Energy Bursts & Slow Motions in My EPIC Dartmouth Journey

 Well…week 21 was interesting. My body had huge bursts of energy followed with sluggish slow motions.  I think the ratio was 1:1 too.  Early in the week I was still riding the “high” from last week but come Wednesday I was a water slug.  Then on Thursday I got my second wind from that crazy breezy warm weather but I think I finally emptied my gas tank that day as on Friday I was in slo mo fo sho!  Saturday’s long run, which I was so pumped to run with my “training crew” (been missing them), was difficult.  As soon as I hit the pavement I felt the lactic acid just fill my body and every step required a mental push.  I literally shoved myself through a sloppy 17km run.  Thank God for my training buds Liane, Karen and Rachelle.  They were running well, nice form and strides, big smiles under the sunny skies, and so I tried to breathe in their energy to get me through the run.  It worked!  Liane and I finished up with a quick spin and then – I was ZONKED!  Flat out!  WOW, was I ever freakin glad that was done.

 For the rest of the weekend, I kicked up my feet. I pushed my long ride and run for Sunday into Monday (today…and the weather was AMAZING…and Karen rode with me…and I sucked her into riding with me while training, I didn’t really have to twist her arm that much, ha!).  I think two factors played a key role this week in how I was feeling.  1) The prior training week was the biggest load yet, 18+ hours, and I kept going on right through into week 21 without a full day of rest.  2) I had a huge work week this week in addition to training (3 days of the 5 days were 12+ hour work days) and found that juggling that stress increased my fatigue.   Lessons learned:  take more recovery after bigger weeks and on busy weeks, skip a workout or two if need be so performance doesn’t suffer.  Now…to practice those lessons…that’s the hard part.