IM guilt

This is going to sound silly to the uninitiated, but probably draw a nod of recognition from most triathletes, when I admit that I wasted a good part of the day yesterday bummed out because I blew off my workout. Sunday is, of course, long ride day, and week 12 had us doing a two and a half hour ride bricked with a 15-minute run. This Sunday was also, of course, Mother's Day and the annual cancer walk around Chicago's Grant Park, which typically draws several thousand participants to our little neighborhood. I knew going in that Drew, who typically rides with us on Sundays, was out because of Mother's Day obligations, so that just left Cath and I to hit the roads. The night before was probably a good indication of where this was going, because we both kept asking each other "what are we going to do tomorrow?" with the response always being "I don't know - what do you want to do?"

Long story short, the ride was unceremoniously canceled and we went to breakfast and did some errands instead. But I felt pretty lousy about it. I obviously wasn't motivated to do the ride, but the weather was nice and I had really wanted/needed to get in one more long ride in before taking it relatively easy this week (in preparation for this weekend's race). But laziness took over, and we chilled instead.

I felt better as the day went on - I'll do a slightly longer ride today, and otherwise put yesterday behind me - but the guilt was a bit of a shock. I'm going to take it as a good thing - proof that I'm serious about the training this year, and won't be so willing/eager to cut corners - but still try to keep the concept of training and race preparation in perspective. One more or less long ride won't make or break my race. But I won't make a habit of skipping workouts.