Too Much?

It's been awhile since I've posted - just about a month, and it's not that I haven't thought about it, I just haven't taken the time to do so.  I've had opportunities,  but haven't been motivated to do so.

At times I struggle with finding the motivation to do certain things - I'm sure you can probably relate, no?

Here's what I have going on now - I am currently training for an Ironman, which is going to be here sooner than later.  May 7th is right around the corner, and before you know it I am going to be lining up in St. George, Utah with the rest of the 1700 other competitors. 

This will be my first Ironman, and I am super excited about it - I know that mentally it will probably be one of the toughest tests, but physically I feel ready.  My primary goal is to have fun along the way and finish, and of course the competitive side of me wants to go fast which is why I have been training hard - almost too much.

Me train too much?  Is that possible - absolutely!   A few weeks ago my body had it and I had to dial it back a little bit.  I'm also training for the Crossfit Games as I really want our team to qualify so that we can compete at Regionals.  When I first decided to do my IM we didn't know the format for Sectionals was going to be 6 weeks long.   I had expected it to be a weekend event like the past few years, which kind of put a wrinkle in my training.

Aside from doing 4-5 crossfit weekly workouts to get ready for the games I was doing 1-2 bike, swim and run workouts, and surprisingly enough my body was holding up ok until recently, and I think I know why.

As if the IM and the CF Games wasn't enough I decided to start playing flag football - which makes absolutely no sense to anyone but probably me.  Here's my deal, I wanted to join the league for the social aspect, I don't go out drinking and the bar scene is really not my cup of tea.  The idea with the league for me is to have fun, meet people and improve my social life a little bit.

The league so far has been super fun, our team is awesome!  We won our first game and guess who got named one of the MVPs for the game - that's right me, how cool was that, check out the pic...

So recently my body started breaking down, and I started listening to everyone around me that told me that I ought to take some rest and dial back the training a little bit.  Last week I took 3 full days off consecutively to allow my body to recover and then I kinda overdid over the weekend. 

We had our first game this past Saturday, then I rushed off to CF to do Fight Gone Bad - and if you don't know what that is, google it and watch the videos, lots of crazyness.  And as if that wasn't enough I ran a 1/2 Marathon in 1:28 the following morning where I placed 29th overall out of over 3,000 competitors.

Let's just say that my body was not happy with me after all that, my achiles was swollen and tender and my calfs super tight - geez,  I wonder why huh?

I immediately went into prevention mode, I have been icing 2-3 x a day, been using my compression pants from BSC Gear and been doing tons of stretching and self myfascial release in order to get all the blood flowing :) and ready to rock the first sectionals workout this weekend.