Last day of being a slug

The vacation is nearly over, and it was certainly a long one. I have never taken such a long stretch off with nearly no training probably since I started training in the first place. Even way back after my first tri season when I thought I was going to work in the movies, lived in Los Angeles and worked on sets for 12-18 hours a day I was still training for the Los Angeles Marathon (never ran it, moved home a few weeks before and didn't go back) and rode my bike down the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu on the weekends. That was 7 years ago, and I'm just now taking a real, serious break. Even in 2008 when I hurt myself and couldn't run for over a month, as soon as everything else was okay I wound up overcompensating by biking and swimming like crazy.

Last season it was 2 weeks totally off, then 1 week of barely anything. Last season I was not coming off of a huge build-up to Kona, but rather a season that completely fizzled out after some personal worst performances and one final sprint race that wound up getting canceled due to a hurricane. This time? 3 weeks totally off. 2 weeks with so little training it might as well have been totally off. Sometimes when you have a "vacation" coming up you fear that it will go by too fast. This one felt like it was never going to end. Don't get me wrong, that first week in Hawaii wasn't too bad. Breakfasts at Lava Java followed by pool or beach sunning, even time for an afternoon of surfing. The following week was spent in a fog while recovering from the time difference. Then it was just more like, ok, can I start training now?

I spend some days in the midst of heavy training wishing that I could just have 1 morning where I could wake up whenever and not have to worry about getting a workout in. After so many days of that in a row I've found that it's really not all that exciting. Although to be honest, I found myself trying to savor these last few days of it. In fact, yesterday I actually never even left the house and the pouring rain outside my window didn't make me unhappy not to have a long bike ride like I might on most Saturdays. But I'm sure I'll be better off when I start back up tomorrow. The volume won't be huge to start, but it will at least feel like something. I'll start eating right again (remember fruit?) actually going to bed and getting up early, my nostrils filled with chlorine, my hamper filled with workout clothes, 14 showers a week.... it'll all be there.

And I'm excited for it. I want it. I went on another run today and already my heart rate has dropped considerably and the pace is faster than my recovery runs before the stress fracture. I'm rested. I'm ready. It's only too bad it's probably about to get really cold out around here. It's ok though, because after getting incredibly sick of watching movies on the trainer I'm actually looking forward to it. I will surely regret that statement quite soon, but it is inevitable anyway.

This is it, 2010 starts tomorrow for me. I was excited about last year starting because I wanted to fix things, but I am way more excited for this season to start. I'm not scared about it like last year. It's going to be a good one.

One last, totally unrelated note: one of my car radio pre-sets has already started on the Christmas music. Why do they do this? I am not a Scrooge, but seriously, there are only so many Christmas songs. Why do you want to make me sick of them 2 weeks before we even get through Thanksgiving!?!?!