Finding that Ironman Stamina...??

Damn.  I    amm     sooooo     tired. 

Where the hell did my legs go, and whose are these attached to my torso?

When did a mid-week run become 9 miles?????

My runs have been going so well lately.  And then I got to tonight.  It was an ugly run.  The first loop was rough, and the second loop was rougher.  I was supposed to run 1:15.  I didn't want to run 1 loop, never mind 3.  For the first time in a while, I had side cramps during my run.  I kinda had hoped those were behind me.  And these definitely weren't due to pace - that much I know for sure.  Good lord.  I swear my heart rate felt like the high 160's, which for me is the top of zone 3, but dammit if every time I looked at the garmin the effin thing said 130's, even 120's at times.  My body was saying the thing is wrong, but my darn brain had to agree with the garmin - at the pace I was running, aka ridiculously slow, that would be about my heart rate. During the first loop I convinced myself that I had to do the second loop - work on my mental toughness.  So I did.  The first half was as bad or worse.  I was ready to throw in the towel, and just call it.  Then for some reason I started to feel a little better, and noticed that I was actually powering up the hills.  To be honest, I didn't really think too much about it - the legs kinda took over - and before I knew it I was headed out for the third loop.  I did my best to pick up the pace, and although I was nowhere near the pace I've been running lately, it was faster than the first two.  Ended up actually doing more than the time, although that is really more an indicator of how slow I was running, since three loops should've brought me right to 1:15.

About 2/3 of the way into the last lap, I started to sob.  lol.  Alligator tears as my Mum would say, since I wasn't actually shedding any tears - or if I was I couldn't tell since I was sweating so much.  But, for the first time, I ran through the breakdown.  Getting tougher, or just getting more crazy?  I guess it's all your perspective.  I'm sure the perspective of anyone watching me along that last stretch was "cerrrr-aaazy!!"  Along with the crying was a few "You're not stopping dammit" and "HTFU Katrina!!".   For me, I'm gonna go with getting tougher - Gotta get there if I wanna be an Ironman.

Swim session was long but good this morning.  Had a bit more energy than Monday's at least.  I did the Ironman workout, along with James and Mark, so we were in one lane.  God bless them for swimming around me, since I was the slowest of the lot.  After warmup, we did a 500 pull followed by 2 1000's.  Probably the slowest 1000's I've done.  Another sign of how tired I am right now. 

At this point, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do the ride on Saturday, never mind 2hr run on Sunday and oh ya, a half ironman the following weekend.  But, I'll get out there and see what I can do.  I guess if I can do even close to the 14000 feet of climbing on this century, the 6700 in IMC is gonna seem easy.  (it's all relative).  I'll let ya'll know on Saturday night. 

....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........

happy training
Kat