Grouchy!
/I was a big grump today. And tonight. Why?
My swim sucked this morning. I was lethargic in the water, almost a full 15 seconds slower in the same exact distance intervals I did on Tuesday. The slower I got, the more frustrated I became. The more frustrated I became, the worse my form became. It was a downward spiral from there. I just flat out didn't want to be in the water. I was angry because swimming the equivalent of 80 football fields this week didn't exactly feel like a taper. Then, fighting traffic to get to Griffith Park with enough time to cram in my hour bike made matters worse. I honked my horn. Cursed slow drivers. I was not pleasant.
Of course, my bike ride felt sluggish as well. And, as you can imagine, I grew even more frustrated. At least I fueled that negative energy into pedal power, hitting 25 mph a few times on the flats out of pure spite.
I think I greatly over-estimated what tapering for an Ironman would be like.
However, at the end of a long day and evening that continued to be stressful, I can hear my inner Coach Gerardo asking me one very important question: "How did you feel after the bike and swim this morning?"
Hmm.
Pretty good, actually. Like I definitely could have kept going without any problem. And the only way I would have experienced that feeling is by not quitting on myself today, which I avoided doing despite every ounce of me wanting to crawl out of the pool and go back to sleep.
Anyways, my point is this. Even when a workout or two seems to fall apart. Even when training schedules throw you a curveball, you must keep going. No matter how hard it is. Now matter how much you want to quit. Something good will come of it. Somehow. You won't know how, or when you'll even realize it. But it will come.
So even though today pretty much sucked all the way around, it was still a good day. I got through it. I swam 8,000 yards in three hours over two days. Not a lot of folks can say they did that.
Now leave me alone so I can go get some sleep.
17 days and counting.