Overbooked and Overtired Indeed.

Listen to your body it will tell you when it’s overtired; it’s like hitting a brick wall. Referring to my previous post, I think it all (training, class, studying, work, life) caught up with me this past weekend and the evidence was in my workouts.

Saturday was a simple 3000m swim and a 2 hour ride, nothing too hard and definitely the norm for a Saturday. So Ryan and I got up relatively early and hit the pool...well I think “the pool hit us” is a better statement. For some reason, Ryan, nor I, had it in us on Saturday morning. Personally, my shoulders were really aching and I just felt slow. We REALLY wanted to call it quits when we saw an 800 pull set followed by a 400 kick was coming up, but Ryan and I pushed through our fatigue and lack of motivation to complete the workout.

Feeling good about actually finishing the 3000m, when all we wanted to do was quit, was a great motivator to get outside and complete our 2 hour bike.

Luckily, Colorado takes better care of their trails than they do their roads, so Ryan and I were fortunate enough to ride outside on clear trails, in the balmy 40 degree sunshine-y weather. The out n’ back we were doing was only 32 miles and we were figuring that if we could keep our (my) normal 17 mph pace that this route would be perfect for the time required in the saddle.

Now Ryan is a much better cyclist than I am but usually I can stay on his wheel, drafting of course, for the majority of the ride. However, this was NOT the case this awful sunshine-y Colorado day. Ryan kept yelling at me to get on his wheel, so he could get a better workout by pulling me and I could get use to the higher cadence that I’ve been lacking, but every time he picked it up to his normal pace he dropped me like a bad habit. I was trying so desperately to stay with him but my legs were just not having it. They felt SO fatigued. Finally giving in to what my body was telling me, I let Ryan go ahead and continued on at a pace that wasn’t as uncomfortable for my legs.

I don’t have my bike computer on my road bike, but I didn’t need it to tell me that I was going very slow; every pedal stroke was a fight and very painful. I just could not get my legs to go.

Upon arriving at the half way point I looked down and saw a 1:03 on my watch and perked up thinking I had to be faster on the way back since it was mainly downhill. Well I arrived home approximately 1:02 later making the whole ride (32 miles) 2:05! Good grief, I really was as slow as I felt. To put this in perspective, I raced last week on my MTN bike and was only .2 mph slower! Yikes! My legs were definitely on strike.

Once I finally got inside and warmed up a bit, the consequences of pushing my body, when I shouldn’t have, became apparent. I was more fatigued after this 2 hour ride than I was after any of the IMs I have done!!! And to top it off my stomach decided it was angry with me too! I pretty much spent the rest of the day in bed complaining to Ryan how awful I felt and continually asking him if he thought I was a worse athlete than I was last year, still not realizing I was just physically worn-out.

Now a few days removed, I have had the epiphany that my body was trying to tell me something, it was overworked and underpaid. I was tired, I pushed it, and I paid for it....lesson learned. Thank you body, your message was received loud and clear!

Now I must make a change and lighten up my schedule so me and, well, myself aren’t at odds again.