The Golden Ticket

Well, back to the real world then yes?

WIBA was, as always, a blast. I met tons of cool people and caught up with a bunch of old friends - one in particularly in fact: Sister Sara. She and I spent about 12 hours commuting to and from Madison together, and when my driving wasn't threatening to make her irrevocably carsick, we had some pretty good conversations. One such conversation involved how to get faster on the run without having to get pregnant first (I assume you're all familiar by now with her pregnancy doping theory?).

Our 2008 seasons were opposite in that she was on a comeback year track after having a baby, and I was on a recovery year track after Ironman in 2006 and 2007. Her whole goal was to get faster all around, and mine was to just maintain decent enough fitness while trying to have some semblance of a life again. Suffice it to say we both accomplished our missions for the most part, though admittedly I could have stayed in a lot better shape than I did!

All the same, my swim and bike fitness are pretty much in the ballpark of where they used to be, but my run fitness has tanked and I have a lot of work to do if I want to hit the time goals I have for this year's races. The first order of business then was to pick my Iron sis's mind for some of her secrets.

She told me her coach last year nixed all her junk miles and pushed interval training, so in effect, she was doing less overall mileage, but was training harder. Instantly I was intrigued because with coaching high school soccer this fall (oh yeah by the way, I got a high school soccer coaching gig for this fall!) in addition to all the other busyness of that time of year, time will be a hot commodity to say the least. I was all ears.

"It hurts, but only for a few minutes at a time, and then the next time it doesn't hurt as much to do the same thing. You just keep ramping it up until what used to seem like it would kill you is actually just default."

Ah-ha. So that's the golden ticket then eh? Well all righty then.

Today I started interval training, and yes, it was a sufferfest. I cussed a lot in my head only because I lacked the breath to actually form audible words, and as I lumbered along with the sun just starting to color the sky, I felt some things I haven't felt for a really long time: Burning quads, burning lungs, temporary, but powerful doubt in my ability to actually pull this off... and the knowledge that if I could just get through this part, I may very well be in for one crazy, amazing adventure!