Recovery

is not going very well. I took Monday completely off and Tuesday did a swim in the morning. Swim felt okay. Wednesday I lifted and did a short swim in the morning and then a short run after work. Run felt fine. Thursday I had a good swim in the morning, aside from the pool being quite chilly, and then a run during work. I had told my friend I was going to run slow, yet he still set an 8-8:30 minute pace on the Oltorf hills. So that was a fast and hilly 4 miles, and when I went to do a loop on the trail I was dying. This led to this morning's swim in Lake Travis in which I just felt tired. And of course being me I felt compelled to run after (attempting 8 miles), but about 2 miles in, I tripped on the trail (first time!) and sat up bleeding. My left side took the brunt of it, with bloody scrapes on my palm and leg, and a large bloody scrape/hole on my hip. Argh. I suppose this was supposed to teach me two things. One, get new shoes and two, don't run when you feel like ass!

So now I'm bleeding and covered in band-aids. But after I cleaned myself up I made some pancakes and ate them with maple syrup and I feel slightly better. Fat, but better.

I'm not sure how to find balance. I've had abnormal eating/working out behavior ever since I was anorexic. To me I think, oh this amount of swimming/biking/running/yoga/etc will burn this amount of calories. And if I burn enough calories then I can eat whatever. So this bodes very well for half-ironman training, and maybe next year ironman training. However, it does not work when I am not training for anything specific yet I still want to eat whatever I want whenever I want. Like this week I have not done much yet I've been hungry all the time and I feel if I eat too much I'm going to gain weight. It's a rather frustrating way to live. Like I realize right now I do need to recover because if I don't then I'm just going to dig myself a hole which is really hard to get out of. But then I still want to eat...??? Argh. I've never understood people who are never hungry or hardly eat or eat really small portions.

So now, two things to figure out. To do or not do the Great Illini Half-Ironman and how to structure my training. To me, the Great Illini may be even more difficult than Buffalo Springs just because it is 56 miles of flat, windy roads. There are no mental breaks when you go uphill or downhill. It's just flat flat flat! And for now at least, I will eat WHATEVER I want. I figure, my new wounds need the energy to heal themselves and I don't want to be covered in band-aids for longer than I have to. ESPECIALLY since I swim so much.