Can’t say for certain, but it feels a little bit like I’ve peaked this weekend rather than last. Perhaps it’s just the advantage of several days rest and recovery. My muscles are still sore and hold me back from doing to much right now, but at the same time the rest of me feels fired up. If it weren’t for the race last week I’d be ready to go this weekend. So perhaps I got something wrong there and still had too much fatigue in my system come race day or maybe I’m just better rested right now.
On the positive side of things motivation is here in a way it’s not normally been post-race. I’m ready to train and race again when my body will let me. I feel I’ve recovered mentally and physically from this race far more quickly than my previous two. It’s all good, I’ll start back on a training regime of easy swim, bike and run for the next couple of weeks. I’m also watching what I eat and leaning myself out a bit I was definitely leaner earlier in the season.
Despite a race I’m not too happy with I’m entered into Ironman Western Australia and will be going after the 9:30 goal again. Right now, with the bonus motivation I’m fairly positive I can be ready to do that come December. Going over the figures from Switzerland and comparing them with Austria for both the bike and run my relative position in the field has improved, times may be lower, but I was further up the field than others. What does that mean? Well if I assume that for any of the European fields the range of athletes is effectively the same, so you’ve roughly the same distribution of really fast guys through to pretty slow guys then I’ve moved up that curve. If the assumption is reasonable then that supports the view that I have improved and faced a tougher race. The format that Switzerland puts its results in makes it a bit slow to actually compare athlete distributions so I’ve not gone that far. True or false I’ll cling to the hope that I faced a tougher challenge.
Anyway it’s time to put the race behind me and get on with things, I didn’t reach my goals this time, but feel strangely relieved by this. I was getting far to stressed by things lately and as someone who hates stress it wasn’t ideal. Having got past the race the pressure is gone and I can get on with things. I’ve dealt with the failure and it’s really not that bad.
Training has dominated the blog over the past few weeks, or if not specifically that, thoughts about it and my race. With a week of recovery I haven’t done much training and I’ve gone over my plans so much lately they’re even going to bore me. The downside is that outside of the time training my life actually is quite boring right now! I can tell you I’ve done some pretty good crosswords lately and I’ve also watched some pretty trashy TV.
Stuck in a Swiss hotel resting up for a race left me with little to watch but MTV dating shows that weren’t dubbed into German. I’m pretty bemused by the whole thing, shows involving going on dates with people’s mums, having a friend use a lie detector on potential dates, speed dating with 4 back-up dates if you’re not happy… Bizarrest of all some reality show involving a rock star auditioning girls to be his girlfriend at the point I saw their parents had been brought along. Just plain strange.
I now have just 9 more working days to go and I am free for a life as a international playboy full time athlete. On the day I leave I will have worked for the same company (under varying names and ownership) for 9 years and 2 months. It’ll be quite a change not to be going in and sitting in the office anymore. I hope my fear of wasting my time will quickly get me up to speed with some structure and plans.
