No Ironman for me this year

I’ve been pretty quiet since early June. This is for two reasons: I’ve been busy as [insert bucolic simile here]. In fact, I’ve never been busier—not so much in terms of hours worked, but in terms of Things to Do. I could talk about all the travel and the conference calls and the deliverables, but, let’s face it, the work is generally interesting and satisfying, and I’m fairly well compensated, and it should pay off in the medium and long term.

The other reason is that my training for Ironman Wisconsin has been in a death spiral. I’ve never achieved consistency (work and travel; see above), and I’ve become progressively more tired. Talking today, my coach said this “shone through” in my reports lately. I’m beat. Yesterday I swam less than a mile and did an easy three-mile walk with my daughter, granddaughter, and daughter’s dog—and was wiped—I had to sleep ten hours to recover! None of my work-outs has been good, and some gawdawful—2- and 2½-hour death marches. I meet all the symptoms for overtraining even though my volume numbers, looked at in isolation, don’t justify it. Between work and everything else, I’m not recovering (that’s my coach’s view).

This week it all came together. I’m on “vacation”, spending time with my 12-year-old granddaughter. We’re going away for a three-day cycling weekend on Friday, but I’m barely prepared, which means I’ve been spending time making lists and checking drawers and boxes. In addition, I’ve been working. My various projects are in such high-maintenance phases right now that I’ve basically been working full time, especially on conference calls. And I’m still delinquent enough on two of them that it’s reached Director level (never a good thing). For most of the last three days I’ve left Andie to sit in the living room, IM-ing with her friends and watching TV. When we went out for a walk with my daughter (no relation to Andie, who’s technically a stepgranddaughter) and my daughter’s eight-month-old golden retriever, it was obvious Andie needed some activity. She was chatty, skippy, elated.

So, combined with all my tiredness, and realizing I was only 38 days to IM Wisconsin, I decided to call it quits. I discussed it with Monado briefly this morning and then wrote what I call a “novel” for my coach, and he called me later and we discussed. He’s on side—no trying to talk me into doing it.

The general plan is that I’ll “unload” now, we’ll aim for some of the fall running races, and then start building again over the winter. I’m very happy with this decision.