alcohol and training – Kelly O'Mara

I’m taking a poll. Clearly, I drink throughout the year — as almost everyone knows. But, many people lay off the alcohol when preparing for a race. And, even I tend to tone it down in the weeks before a big target race — if for no other reason than to get down to race weight. I know there are studies saying that alcohol causes all kinds of muscle damage and/or is detrimental to training gains. It also tends to make you eat poorly and more, and make it hard to recover well, sleep enough, and get all your training in like you should. Also, it’s empty calories.

For me, though, creating arbitrary restrictions stresses me out and makes triathlon a chore, instead of fun. The last thing I need is more stress about triathlon. It’s not that I want to party hard every weekend, but I want to drink a glass of wine without worrying that means I’m throwing away a Kona spot.

Am I alone? Do you lay off the alcohol during the season? Part of the season?

I seem to consistently level off in my training around 10-12 hours/week. Clearly, for IM, I need to be more at 14-16 hours/week. So, that’s going to be the goal for post-CIM, because I don’t think it’s really going to happen before my marathon — which is, evidently, in like five weeks?

I also don’t appear to be hitting even my shitty goals of 1-2x swimming/week and strength work 2-3x/week. As is evidenced below.

Monday

Ran 6 miles very slowly with the high school kids. Was so messed up. SO. Messed. Up. My back was all pinched and I couldn’t turn my head. My right calf was cramped up. Things hurt from Nike Women’s — even though I hadn’t run hard. It was all I could do to run 6 miles slowly.

Tuesday

Had to take a rest day because of all the hurting.

Wednesday

Rode two hours in the afternoon, probably only about 24 miles because I went straight uphill. Didn’t feel like riding out to West Marin or doing China Camp or going through town, so I just went up the hill for awhile and then turned around.

Ran 6 miles-ish slowly with the high school kids.

Thursday

Rode the hour from Mill Valley to cross-country practice and then to Steve’s parents.

Ran about 6.5 miles with the high school kids, which included 10 x hill repeats. Mostly we ran them easy (and I was tired), but a couple were hard. Did not do core because I had to leave.

Friday

Ran 8.5 miles with 2 x 15′ at half-marathon pace. I was really skeptical this was going to work out. I was pretty sure there was no way I would be able to run 6:40 pace, especially since I was running 9:00s to warm-up. And, without a coach to be responsible to, I was almost definitely sure I was going to bail.

But, I didn’t. I ran 6:38s for the first 15′ and then 6:32 and 6:34 for the second 15′ — which I really cut down to 14:45 because I promised myself if I made it to the end of the road before the 15′ was up I could be done. I ran 6:25 pace for that last little bit after the two miles and made it to the end. Then, I felt so proud of myself that I was pretty sure I deserved to not have to swim in the afternoon.

Swam 1,400m in the afternoon. And, did about 20′ of really intense weights and squats and strength.

Saturday

Rode 19 miles with Steve, much of it on dirt. We intended to ride more, but my legs felt like shit after Friday. The beautiful thing about being in Sacramento, though, is that I had hella weak wattage and was riding super easy, yet we covered 19 miles in 1:20. Flat roads are crazy.

Sunday

Ran the 17.5 miles to China Camp and back. It was pretty awful. I wasn’t going to go into detail about why it was so awful, because I’m working on trying not to fill the internet with too much stuff that makes me look bad, just so I don’t give future jobs extra ammunition to reject me. But, then I remembered I don’t care what people think about the truth. Especially when the truth is just life.

We had our last wedding of a long wedding season Saturday night at a winery. They had very good wine. You’d think after this many weddings I’d have the whole thing down, I’d have a system. But, there was a fatal flaw in my system Saturday: after I decided I’d had enough to drink and switched to just water, I started to feel great and decided to switch back to wine. I did not feel so great at about 11:30 p.m. It was a rough bus ride back to the hotel. By Sunday morning, I was fine, but moving very slowly. I pretty much just felt like the last thing I’d possibly want to do was run 17-18 miles in the afternoon.

I had a Subway sandwich on the way home and eventually got moving a bit after 3 p.m. By then, though, it was cold and very windy and the sky looked like the beginning of a storm. The last six miles were all into the wind. It was slow-slow, like a new kind of slow, and hard and my Subway sandwich started to come up at one point. And, then, I got home and read everyone’s status updates about how amazing their weekend long run was and how they held 6:50s or 7:30s or whatever for 20 miles. Yeah. Mine was just like that, but not.

TOTAL: 11:40

Tag: alcohol and training

Do You Drink When You’re Training Seriously?

Am I alone? Do you lay off the alcohol during the season? Part of the season?

Training Week: Oct. 21-27

In lieu of the stuff to write that’s in my head right now, here’s a handy chart to help you choose your drinks over this long weekend — keeping calories in mind, of course.