Limits

You know what is NOT a good time to discover you are reaching or at your limits? I'm sure there's lots of unfavorable spots for this to occur, but for me.. it was about 10mi in to a 35mi ride today.. YIKES. I'm not sure what the deal was (oh, yeah.. baby growing in me might have something to do with it..).. if my legs were tired from the week? tired from my run this morning? It was only 5-ish easy miles.. hardly something to wipe a gal out.. But almost instantly on my ride today, I noticed my body wasn't quite operating as it should. Nothing terrible.. just..legs felt heavy and slow, efforts seemed harder than normal.. and on the 1st decent hill of the day, I had had it.. heart rate shot up, breathing was out of control.. Now. You can't exactly stop on a hill..not an easy task when you're clipped in, and pretty fruitless, at that, because, unless I was going to pack it in and head back to my car by myself.. I had to make it up the hill somehow. So.. I dropped 'er in to the lowest gear I have (tri bikes aren't exactly known for climbing.. thinking about getting a different crank with easier gears so I can spin easy the rest of pregnancy and also use them for hilly rides once I'm back at real training.. we'll see, though.. that would take some real gumption on my part!) and just cruised it up...nice.. and.. slow.. As I watched my crew pull further and further up ahead.. Luckily, they are all super nice and hung back and let me catch my breath and ride easy for a bit while I got over the shock of being humbled by such a mild hill (thanks, guys!). So anyway.. I guess I rallied because I did manage to make it through the ride in not too shabby of form, though I was a bit slower than usual in some parts.. especially the end, which was into the wind and I was out of steam.. But.. we got it done. Just in time for the cold drizzle to start falling (sorry to the folks that were still out there! It wasn't a downpour, so hoping it wasn't too bad for ya). And that was that! As I was riding today, I was thinking about how I had a pretty decent week of 'training' with about 4mi of swimming (total guess.. I hit the pool 3x, but don't count my laps right now.. should be more than 3mi, but likely a bit less than 4.. but I use the 'pregnant round-up' right now!), 100mi of riding and my 20mi of running for the week.. but then I realized.. that's not even a whole IM?! Ah, how the mighty have fallen.. Granted, I obviously know that's plenty of activity for someone 5mo pregnant and not training for anything.. but it's just funny to compare it to what I was doing a yr ago and what I had completed in just 1 day.. But I shall be back, IM.. It might be a while.. but I will return..