Week 2 didn’t start very well – had a cold (sneezes, runny nose… the works). So, I took a day and a half off to try to recover quickly and not let it linger. Given that I needed to travel for work, and this is early in the training block, I didn’t want a sustained, low-grade malaise bothering me. And it seemed to work well. By Wednesday afternoon, I felt better and I finished the second half of the week strong.

The training is still pretty light, and while the runs are a little harder I am actually looking forward to a harder overall load. I’m tweaking little things on my run (and run prep) and what I’ve seen this week is that:

1. Not eating anything before the run that could give me a heartburn is proving to be effective. Even when I do runs a bit later in the morning (10am, 28 deg C), I didn’t have any heartburn and didn’t feel out-of-breath.
2. I’ve typically never used any race nutrition while training. This week, I actually used some Gu Chomps before my ROTB and Sunday run and felt strong. Not sure if the two are related in any way, but I’ll try it some more and report.
3. I missed my only swim for the week, and am a little worried that I’m losing touch with my weakest discipline. I’ll see how this week’s swim feels.
4. The rides were actually quite comfortable, and didn’t feel like I was being pushed. I’ll try to do an FTP test this week and see how I match up to a few months ago.
5. Doing a relatively easy trainer ride on Saturday meant that I was much fresher for the ROTB and could match the planned pace. Last week, I pushed a little harder on the bike and the run felt much harder (heavy legs!)

My #1 focus for this week is on what I eat. I have a strong suspicion that it is the biggest thing holding back my fitness, training and overall health. All the training won’t help if I eat poorly. This week, I’ll monitor my intake, and mainly watch my snacking.

On to Week 3.