Where pride goes...

I stopped by the Trinona web page the other day.  Turns out there is less than a month to go 'til show time.  How did that happen?   I've been pretty solid on the workouts lately, though.  I finally convinced myself I was going to drown unless I got my butt in the pool, so that's going better.  I've been turning in some solid (for me) runs, enough that I think it's time to up my long distance runs by a mile or so.   And well, I love my bike, so that's all good.   Nevertheless, I decided it was time to start two-a-days in earnest this week.   So, contrary to all logical and sane advice I doubled/tripled my workout load in the course of  week.

Shockingly, that didn't go so well.   I mean, I was doing okay to start, feeling good, losing weight and all that jazz.  As the week went on, however, the fatigue piled on, showing up in a crap run here, a poor showing on the bike there until everything basically came undone on Thursday.   I tried to go for a run Thursday morning and called it a mile in because I just couldn't muster the energy to move.   Then, displaying my startling brilliance, I decided to do the club ride that evening.  Needless to say, I got dropped HARD.   I ended up turning in early (though I still managed a 20+ mile ride).   Even better, by the end of the ride I had developed a sharp pain behind my left knee.

The thing that kills me is I know better.  I read ridiculous numbers of articles and books and training plans.  I know the rules about increasing workout load and building endurance and macro and micro cycles.  I even read enough to realize that most of that has no bearing on a person at my level.    Regardless, somewhere in my head I feel like I should be able to play with the big dogs despite being light years behind them in terms of fitness and conditioning.   In short, I'm very bad at running my own race.

I've been working on the mental game, or trying to.  I've been trying to embrace the positive mindset that I mentioned a while back.   Honestly, I think I'm doing better.  I'm telling myself that the wind is my friend and have been pretty stoked with my performance on the run.   All of that falls apart when I do group training though.  Suddenly, it's a contest, and I'm nowhere near first place.  I firmly believe competition is good.  I know that the sour taste I have in my mouth when I'm dropped or end up wheeling into town solo is a driving force behind the improvements that I have seen.   There are limits, though.  In my saner moments, I realize that there is a difference between recognizing those limits and giving up, but sanity is hard to come by when I'm trying to convince my body to do what my pride wants.