I always thought I have been good with rules and plans until I received a good kick in arse 10 days ago. The point of the off-season is to obviously take some time off and come out of it feeling refreshed, recharged, and ready to go again. My off-season looked somewhat like this.

Oct 7- Offseason begins
Oct 8-13 In Kona on my feet most of the day working.
oct 14-21 Training hard with Terenzo
Oct 21-28 Relaxing.
Oct 29 Go time

So all things listed, I had 13 days off before I started solid training again. Why? Because I had a stupid idea that doing Ironman New Zealand would be a great way to start the season. Get in some nice base work for 09. If I didn't receive a Kona slot, I wouldn't care, as it would be great volume/strength work that would support the speed I would like to have the remainder of 09. The thing with Ironman is that I always have seemed to be behind the power curve. Even when i was 19 and had a solid day, I still was going way too hard. The point is, I wasn't recovered from 08 and since my ego wasn't going to put a hault to my training, my immune system was.

Last Thursday I woke up feeling horrible. I knew there was no way I would even attempt to do the usually run it off session I would do. I sat and did nothing until Sunday. Ironman had me feeling very worried because March is just around the corner! I laced up the shoes and went out the door planning to run 10 miles. 5 miles later it was all she wrote. Later that night....symptoms became worse. I finally have come around today after 10 days forced rest. REST UP!

Probably a blessing in disguise!

JC