What I have noticed about training so much lately is how much sleep and food I need. They are two parts of triathlon that often get overlooked or undervalued, but are extremely important. After a bit of a weird week for sleeping, I realized that for me to train I must get around 10 hours of sleep each night. That’s right 10 HOURS!

In general, I am a high-functioning person. I like to do many things every day and I have high expectations of myself. Now that I am training 2-6 hours most days, I am often left exhausted. Even though I am not “working” I am still in bed by 10pm and get up around 8. If I need to get up earlier, I go to bed earlier. I am beginning to understand why the pros do nothing in between training. They’re just too exhausted. It really does give an interesting perspective on life and what the body is capable of doing. I never thought that I could train this much without being injured, but I’m doing it (knock on wood! knock on wood!!!).

It’s true that my injuries seem to be non-existent at the moment. My knee feels fine, my IT-band is not tight, and my back feels pretty good. My chiropractor says that my spine is completely different now that I’m not doing a desk job… in a good way. He said that even though I’m training so much, not sitting at a desk all day is the better option for my body. It definitely does feel better.

Anyway, I’m off for a swim-bike brick!

I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: hills are a walk in the park compared to the prairie wind! This morning I embarked on my first outdoor ride of the season. That’s right, it’s April 18th and I’m riding outside for the first time this spring. It’s just the way it is all the way up here in Saskatchewan. The snow isn’t even all gone.

I met my training buddies and we headed due south, directly into a head-wind. We planned it that way. It’s the best way to plan a ride so that you can have the wind at your back on the way home. For the first hour, we rode at 20km/hr into a 35km/hr wind. My one training buddy remarked at how demoralizing it is to ride for so long at such a slow pace into the wind. I replied with the fact that Ironman is demoralizing and this is good practice. We decided to cut our ride pretty much in half due to the strong wind, but we still ended up doing 55km. The ride home was much nicer, but every year I forget about how frustrating it can be to ride into the wind. I have cried and yelled at the wind before. “Why, oh, why don’t you just STOP?!?” No matter what, though, she keeps blowing.

This is why I never worry about racing in places with hills. With a hill, you can go up and up and up, but you know that you’re going to go down. I have never seen a hill in a race that I have had to climb for an hour. Although, that would be one amazing downhill.

So now I’m home with a sore right knee (big surprise) and an empty stomach. I had a freezing shower for my legs and back and did my IT band stretches. I’m icing my knee and eating pasta. Ahhh, another Saturday ride done.