Surviving the Post Placid Funk

IM is one beast of an event.  You spend an entire year of your life thinking about it. 

Dreaming about it. 

Worrying about it. 

Then 7 months out you start to train. 

Training is your life.  You have good training days. You have bad training days. 

You stick to your plan as much as possible. 

You get sick.  More than once. 

You race shorter distances.  You break PR’s. 

You become a cheap date. 

You sleep.  A lot. 

You get cranky.  You get in the best shape of your life. 

Then out of nowhere race day comes... and goes within 17 hours. 

You feel awesome.  You feel relieved that you became an Ironman. 

You celebrate.  You get wasted on 3 beers.

Your body hurts.  Everywhere.

You sleep.  A Lot.  

One month post Ironman…. Where are you? Or the better question is… who are you?

I was Jill “training for an Ironman” Agresta. Now…?

I wanted to be Jill “I’m gonna smash my Olympic tri PR” Agresta. I was gung ho for getting back to training. I was psyched! No one could stop me from wanting to break my own records. But there’s a humongous difference in wanting something and putting in the work to achieve it.

The first two weeks post Placid were really chill. I hiked, walked the dog, ran for 20 minutes, swam, rode my bike for an hour, ran for 30 minutes… and just really started to get active again.

The third week out was my “real” introduction to training again. It was also the week I decided to play field hockey for the first time in over a year. It was also the same week a friend from France was visiting so there were dinners and drinks. I think you can see where this is going.

I nailed all my workouts through Wednesday. I played field hockey Wednesday night and when I woke up Thursday morning, I was in pain. My body seriously hurt worse than the Ironman! It was so sore in so many different places. I guess that’s what happens when you try and sprint for an hour and a half while bending over trying to hit a small, hard ball! Needless to say, I had an awesome time playing and it was great to see my hockey friends. I did complete my “long” weekend workouts though and only missed 1 bike that week. OK, so that’s not so bad.

Last week… my motivation took a big hit. I had 4 BBQ’s planned within 7 days. Yes FOUR within SEVEN days! I had an even bigger week of training. I felt like my body and my mind were just in a fog. I wanted to train, I really did. But I didn’t mentally put forth the effort. The weather was rainy so I did my runs on the treadmill and discovered a nice upper quad pull from my field hockey jaunt. It even hurt when I kicked in the pool. By Thursday, it hurt when I pushed on my bike pedals… yikes… I took an extra rest day.

I skipped my long run on Sunday and I felt really guilty. My reasoning was that if I skip my long run not only will it give my quad one extra day to heal, I’ll also have a start fresh on Monday. Even though I felt like such a Sunday slob, I knew I made the right decision the moment I woke up Monday morning.

I nailed my swim workout Monday am. I nailed my bike workout Monday pm. I nailed my run this morning in the beautiful fall-ish weather. I also got some extra motivation in the mail yesterday…. Chuck Norris anyone??

My amazing Chuck Norris T-shirt!

Or how about a little Punk Rock Racing T matched with a bedazzled Ironman visor?

New duds always cheer a girl up in the early morning hours!

I’m back baby! And I’m ready to ROCK my last tri of the season. Oh and I signed up for a last minute Duathlon in Central Park over Labor Day Weekend. A 2 mile run/12 mile bike/2 mile run. I’m gonna redline that sucker and see how I do!

Happy Training!