Mini-Taper and Some Cool Thoughts For Today

First of all, I am SO glad my wife is back from her two weeks on the road. While I am functional when she is out doing all the cool stuff her business demands of her in order to thrive, survive and all that, it's not all that fun. I'm good for a window of 12-to-36 hours, after that it's pretty bad. I felt, most of the time, like someone (or thing) had beaten the daylights out of me with a rubber stick (under-recovered), even with multivitamin supplementation and whatever extra rest (sleep) I could snatch. Even taking an easy week of training (which I schedule) at the end of the month didn't seem to do the trick.
However, I think I figured it out the other day, after Chinese food at lunch and salad with chicken and strawberry slices at dinner. Because I'm less likely to cook or eat good food while she was out, I wasn't getting either the right stuff or the right amount of stuff to refuel my body. Contrary to popular belief, the furnace may burn whatever you put in it, but it might not burn as well or as long.
So, this week is basically what I would call a "kinda-taper" to prepare for this weekend's triathlon. The goal is to relax and let the body store up energy, but not to get too lazy. Since I did a bike ride yesterday (nearly twice the distance I'll ride this weekend) at about 55 percent of my maximum effort I won't do much else outside of cleaning and tweaking the bike. I'll swim one morning workout and do one race-distance (~600 yards) time trial over the next couple of days; my running will consist of an easy-paced one-hour run tonight, and a four-mile run at high 6:00-to-low 7:00/mile pace - the tempo I'll probably run this weekend.

I haven't taken the time to look at the water temperature for the Gulf of Mexico this weekend, though. I suspect the water is going to be cool if not chilly. However, a ~600 yard swim is not going to merit using a wetsuit. I think if the distance was anything over 800 yards I would consider it.

My old friend Chuckie V wrote on his blog some really neat thoughts about training he picked up from three-time Ironman world champion Peter Reid, at their advanced camp. My take-away from Reid's teaching at Solvang are:
1. Don't mask your fatigue with drugs. Caffeine in particular...but this can also be other stuff (adult beverages, for example). I like coffee, particularly for it's warming effect first thing in the morning. But there have been occasions where I've had my cup and crawled back into bed for a little more sleep instead of trying to slog through my morning workout. Fatigue in one area leads to (over-)compensation in another, which leads to injury.
2. Efficiency outweighs raw speed. While a single 71-second 400 meters on the track is fairly sprightly, it's another thing all together to tie four together into a 4:50 mile...or 12 and a half of them into a 14:50 5K. There's speed in the short, short term and there's speed over distance, a function of efficient, comfortable running.
3. Long runs are underrated. Even short distance racing improves from aerobic fitness.
4. Race day starts long before the starting gun is fired. A single mis-step on eating, drinking, clothing items, the drive, the porta- and warm-up can mess up an entire day.

5. Patience. No race was ever won at the first 100 yards, but plenty of races have been lost there.