Always listen to your... (...body? No...) ...spouse!

Going on back to thursday evening, I was feeling pretty bad, and was actually wondering if I should cancel that evening's 1h run. On the previous post I mentioned something about being quite tired, and this had started to accumulate to a state where I was actually quite unhappy on my personal behaviour. The thing is that, when I get tired enough I get pretty moody (I've heard this happens to other people as well :o), and now I was getting really moody to the people I love the most (my family). As I pondered on going for the run or not, my wife said "go on and have the run, who knows, maybe it even cheers you up a bit".

So running I went. 2 cms (a bit less than 1 inch) of fresh snow on the roads and walk-ways, temperature a little below 0˚ Celsius, so very slippery. An boy, did I suffer on the first kilometres. My whole body was putting up an opinion on whether I should continue or not, and I think the weight was on the latter option. I kept running however.

And after 6 kilometres everything changed. Somebody clicked the "on" button in me, and some odd power- and mental-reserves kicked in. And I'm not talking about runners high (yes I know how it feels), this was something else, almost like the desperate mindset of the previous days was melting to something unknown, but positive. The running suddenly felt better, I don't mean I flied or anything, but it went notably better. The important thing, however, was the basic-mindset. Minutes before I was actually deciding not to wake up next morning on 5:25 to get to the swimming-centre, and now I was playing with a thought of extending the session a few minutes to fit in some more drills.

And the peculiar thing about the mindset was, and is, that it kept going also after the run. Next morning I would get up and do the swim-session, continue to have a quite good day at the office, and finally spend the rest of the evening driving 400 kms to my parent's house on the west-coast of Finland. I was and am tired, no doubt about that, but somehow I have got over it mentally.

And today, as I'm writing this on my dad's PC, I'm planning on going to the final 2h run with my brother (he'll take the bike ;)). And actually positively waiting for it.

So what to say as a conclusion? Always listen to your... (...body? No...) ...spouse? I guess that's it :)
I realised that she's probably been wathcing my endeavours with the trainings etc. so long, she's developed a seventh sence on understanding me and my body better than I am (I was told women already have a sixth sence but was not told what it was).

Maybe I should also consult her on my training and racing planning too!!

Training feels ok... ...I suppose?

After spending the day-light time at the office (no difference to the situation from the previous weeks/months... :( ) , this week has been spent mostly on gathering the 12 training hours assigned to it by some maniac. If I'd be any more tired, I'd be asleep, that's for sure.

A bit of a background, so I'm on my second base period, last week before the "testing and recovery" -week, trying to balance between the normal human life and triathlon training graziness. 12 hours might not sound much, I bet the real tough guys get twice or even triple that much on the heaviest weeks of their training, but for me, it's plenty. Here's this weeks agenda:

Monday: 0:30 swim, 1:30 spinning (snow here at the moment),0:30 flexibility & strength
Tuesday: 1:00 run, 0:30 min flexibility & strength
Wednesday: 1:30 spinning, 0:30 flex & str.
Thursday: 0:30 swim, 1:00 run, 0:30 flex & str.
Friday: 0:30 swim, 0:30 flex & str. (was also 1:30 spinning, but we'll have to drive some 400 km:s to my parents in the evening, so I have to forget it)
Saturday: 2:00 run, 0:30 flex & str.
Sunday: REST, I hope. ...and 0:30 flex & str.

Going on thursday, I didn't expect to be this tired. Well, maybe the previous 2 weeks with 10h and 11h have also something to do with it.

However, the training itself is going ok. Basic endurance is the main target here, and I think I'm actually getting somewhere (even if the runs include having a dog and a 3-year-old in a stroller with me in the snow-paved roads). The swim is slowly delveloping to something that may even keep me afloat come summer, spinning is, well, boring (I do it at home in front of the TV), but it's already affected the "total income", e.g. the long runs seem to be getting easier and my running-pace has leveled up a bit.

The one thing that I actually do not understand is that the tiredness, weather or anything else have had no effect on the motivation. For some reason it seems to survive all the beating it gets... Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it does, it just, well, intrigues me(?) why it acts this way.

I guess I'll keep doing these things to myself as long the big M stays with me. Hopefully the time is measured in years rather than months...

(...or days... ...no, I didn't hear that!!!).