The Twenty Minute Rule

With two world championship events only four weeks apart, I knew that training volume and effort would be an issue in September and October. I had to make sure I scheduled long runs and rides, but in order to have a good race in Vegas, I also needed to rest my body. Before AND after the race.

Thus, I spent most of last week wondering exactly how much rest I could give myself and not end up screwing my race in Kona by tapering too early or not getting in that last great training block. I forced myself to take two full rest days as I do after every hard half-ironman. I felt this was even more important after Vegas because of how hard I ran.

But when I got back to running, biking and swimming, my body still felt wasted, so I took it easy the rest of the week in order have a quality weekend of long running and biking. My last big fear was that I had taken it too easy in the weeks before Vegas and I would struggle through my long stuff: a 20-mile run and a long brick that included a century ride.

The run went fine - actually better than usual - but the next day, my brick was almost a disaster. And it was mostly mental. First of all, I should not have expected my legs to bounce back from a 21-miler to nail a hard bike ride, but I struggled to ride hard for all 100 miles anyway.

Then came a four-mile run. This was when I almost (note: almost) fell apart mentally. I started the run (note, again: I had 21 miles of running and 100 miles of running on my legs in the previous 24 hours) and it felt like nothing more than a crawl. It's times like this that my mind can be my worst enemy. My body was saying "pack it in, shmuck," but I knew damn well that I was fighting fatigue and not injury. If I can't fight back in practice, what happens on game-day?

I conjured up my personal Ironman golden rule - the so-called "20 minute rule." Everything off the bike gets better after 20 minutes.