iron trish

the answer to 'how long is an IM?' often elicits gasps of disbelief from people [often with 'and you are PAYING to this?!'].

and although the day will be, I'm sure, long and exhuasting and full of emotion, it's the getting there that's true test of endurance. the training is the cake and the race is the icing.

a marathon is a long, hard [thatswhatshesaid] race, but there is support: there are other runners, there are volunteers, people playing music from their houses, little kids offering high fives. a 20 mile training run, on the other hand, offers none of that. the training runs are often harder than the race.

last night I met with an old friend for dinner. I planned on getting my workout done in the morning, but, well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. dinner was a cheeseburger + fries [with the most delightful cinnamon seasoning!] and then I had to hit the gym. pool closes at 9:30, gym closes at 10:00. dinner ended at 7:30 and there wasn't time to sit and let all that food digest.

the swim:
2400.00 meters in 52m 21s // 02m 11s /100 meters
400 wu
ms
8 x 25 easy/ hard
12 x 100:
75 easy - 25 hard
50 easy - 50 hard
25 easy - 75 hard
100 hard
^^ x 3
300 kick
300 wd

then: get out of the pool, racoon eyes with goggles marks, natch, and changed into a shirts, shorts, and running shoes for-

the run:
4.64 miles in 45m // 09m 42s/Mi
15 min wu
20 min hills
10 min cd
(treadmill)

[that damned delicious cheeseburger sat like a rock at the bottom of my stomach through most of the workout.]

I was the last one to leave the gym. this, to me, is what training is about. it's about the very unglamourous, the ugly, the tired, the pushing through when you don't want to push through anymore.

reminds me of:
it's just ten percent luck/
twenty percent skill/
fifteen percent concentrated power of will/
five percent pleasure/
fifty percent pain/
and a hundred percent reason to remember the name.
[Mike Shinoda - Remember The Name]