanely. Insane.  I think I was overly salty.

And it was making me sick.

Dumped out my bottle of Nuun, and filled it with regular water.  Chugged it.  Thought, well… I guess this run is over. I’ll head back to the car.

But then I felt better.

So I started going again.  And I kept going until I ticked off the 13 miles on my training schedule. Overall pace was 11:51 min/mile over the 13 miles.

Thrilled with that.

The interesting part is that is the longest, continuous distance I have run in probably a year and a half.  I didn’t stop except to fill up a bottle or two, and then kept plugging on.  Felt great.  I have covered 13 miles in the last year… but not running the whole thing.  That was an excellent mark of progress for me.

My schedule this week said, “Recovery Week.”

I was so relieved. [And then I was horrified! ]

Oh, no… I hate to lose momentum.  And I have always thought of recovery weeks as giant brakes on any running Beast Mode.

Turns out, I was in desperate need of recovery.

This morning, the alarm went off at 6:00 to get the kids out the door for school.  I had been laying awake since about 2:30 AM, falling asleep around 5:30, I think.  When the alarm went off, I literally almost cried.  Exhaustion had set it.

The Expert was like, “I got the kids.  Go back to sleep.” (Thank you, so much….)

And I did.  I didn’t wake up until 8:45 either.  And it was the scary kind of bolt-out-of-bed-sweaty-where-am-I sleep.

The Swim Bike Kids have been sick for weeks.  Off and on. Passing the cooties back and forth to each other. Coughing in the night.  I picked it up along the way, and so did the Expert.  We’ve had company in our house five nights in a row, which was way fun—but probably too much fun.

Combined with a hot yoga session yesterday… I think  I finally just conked out.

Ohhhhh.

So this is what Recovery Week means.

And I am very grateful for it.

Happy Hump Day!

Oh…. And don’t forget the Happy Hour on Saturday in Atlanta All3Sports!