Sometimes it's not so pretty

Terrible training weekend, great social weekend. They shouldn't have to be mutually exclusive. Run on Friday started at 12:30 pm - hot and humid- it was perhaps the best workout of the weekend, followed by a decent 1500 m swim. Saturday, the usual two-bridge loop run - about 9.5 miles. Unusual was that we started at about 11:30 am. I felt great the first 20 min. My HR was high - my usual training runs average 152-154. It was 162 several times. I got Chad to dial it back a few minutes but it quickly went back up. My right quad was sore and as we got close to the capitol I slowed a lot. In fact, I walked the hill. Back at home recovery was slow and I felt like I had finished a race. But we did go shopping - yay! A little Bed Bath and Beyond for some household stuff, the frame shop for some prints we've had hanging around (not literally, obviously) for months now, and then Sears for Chad's new toy. A new vacuum! The Kenmore Inti-Clean Self-Powered, amazing cleaning machine. I'll let Chad tell you more about it. He played with it for about an hour and a half Saturday night he was so excited. We met up with some friends in the evening and didn't get home until after midnight.

And then it was up before 6 for a 6:45 am rollout. Turns out TJ slept in so it was just Chad and I. We planned to go 60 miles though about an hour into it I was tempted to turn around. My new position on the bike felt very different. I could really feel each pedal stroke in my left hip, my right calf kept cramping and I felt like I was working soooo hard and going so slow. I was pretty miserable. And then I shifted and got my hand pinched in the shifter. And I will admit, I shed a tear. So ridiculously frustrated. And I do NOT cry. Which made me feel a little silly. Ok, a lot silly. And the rest of the ride felt better, but not great. This position is going to take some getting used to. Too bad I won't have much time to get used to it before Total200.

Sometimes training is not pretty. But sometimes it's absolutely incredible. And sometimes a really bad day precedes a really good one. Taper is kind of like that. So maybe this taper?