Surfing the waves of panic

Well, the weekend, like so many that have come before, carried about equal amounts of success and failure as far as IM training goes. Cath and I had decided that, because she had the day off excpet for coaching her running group, I would run in the morning with her group and then we'd head over to Lake Michigan for an OW swim. The run was great - her group is made up mostly of running newbies, all training for their first marathon, and they're all very outgoing and positive people. I ran a modest pace - probably somewhere in the area of 8:45 to 9:00/miles - with a guy named Chadwick, and had a nice time chatting with him. The weather was beautiful - sunny, but not too humid, so I felt great affterwards. Then Cath and I walked over to Oak Street beach to swim. There were a good number of triathletes already out there (around 9:00 a.m.), but it never felt crowded, and we had a great session. I put in one and one-half loops of the marked course, so roughly 2500 yards, in just under an hour. Not a great pace, but we weren't really pushing it, and it was nice to just get out there. I can't believe that it's taken until almost July to get into the lake!

Sunday, we had planned to go out and do a century ride in the suburbs. Drew wouldn't be able to go with us, so it was just Cath and I, and just before heading off the bed on Saturday night, I checked the weather - clear skies, high around 82, with * 20-30 mile/hour winds *

Hmmm. Yeah. That sounds pretty crappy.

With that in mind, we went to bed. Checked again in the morning, and winds out there were already in the teens and expected to go higher, so the training committee met and voted to scrap the ride. In fact, it voted to scrub training for the entire day. I was anxious about this for a while, but ultimately decided that:

1. We still have eight solid weeks of training left before the taper starts;
2. We have established a good base of 60-70 mile rides in conditions similar to the IM course;
3. We both could use a blank Sunday to do a whole lot of nothing, and to do that nothing together.

So, we got up early and went for coffee and a long walk along the lake, and then went out for breakfast. Then we came home, napped, and went to the running store for some new goodies (I'll share what they are soon). Later, we had drinks on the deck, while playing with our two grateful-that-we-were-home dogs. In the absence of a long ride, the day was gloriously long and peaceful.

I'm still a bit anxious about getting in all the necessary miles, especially biking, but I'm hopeful that taking back this one Sunday will actually set us up for a solid push to the taper. The plan calls for some ridiculous amounts of training over the coming weeks, and I'll likely appreciate both the mental and physical break this lazy Sunday provided us. There's still a long road ahead.