Editor’s note: Ian Murray is using Zwift to train for the International Triathlon Union Long Course World Championships held in Odense/Fyn, Denmark July 2018. His weekly Zwift Insider series discusses the previous week’s training and the plan for the upcoming week.

Well, the situation from last week continues this week.  As I roll into six weeks until race day, I find myself with no time to train.  It’s not all bad news, as I will soon get back to normal, but I am still walking around like a bit of a zombie.

Training and Packing Don’t Mix

I haven’t slept well in two weeks, and that was evident early in the week.  Despite planning a light week, I have not even hit those numbers.  Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were a wash.  I did go for a light jog on Monday to loosen up the legs, but it was more pathetic than anything else.  I only went for about 20 minutes, but it was enough to make me feel less crappy.  (Well, to be honest, I felt horrible when I started, so anything was better than that.)  After returning from my run, I made a quick breakfast and got ready for the movers to arrive to start packing.  The packing work went into the evening, and both the wife and I were gassed afterward, so there was no training getting done that evening. 

Tuesday followed with another early morning finishing up for the last day of packing and loading up the truck… or so I thought.  Yeah, the packing didn’t finish until late Tuesday afternoon, so the supervisor made the executive decision to begin loading on Wednesday morning rather than on Tuesday night.  In the US, the would not have happened.  Time is money, and they would have stayed to work late (I’ve seen it, and it kind of sucks and is great at the same time).  Here, though, it was a good call.  There have been a number of armed robberies in my neighborhood, so it’s better to do everything during the day. 

Wednesday rolled around, and I had a good plan to run early.  However, my last real meeting at work got rescheduled for 7 AM, so no early run for me.  After the meeting, I drove to the office to take care of some paperwork, something that never seemed to end.  By noon, I began the slog through traffic back to the house, stopping at one of our favorite restaurants, Chef Pepper, to pick up some lunch for the wife and Maria, who was helping out with the movers.  Finally, at almost 6 PM, the truck, loaded with our stuff, departed.  It was sad to see the bikes go, but I knew it was a necessary evil.  I feel like a bad parent, packing them up in a container for the trip across the Caribbean and Atlantic back to the US.  Oh, how I miss them.

Thursday morning came quick after a brief night’s sleep in the hotel, and we returned to finish up the last bit of cleaning.  Maria came again, despite it being a holiday, and helped out.  She made out like a bandit, though, as we gave her one of our older TVs and a few other things that we no longer needed.  It wasn’t a complete waste of a day like the previous three days, but I was definitely not in my best form.  Before heading to the house, I got on the treadmill for about 30 minutes, trying to knock out some 400-meter repeats at a hard but very doable pace.  I felt exhausted with legs filled with concrete.  It was the absolute worst run I have had in a while.  My goal was to hold 285-290 Watts for the 400-meter effort and do it 8 times.  I made it through 5 and called it.  Between the dead legs and the lack of a fan in the gym, I just didn’t have it.  I switched over to do some stretching and core work before  getting cleaned up.  After finishing up at the house, we made our way to the office, where I had to get a little more work done and to attempt a swim.  One more frustrating couple of hours in the office put me in a foul mood prior to the swim.  Getting down to the pool at about 3:30 PM, I could feel the heat emanating from the water surface.  I made it a whole 600 meters before I quit.  Man, I had no energy. 

On Friday, I had another short, but better run, followed by a quick core workout before we headed to the house for the final time.  We conducted our final checkout of the house and, you guessed it, headed back to the office for a bit more work.  We arrived at about 10:30 AM, and I planned to be out of there no later than 1 PM.  At about 4 PM, we left, heading back to the hotel to get ready for the first of three farewell events that weekend.  At about midnight, we finally got back to the hotel room and crashed.  It was the first decent sleep that we had had in over a week.  Saturday and Sunday went by quickly.  I took advantage of the almost 50-yard hotel pool, getting in a couple of 3000-yard swims and trying to relax a little.  While I normally use biking or running to relax, I don’t think my body was capable at the time.  No, I would have just gotten pissed off that my run wasn’t going well or not being able to get a good fit on the hotel bike.  The swims, though, were great.  I just played wall tag for about 45-50 minutes, enjoying the solitude and the feel of the water.  I could feel the stress just starting to melt away.

TSS Planned – 461; TSS Completed – 331

Venturing Into the Unknown

The next week is going to be nuts.  We fly out of Santo Domingo on Monday and then begin the process of settling in to a new city and house.  Oh, we’ll also be traveling again, starting on Saturday.  I know.  It’s not the best plan in terms of training, but that’s life for the pramateur racer.  The week is so uncertain that I don’t even have a plan.  I’m just going to wing it.  I know, way to lead by example coach!

TSS Planned – ????

It’s going to be a hectic last few weeks, so get ready.  Being that I don’t have to go into the office and do any work from now until the race, I should be able to keep up with the posts, hopefully getting them out early each week.  Since I won’t be on Zwift, I won’t see you on the course.  You can follow the training here and on Strava at https://www.strava.com/athletes/11654372.  Until then, Ride On!