what a difference...

This week has been a tough one so far, yesterday especially. The workouts have been tough but I am also oncall at work. This means when there are "network emergencies" in the middle of the night from any of our offices all over the world I am the one getting called to troubleshoot. So every night I have received multiple calls but there hasn't been anything thats taken more than 15 minutes and usually I can go right back to sleep. By the end of the week it starts taking it's toll and yesterday I was tired.

I woke up in the morning very tired and sore. I forgot how much a hard mountain bike ride can take out of me. The hill repeats on Tuesday along with the hard, hilly trail run on Wednesday pretty much torched my legs. My calves were super sore. Defintely a different feeling then what my body was feeling while training for the half ironman. The long steady workouts seemed like they were a lot easier to recover from. I need to be very diligent with my recovery over the next couple of weeks if I want to have a couple of decent races.

I contemplated just heading to my work pool for swim so I could kind of take it easy. I talked myself out of it, sucked it up, and headed to Masters. Once there I basically got my ass kicked. There were just three of us in the lane and I took the second position for the first 2000+ yards. After that I was struggling to hold on. I got through most of the workout but then got out before the last set because my form was going to shit because I was spent. I got in a total 3500 yards and then hit the hot tub to soak my tired legs.

At lunch I headed to the gym for a strength/core session and also to stretch my tired legs. I started coming around while I was in the gym and put together a pretty solid workout. I am still taking it easy because it's been about a month since I have lifted any weights. Here's what I am doing in the gym and plan on the same routine for the next couple of weeks. All the weights are pretty light but I have to balance on the bosu ball while doing the lifts. This really helps with core strength. The leg stuff is more for injury prevention than anything else. The hard intervals I will be putting in on the mountain are just all my legs can take right now.

Strenght/core workout:

5min easy warm-up stationary bike

15 min stretching/various core on ball

2 x following circuit.

20 pushups feet on ball

15 single arm (left) overhead tri ext - standing on bosu upside down - 12lb

15 single arm (right) overhead tri ext - standing on bosu upside down - 12lb

30 alternating dumbell curl (15ea arm) - standing on bosu upside down - 15lb

15 lateral dumbell raises - standing on bosu upside down - 10lb

25 back ext on ball

50 crunches on ball

then 2 x following supersets

#1

15 lat pulldown - 85lbs

15 - wall squats

#2

15 leg ext - 40lbs

15 leg curl - 40lbs

I got home from work early in the afternoon and took a 45 minute power nap and felt good, but still kind of tired when I got up. I could have slept more but I had a trainer session I had to get in. I set up the trainer put "Bull Durham" on my lap top and grinded away. Just like when I start a run feeling sluggish, as soon as I hit my first interval and started to sweat I started to feel great. The workout ended up going really well and I am really enjoying using my power tap to monitor my power and HR. Have some good data is going to really help me improve.

Last night was more of the same and was up from about 12pm to 2am working. Not fun. My plan was to be in the work pool by six but I decided to sleep in and didn't get in the pool unitl 8am. The water was freezing. I think the heater is having problems. Some days are nice and warm and then randomly it will be damn cold. Jim wanted my to take it easy in the water today after the way I was feeling yesterday. I was planning on 45-60min and 3000 yards, but with the cold water I only got in 25min and 2000 yards. I am not to worried about not getting the extre 1000 yards. It took me 20 minutes in the shower to thaw.

I still don't think I am eating enough. After a solid week of taking it realtively easy, drinking, and eating crappy food i was up to 135.5lbs on Monday morning. I know that's still super light and 5lbs short of where I want to be. I have been tracking everything I eay in the meal log on Training Peaks. It takes your RMR, calories burned during workouts and calories consumed and breaks it down. I still end everyday with a significant calorie deficit which isn't going to work if I plan to put on some muscle. I have been trying to eat more but am still struggling. I eat until I am full and if I am hungry I eat. Yesterday when I weighed myself I was back down to 132. My diet needs some retooling for sure. Everything I eat is really clean and healthy. Maybe I need to start eating donuts and drinking beer everyday? Probably not going to happen. I just need more calories.

that's it... just a pretty much a normal week. The weekend is going to be a tough one.