Checking In

Notes on the day:

Today is my first day back on training after a week of full recovery. I didn't intend to be so sedentary this past week. A combination of rain, wind, and no gym access has prevented my general training. Unfortunately, this week of recovery hasn't felt as good as I would like. I've been unexpectedly sore and achy, stiff and unenergetic. And then today I went for a 6-mile run and had an absolutely horrible time! I was running as slow as I reasonably could--12:00 min/mile--and my heartrate was still creeping up to 165, 170 bpm. And with my LSD runs, I would like to keep my heartrate under 150. But there was no in between; either I was walking until my heart rate came back down to 135 or I was running at 172. I couldn't run slowly enough to keep my heart rate down.

Normally, when my heartrate creeps up unreasonably like that, it's a symptom that I've been overtraining. But I just came off a week of recovery. The problem might be a lack of fitness, but I would be very surprised if I lost that much fitness so quickly, after just one week. So here's my theory: "‘That time of the month’ (or even the few days preceding it) is not the time when women run their worst. The hardest time for women to run fast is about a week before menstruation begins (a week after ovulation). That’s when levels of the key hormone progesterone peak, inducing a much-higher-than-normal breathing rate during exercise. The excess ventilation tends to make running feel more difficult." (link) I'm guessing that my decreased performance is related in some way to my menstrual cycle. At least, I hope it's that and not detraining.

I have two weeks of training left before I taper for Shawnee Mission. I'm starting to get nervous and excited. I really, really want to make the most out of these next two weeks, so that I'm at my absolute peak and can give my absolute best.

www.triathlon.org broadcasts live from its world cup ITU races. So I am watching the Round 7 race at Des Moines. Isn't great that we have the technology to be able to watch triathlons, track and field, swimming, and other sports ESPN thinks its too good for?