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August 19, 2007
The Day After a Triathlon
My physical and mental condition is different after a triathlon than before. There are phases that I go through in the preparation for the event and the recovery.
The night before I have trouble sleeping. The morning of the race I am usually tired. It's the same reason I don't usually exercise in the morning. I'm tired in the mornings. I've never really made the transition to being a morning person, though I'm getting closer now. I do get up earlier and go to bed earlier. But I'm still tired so the morning of the event I'm tired. But I'm also excited about doing the event. By the time I warm up I'm ready to rock.
During the event I'm highly focused and motivated to push myself beyond all reason. Yesterday's race was like that. I was flying on the bike like there was no tomorrow, and I passed a lot of people. Two people I passed had passed me earlier and I caught up with them miles later when they lost steam. I was breathing hard the whole way. I would not relent or give in. It felt good. When I was done I felt like I accomplished something great. I don't even know what my time was, but I did it and I pushed myself at my absolute maximum effort.
That same day after the race, I was in a state of delerium. So exhausted, but still wired. So mellow and tranquil in a state of bliss. The afterglow lasts all day, and nothing else gets done.
The day after is kind of the same way, but I start to move and get a few things done. But I'm definately not motivated to do much. I went to the coffee shop this morning just to read the paper and sip on coffee. Then I went to the bike shop and moved some stuff around. Then I rode home in the rain, changed into dry clothes and promptly took a nap.
Now here it is 9:00 at night and I'm thinking how much I did not get done this weekend. So I threw a load of clothes in the wash, wrote this and now I'm going to bed to read for an hour. Tomorrow is work. I'll be ready then to actually work. This is the first triathlon I've done on Saturday. Most of them have been on Sunday. I think I like the extra day to recover. After all, when I put my body through that kind of shock, It has to have time to rest. And it will do so whether I'm at work or not. So today was a good day.
Posted by carl1236 at August 19, 2007 08:49 PM | Triathlons