Epic fail on the run....

This post could also be subtitled in which I am an idiot for even thinking it was going to happen.

I only had a tight window of time to begin with, but my morning work obligation lasted much later than I expected. I truly was only at home for a couple minutes, I didn't procrastinate, I had left everything ready to go and I was out the door in the most expeditious possible manner, though with a strong suspicion that really it was not realistic: if I did my full run I would have only 25 mins. (a generous estimate!) to shower and feed myself before going to this talk at 4, and I was also feeling monumentally grumpy and stressed out about work stuff in general.

Well, it just didn't happen. I jogged very, very slowly for about 30 minutes; I couldn't even seem to motivate to move the little bit faster that would have tipped me up from zone 1 into zone 2. At the 30-minute mark, I stopped and took a gel. But I truly just didn't have it in me. It wasn't caloric, exactly, though obviously the delay getting started was costly (it was 1 by the time I took off, and I had eaten a good breakfast at 8:30, but that was a long time ago - I stupidly didn't have anything with me to eat once I started realizing things were going to take so much longer to finish off than I thought). It certainly wasn't due to muscular fatigue in the legs; stiff calf muscles in first mile or two, but easy enough to stretch out.

Anyway I did some brisk walking, there is no other window where I can make this workout up, it was what I could do this afternoon or nothing, I am just going to have to let it go. And I comforted myself on the walk home (I can't even say I was having self-castigation, truly I just gave in to the inevitability of the situation!) that if I have a good ride tomorrow, the week's training can still be counted a success - but now I have checked the forecast, and there are supposed to be thunderstorms in the morning!!!

I really don't want to pull out of this race. It was devastating to me last year to have to cancel my plans for IMWI, and I think that doing it again would leave me in a state of glumness and sullenness that would be nearly unprecedented in recent memory! But I think I am going to have to make a realistic assessment at the end of May as to whether my fitness justifies going ahead. I have sunk a lot of dollars in this race already (ugh, last year I lost about $1000 in registration fees for races I didn't start at, it was a disaster - the IM races will give you back only $150 of your $600, and that's if you cancel well in advance), but it is going to cost a good bit more to actually make the attempt: hotel, plane ticket, TriBike Transport. I booked a hotel a long time ago, but I think I can cancel that without financial penalty till pretty near the time of the race; I will wait till Memorial Day weekend, I am guessing, before going ahead with the plane ticket and bike transport plans.

I've emailed Lauren about the weather forecast and the bike ride. The fact is that I am so neurotic about bike-riding that it's hard for me to make good calls on indoor versus outdoor riding. I would not honestly be averse to doing the ride indoors, at least I know I can execute that - I guess to take it more optimistically, we will consult at 8am tomorrow based on how it actually looks and I'll head down to one of the good spin bikes at Chelsea Piers if the weather really is terrible. There, that's a better idea, I guess I really do have it covered one way or the other - but the ride really has to happen between morning and 3pm tomorrow, I have no other place to put it.

long(ish) WALK: (was running about 12:00 for 3 miles, then just had brisk walk for some more time at a pace the Garmin says was 16:47 - frankly this is prob. the pace I will hit on the run course anyway...)

1:50:08, avg pace 14:28 (!), avg HR 125

(In short, better than nothing, at least it is time on feet, though I am under no illusions that it is the same thing as a real run!)