I'm Human

I know, professional athletes are supposed to be super-human, right? We never get tired, we workout all the time, we achieve amazing performances all the time...yeah right!!
Today was one of those days when everything from the past month caught up to me. The lack of sleep...the different time zones...all the travel...the three 2-hour races...the training...it hit me like a bag of bricks today!
Lets see, it started at swim practice this morning. Cliff had a lovely 5K swim practice on the board. The main set was over 3K...I haven't done an entire swim workout over 3K in like four weeks! I was going pretty good at the beginning...but then around 4K I called it a day! I didn't blow up, I didn't die, I didn't even slow down...I just knew that if I kept going at the pace I was holding, things wouldn't be pretty:)
So, I turned the last part of the main set into my warm down and watched everyone else finish the practice strong (good job everyone else:)! Before I went to swim practice this morning, I glanced at my workout schedule and saw that we were heading out for a 2.5 hour group bike ride...immediately after swimming...I left the pool, grabbed some chow, lathered on sunscreen, and donned all my bike gear.
It was so much fun to ride with 15 friends and teammates...we headed out east, away from the steep mountains and into the rolling plains. Some of the ride was on roads I've never been on and that was very enjoyable! 2 hours of riding and I was still feeling good...talking, laughing, climbing well, enjoying the sunshine...and then it turned into a death march home! I wanted to kill every bump in the road, every slight incline, any whisper of a head-wind.
Eventually, we turned back into the OTC and I was home. It was lunch time so we all headed straight to the cafeteria for some chow and chatting. I was the first one to depart the group table and make my way upstairs where I stumbled into my room, shut the door, rolled onto my bed, and was dead to the world for 3 HOURS!
A 3 HOUR nap! That's just impressive...except for the two trips to the bathroom and the one 10 second phone call when my Dad rang (he is heading down the Grand Canyon tomorrow so I didn't want to miss his call:)...I don't think I moved a muscle! Forget about the afternoon run that was on my schedule (fortunately, it was pouring rain by the time I woke up:)...I was concerned about having enough energy to shower! But, I think I'm slowly recovering and Jasmine just stopped by to say that she was heading down for dinner...so I'm off for some more chow time!