Two-a-Days

Back in the spring of 2007, when TieGuy first started coaching me, I remember commenting--after a particularly nasty dryland workout--that I'd never worked out that hard before.

"You just wait," said TieGuy (undoubtedly with an internal evil little chuckle), "by July you'll be doing two-a-days."

And then July rolled around and I reminded him about that statement and TieGuy, who now had several months' experience with the workout load that my then-43-year-old body could and could not handle, said "uh, no--you're not doing two-a-days."

And he was right. Ever since then, I've felt like I was pushing my max effort by doing three hard skating workouts and one recovery workout a week.  The idea of doing two workouts a day--which is standard for the younger skaters during some parts of the year--was incomprehensible.

But now, suddenly, I find myself doing two-a-days twice a week.

True, they're not two skating workouts--no way could I do that.  No, the second workout is Crossfit, which, it turns out, is kicking my butt in an entirely different way than skating does.  As in, right now I can hardly type this because my arms are so sore/tired/non-functional from a devilish little thing called "Renegade Rows." (Except that  my rows are modified, so "renegade" is probably not accurate; let's just call my version "middle aged lady who sometimes has mildly rebellious thoughts but never acts on them" rows.  Either way, they are HARD.)

So anyway, the last two weeks I've done three hard skating workouts and two Crossfit workouts, and both weeks the Crossfit has ended up on a day I'm also skating.  That means that, in addition to two-a-day workouts, I get two-a-day 30 mile drives (I did mention that I selected a Crossfit place further from home than was prudent, didn't I?), two-a-day post-workout protein shakes (and I'm happy to announce that I've finally found the perfect fruit-juice mixer for my unflavored protein powder--ice cold Ruby Red Grapefruit juice.  Yum.), two-a-day showers, and two-a-day post-workout vegging on the couch sessions.  All of which leaves very little time for, well, pretty much anything else.  Good thing I'm off work in the summer.

And it's a really good thing that next week is my easy week.  Instead of two-a-days, for the next 10 days I've got a trip to the cabin, two easy recovery workouts, no Crossfit, and only one oval workout (the Wednesday races).  Given how tired I've been the past couple days, and given the skyrocketing lap times I experienced in today's interval workout, it's definitely time for a break.    I just hope that, after the break, I can handle the two-a-days, because I'm really liking Crossfit and I think it's going to help me be more generally fit, and also it will, I hope, benefit my skating.

If it doesn't kill me first.