Overload?

I think I'm getting older.

Hard to believe, I know. But it's true. I've been guilty of burning the candle at both ends this week and when that happens something has to give. Consequently I dragged myself into the brightness of Sunday morning, bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived, like someone suffering from their first hangover telling themselves, "I"ll never do it again".

Only, in this instance, I'm going to adhere to that mantra.

Strange but I've become someone who would rather enjoy his training than fire into the red wine until 3am on a Sunday morning. I'm coming to the conclusion though that quality sleep and a 'well body' is one of the key elements of optimal training. When I have them I'm good. But when I don't I'm very, very bad.

I think I need to accept that I'm fighting a war on so many fronts. In addition to wanting to break eleven hours in my next Ironman and maintain the twelve to fourteen hours of training that entails (and remember that's training time, not counting changing, showering, driving to the pool etc), I want to be a full time world class father to my amazing kids, a full time husband to my equally amazing and understanding wife, continue to run a successful and expanding TV commercials production company and write my next movie script. All of these things take dedication and commitment and they all require time. Something will have to give and, I'm afraid it's going to have to be my love of a good old session (of the non-training variety) at the weekend.

If I'm going to be fresh to train, write, coach maths, play footy, do the swimming run, read lines with the girls as they rehearse, travel the country on business not to mention a myriad of other things including writing this bloody blog, then I need to be rested and refreshed. Unfortunately that doesn't go hand in hand with a couple of bottles of red wine and several glasses of port until 3am on a Sunday morning.

Frankly, I think I also slightly overdid the training last week. I couldn't run due to a blister suffered the previous saturday and decided to get some quality biking in. As a result I've got a sore knee and my shoulders are aching - shoulders more due to swimming I think. So I'm having a week of lighter, fat burning training before re-grouping and embarking on the next stages of training.

Training last week looked like this:

Monday: 60 mins swimming and drills
Tuesday: 60 mins swimming interval sprints. 2 hrs 15 mins bike ride. Big ring average of 17.2mph.
Weds: 60 mins swimming interval springs. 2 hrs 25 mins bike ride. 17.5mph, big ring, average heart rate 73% of Maximum.
Thursday: Complete rest day
Friday" 60 minutes swim - specific warm ups and 1km benchmark easy pace of 18'52" (Not meant to be fast but will be using this time in future to assess strength and efficiency of stroke). 57 minutes turbo cycling... pyramid heart rate 'beasting' session.
Saturday: 4 hours 30 mins long solo bike. First two hours on turbo to avoid icy roads then onto road for 2 hrs 30 mins. Between 65% and 75% of Max Heart rate. Bloody cold.
Sunday: 25 mins recovery road run. Blisters okay.

Total time training this wee: 14.53 hours.

Remember folks... 'Just say no to Mr Booze'.

Let's be careful out there...