I think it's been about a month since I last updated you guys on my training, and that's mostly because that's the last time I actually trained...
I posted a couple of things like, "life gets in the way," and "it's okay to take some time off." Well, now I'm done taking time off, and I can actually tell you a little bit about what was going on and keeping me away!There's this little thing that happens in late March/early April called "March Madness." In other states it's a good excuse to take a longer lunch break, have the guys over for a couple early-evening beers before calling it quits at your normal bedtime. But, you see, I live in Indiana. And not only is Indiana very proudly basketball crazy, this year we hosted the Final Four in Indianapolis.
You may or may not know (I can't remember if I've mentioned it here), but I work as the Director of Audio Visual Services at a downtown Indy hotel. Since the tournament was hosted in Indy, our hotel was selected to host a team. We were fortunate enough to have the Duke University Bluedevils in house, and you may or may not remember, but they won the tournament. The whole hotel was in go-mode for 24 hours a day leading up to and during the tournament, which means 80+ hour weeks for all involved.
In addition to the team being here, I had a little problem with sitting down. I won't go into too much detail here, but I saw the doctor, the doctor did the wrong thing and made it worse, so even if I had time to bike or run, I wouldn't have been able to due to the pain. Fortunately I'm all healed up, although I have admittedly not been on a bike since before I saw the doc.Immediately after the Final Four was in town we had a HUGE group of academic advisers visit our hotel. Over 700 of them, in fact. In the midst of all of this my available help dropped, so I was again putting in a load of extra time to make sure things were going well.
After all of that settled down, N and I made the journey to Charleston, South Carolina for a couple of our good friends' wedding! It was a fantastic opportunity to relax after a full month of craziness, and more craziness to come at the end of this week and into May.
Fortunately, I was able to take advantage of the free time I had (N didn't have much, as she was the matron of honor in the wedding) and happened to get a couple of runs in. I took my wetsuit with me, but the height of the surf was enough to make me wary, especially with so few people around. On Saturday I took a 9.5 mile run on the beach, and got a very nice sun burn in return. I will gladly take it, as I need the color before my tri tan lines show up!
Monday I was able to get back to training as we were busy driving back, and boy am I feeling that month off. My swim was a little slower than I had hoped for, but I haven't slid back to the point I started from. My runs are definitely a little slower, and my heart rate a little higher, but it's coming back together quite nicely. I think by the end of this week I'll be back in form, and maybe even ahead of where I was when I took my break.
It's truly amazing, the effects of stress on the body. Everyone's body deals with it differently. My body tends to deal with stress by eating itself, so I lose my appetite and start to lose weight. When I started taking off days of training because I didn't have time (and was very stressed out), I weighed about 160. By the time I started running again early last week (as a way to cope with the stress), I weighed in around 155. I'm hoping to stay close to that, but I'm sure my body will want to put some of that back on.
It's also amazing how rejuvenating just a couple of vacation days can be. Don't get me wrong, we were busy when we were in South Carolina, but it was a different kind of busy. The things we were doing were much more joyful, and lower stress. We weren't in as big a hurry, and were able to relax in the evenings, just the two of us. I'm happy to be back to training now, where two weeks ago I think I looked at it as just another chore.
We are just under two weeks until N's first half marathon, the Indy Mini! She's been training hard, and I'm excited to get to run with her as she completes a goal that she never thought was possible. No matter what, we are crossing that finish line together, so be on the lookout for pictures!This will begin to get more regular now, as work has slowed down a little for the moment and training has resumed. Some exciting registrations are coming up, I'll keep you posted as they happen!
Later on!
