All the Crazy

This week was totally filled with insanity.  Kelley and the kids were in Disney World for the entire week, and that's a whole post by itself.  I had to stay in Raleigh, couldn't make the trip because I had to work.  Work turned out to be the most normal part of my week here by myself.

First peep the crazy ironman training

I had to move my swim from tuesday up to monday for a meeting.  So after work I had a chiropractor appointment at 5, swim practice at 6:45, and a meeting about the team web site afterwards.  I'm starting to work on the team's site some just to volunteer.  It feels so good to be back in with the RAM team again!  got in 3 practices this week.  It was a recovery week for the bike & run distances, so I kind of backed off a bit on those. 

Tuesday was as close to normal as the week got.  I biked before work, ran after work, and that was it.  Wednesday had a bike before work, sushi lunch with a friend, and after work a church meeting, then choir practice, then a 5 mile run.  Thursday had a bike before work, then afterwards a swim practice followed by a social event with the team.

A cool thing happened at the social event.  It was at a brewpub, one of my favorite breweries that is close to the pool.  I was the first to get there, but only 2 other people showed up.  Even the organizer bailed on us.  So when I get there, I hit the bar and order an IPA.  The bartender pours it, then comes back and asks for my ID.  When I tell him I'm old enough for that to be a compliment, he kind of laughs.  Then he sees my drivers license and actually says "Holy shit man, good for you! wow" and I bust out laughing.  Yes I really am 37 years old.  Yes I really look 23.  I blame the vegan and multisport lifestyle.

Then Friday.  Thank God for a rest day.  Even on the recovery weeks I'm incredibly glad for a rest day.  This guy at the office puts together a social lunch, and there's about 7 of us in this restaurant.  I happen to be sitting next to these two 24 year old girls retelling that story from the bar last night with the caveat that they may be too young to fully appreciate it.  I get the obligatory chuckle and a "yea, that's cute" from one of them.  And they really are nice friendly people.  So I have to tell them that I'm actually 37 and make jokes about how when I was graduating from college they were graduating up to using the big girl potty.  I got a serious double take on that one.  Turns out they actually believed that I was still in my early 20's as well. "my boyfriend is 25 and you totally look younger than him" and all that goodness. It came as quite a shock to them.

Seriously people.  I've always had a bit of a baby face.  If I let my hair grow to the length that most adult men keep it there is a lot of gray in there.  But I've only been vegan for 3 months and I swear it's gotten the wrinkles out of my face and kept my skin clear.  I didn't look this young when I actually was as young as I look now.  this is insane.

On the flip side of all that ego-boosting goodness, I think I may be overtrained a bit.  Yes with Kelley out of town I didn't have her incredible kitchen skills put to good use so I ate like crap all week. I was a really bad vegan. So I'm going to blame my poor eating choices for the way I felt during some of those workouts.  In fact I still feel like crap tonight compared to last sunday night.  Wednesday and thursday I woke up with an elevated heart rate.  Your resting heart rate when you wake is supposed to be the lowest point of the day.  And when I was singing in the choir both wednesday night and sunday morning in the service I had a tough time controlling my breath when singing.  Then the long run on Sunday (only 8 miles - nice recovery week) was incredibly rough.  It started out good but by 6 miles in my legs felt like lead, I had trouble keeping a steady breathing pattern and my form started to break down.  I don't know if this is because of eating take-out all week or the extra swim distance or just my body adjusting to the extra mileage of the ironman base phase.  Whatever it is I don't like it.  That's why I skipped sunday's bike ride too.  Welcome to BPD (bipolar posting disorder), where everything is wonderful one minute and horrible the next.  I am so incredibly looking forward to some clean home cooking this week and just hope that everything gets straightened out.

When it's all said and done I put up 8600 meters in the pool, 80.75 miles on the bike, and 18 miles running for a total of ~9:40 in workout time for just s/b/r.  Great recovery week, lots of social activity, really missed the wife and kids while they were gone.  It's not a bad week for them to be gone however, since it was difficult for me to get home before 10 pm.  That's the way it happens sometimes. 

This week is already off to a roaring start.  Wild and busy times coming up around here!  And I'll be posting tons of pics and stories from the Disney trip as soon as I can get organized.