Broken Down

"I’d rather be a failure in something that I love than a success in something I don’t."
George Burns

I ended the week on Saturday rounding off with 15 hours of training, the previous 2 weeks were between 13-14, this is with injury. Today was a clear indicator that my 4th week "active recovery" needs to take place, starting today.

I think I found a solution for my insomnia and restless legs. After yesterday's workout I was 99% sure sleep would non-existent as my legs continued to twitch and palpitate as the evening went on. I've tried sleep and restless leg drugs my doctor prescribed, those never worked. I tried Valerian Root and then Kava Root, still no success. Last night I tried a tea I found that has valerian root extract, passion flower extract and list of 11 different herbs and wala = 8 hours of successful uninterrupted sleep. I woke up feeling fantastic. I forget what solid sleep was like! I'm keeping full stock of this tea.
If you're interested
http://www.yogitea.com/Pages/OurTeas/MindTeas/Bedtime.html

I began my day with my favorite Honey Nut Cheerios, Whole Wheat English muffin with Agave nectar and peanut butter...and a little coffee. I then spent 45 minutes of core pilates strength training, foam roller massaging and stretching. My leg was feeling pretty good so I decided to try to run again.

Run...on land (I'll be so happy when I no longer need to specify that)
22 minutes - 20 minutes running
Ran solid for about 8 minutes, stopped and stretched. My ITB was irritated, nothing i could do but stretch. I was also experiencing a shin splints on the injured leg, so I took some advice from a friend and tried jogging backwards for a a minute, it helped a bit. Ran for another 10-11 minutes. Total run time was probably 20 minutes with a 2 minutes of stretching and a short walk break thrown in. After my leg was pissed off. This worries me as I don't know if it is too be expected or not. My PT said to "test" out my runs and listen to my body, when it tells me to stop I should, which I did, He also said to expect it to be made after, but I'm wondering how mad I can allow it to get. And frankly I don't want to run when my leg is mad. Running is supposed to make you happy not mad.

Anywho, I hit the pool after the run. I decided to swim a bit before the aqua run to get my leg a chance to calm down.

500 warm up
1 x 200 buoy
1 x 200 paddles

900 yards total, that was it. I have ZERO energy today. I mean none and each time I hit the water on my stroke my arms burned. Yesterday when I got off of Carnage I felt like my arms and abs had been bruised, I think it was riding in the aero position for such a long time. I have a tri club swim tomorrow night that I need to push myself at, so I called it good for the swim.

Aqua run - ah yes, this was fun. No not really at all. I HAVE NO ENERGY. Seriously I thought about dumping my head into the water and taking a nap, it was that bad. My quads were heavily fatigued and pumping them up and down in the water wasn't making anything better. I could barely elevate my HR, It would go higher then 140. The he-man aqua run perpetuator was at the pool again. Needless to say he didn't talk to me today :) funny, he wasn't aqua running either, what a douche. 25 minutes into my run the battery on my Ipod died. I viewed this as a sign to stop.

I failed on my land run, I failed on my short swim and I failed on my aqua run. My energy was non-existent today and after looking at the last few weeks of training it is clear to see why. This week will be an active recovery week.

Shit, I can't end my blog on a failure note....I slept a solid 8 hours last night. Sleep = success. Woot Woot!