The 3 week taper before Ironman Lake Placid has finally arrived. It is hard to believe that all of my major training is now behind me. Typically, taper time kind of sucks. At least when I have done some before half-iron distance events. You usually feel very crappy and after getting used to logging some major training volumes, you don’t know what to do with yourself. So far this season I am enjoying it. The oppressive heat we have had has made training extremely tough and I am happing to take refuge in the a/c for a bit. I don’t feel super great yet, but I also wasn’t feeling that great running and riding in 90+ degree temps either.
The last week was cut down to around 8 hours total after the 17 or so the week prior. The start of the week comprised of an average swim, bike and run followed by a rest day on Thursday. I didn’t totally rest though. My wife and I headed over to Emmaus Yoga for a Yin yoga session. Yin yoga is long, slow stretches hold different poses for several minutes each. It is the perfect thing for a recovery day for sure. I felt really great after that too.
Friday was a 40 minute LSD swim in the pool, which felt like nothing. On Saturday I headed out on my typical route for an 3 hour ride, followed by a 20 minute brick run. Saturday was very humid, but also very cloudy so the heat was not too bad. The wind was also light so it was a pretty enjoyable ride all the way around. I really took some time to enjoy the scenery on this ride and kind of appreciate the great area I have to train. Sometimes you get some obsessed with training you don’t really look around at the scenery. The brick run went pretty well and again the heat was no where near as bad as last weekend.
Sunday was a different story. I didn’t get out running until around 10:30am, so by then the sun was scorching already. I decided to run locally since I only had a 1:30 run to do. The problem with running locally is there is no shade on my route through Macungie. It was pretty brutal and my legs were not feeling particularly up to snuff. Regardless I put in about 9.5 miles or so and I still had enough energy left to mow the small jungle of lawn at home. I also picked up another pair of Altra 3-Sum running shoes. This time in size 11.5, so hopefully I can salvage a few toenails now. They felt pretty good right out of the box too.
My Heart Rate Variability was all over the place this week. It started declining during the first couple days and then started climbing again after my rest day. The odd one was the big drop after a easy 40 min swim day though. Not sure what that was about. Although it could be work-related since Friday ended up being a bit stressful at work. Funny how work tends to get worse when training gets easier? They tend to balance each other out sometimes. My long bike and run got things back moving the right direction.
Looking at my HRV for the season, you can see how things increase and recover as the training demand is increased too. All in all there is a gradual progression towards improved HRV. The last build week really bottomed out, but the next two weeks I would hope to see that rebound into some big numbers here. Provided I stick to my schedule and fuel with good nutrition and sleep.
