St Paddys

This post isn't really about anything to do with St Patrick or wearing green or drinking green beer. I just wrote it on St. Patrick's day, hence the title.

I hate oncall. I hate everything about it. My oncall goes for a week, Monday to Monday, so 39.5 hours to go then it is somebody else's problem.

I haven't worked out as much as I wanted to this week because of oncall. I drive to the gym, I get called and have to go to work. I start to run, I get called and have to go to work. It sucks. Today I received a 4 hour reprieve since a good hearted co-worker was willing to fill in for me. I was so excited about getting a chance to workout, I tried to make up for lost work out hours. Big mistake. I got excited and pushed a little too hard. I swam for an hour, jumped out of the pool, then biked on a spin bike for an hour, then jumped on a treadmill for 40 minutes. It was a good workout, but I am tired now. I am thinking that if I can do a 3 hour event like today and feel OK, my plan in Ironman is to slow down maybe 10% and go longer. It't not a great plan, but its pretty much all I have come up with so far.

So that brings up a good question; Do you train at the speed you want to race at so that you can run at a familiar pace? Or do you train at a higher effort level and build a bigger base? I am doing the latter, not sure it is the right approach.

Back to today's workout, we did a long steady swim, I was swimming 58 second 50's. If I hold that pace, that equates to about an 84 minute swim time in Ironman. Not great. I just checked the finish times for IM Florida, most of the guys in my group with an 84 swim time barely finished under the 17 hour cut off. Super. On the other hand, I think I look good in my wetsuit, muffin top and all. Chicks dig a muffin top and I dig chicks that dig a muffin top. Everybody wins.