Batteries: Recharged

It has been 2 weeks since Ironman Coeur d'Alene. I feel that I am ahead of the recovery curve and there are a couple contributing factors worth mentioning. If you have any ideas that you'd like to share PLEASE COMMENT below!

In the first week post-race, I wore Zoot compression socks daily and kept up on my elevating and icing regimen of knees/hips/calves/quads. In addition, although I was not training beyond Active Recovery walking and swimming, I kept my protein intake around 140g/day.

Most of that came from whey/banana/Rice Dream shakes with additional Glutamine and BCAA pills thrown in the mix. I consumed "reckless" amounts of antioxidant-rich blueberries and raspberries as well as daily steak and/or salmon and supplemented with 10g/day of Omega 3. Anti-inflammatory/recovery diet!

Most importantly though, was not rushing back into "training" while my body was still on the mend, both musculoskeletal as well as endocrine. People underestimate how ultra-endurance training wreaks havoc on our hormone balance. Nobody wants to talk about it...

The second week post-race is tricky because you want to get back to "training", and you feel like you can, but your body is still recovering. I am glad I had the discipline to at least make it through 2 weeks of a solid recovery protocol and feel that I am ready to resume my normal frequency this coming 3rd week. According to Mark Allen, I should wait until the end of week 3 to get back into "Ironman Training" but I will ramp it up starting tomorrow, focusing on frequency above all else.

After analyzing what I did right/wrong in my leadup to CDA, I found that many workouts were "bagged" due to my move from Irvine to Huntington Beach, and HotWheels' move from Redondo Beach to our new place...double-trouble!

Finding a place, packing, moving (refrigerators in and out of U-Hauls and up flights of stairs a couple hours after a 20 mile long run!?), and unpacking takes more than just a few days, and the stress is certainly a compounding factor.

In my next post I will get into more detail about my training plan for IM Canada, but suffice it to say that I will roughly Double my swim training (if my shoulder allows it!), as well as increase my cycling by about 30% and my running by about 20%.
I'm excited about racing, but also the process of getting to the next level. With 8 weeks to go until Ironman Canada, I have some of the most epic sessions of the year planned to get me into much better shape that what I brought to Ironman CDA.



Quote of the day that I stole from a Tweet by Tony Robbins:

Everybody want to be somebody: nobody wants to grow."
-Goethe

So true isn't it?

Push yourself through a limit today