Never been this exhausted

What a day, what a week.  First five days through the build phase and I'm feeling physically at my limit.  Three sessions Tuesday, two Wed, two Thu and three today.  Literally every second of my day is filled with Ironman: wake, prepare meals for the day, supplements, warm-up, train, cool down, stretch, eat, electrolytes, supplements, log, warmup for next session, train, cool down, stretch, refuel (you get the picture).  It's wonderfully exhausting.

Sixty min run this morning followed by a leg and core session and had packed down 1300 calories by 9am (a couple gels, sports drink, carb bar, protein shake and LARGE porridge).  A busy day at the office getting things prepped for the coming wave of deals,  time for a quick pint to say farewell to a colleague and reach the pool by 8pm, 2600 calories (salad with cottage cheese, chicken salad and fruit, more fruit and protein shake).  I immediately knew the swim was going to be difficult but pushed ahead at a hard effort until I reached about 1000m and realized my stroke was falling apart and muscles were throbbing.  So I cut the effort and focused on technique for the next 2000m which seemed to get further away with each stroke.

Eventually done, recovery bar and heading home.  As I stood waiting for the bus, I felt hunger creeping up and luckily I had a bag full of fruit!  So, there I was at the bus stop, looking a mess after the pool in my shorts and long sleeve shirt, no coat (running to work limits the wardrobe you can carry) gobbling down fruit: first an apple then on to orange slices and finally kiwi.  Somewhere around the third piece of orange I noticed the girl standing on my right, digging around her McDonald's bag and stuffing her face with fries, 'I bet the two of us would make a funny picture.'  And the sad thing is that others at the bus stop probably thought I was the weird one.  I mean, honestly, when was the last time you saw someone in public downing fruit after fruit; unfortunately, we see the person with the McDonald's bag all too often.

Home now, veg medley with cous-cous, avocado and mozzarella salad followed by yogurt and whey for dessert.  By my calculation that's 4000 calories, going to have to check with the nutritionist, seems a bit excessive.

Good week and beginning to see what separates each phase of training, seems daunting.  'One day at a time, don't get ahead of yourself, stay focused and you'll make it.'