The first “recovery week” of the IRONMAN California block. I put recovery in quotations, because in reality, I still managed to train 20 hours with some pretty good intensity on the back half of the week.
(Also, for the paying supporters—I have some big news on the sponsorship front. I made about 10 outreaches to brands over the last few weeks and we’ve got 5 on board for the Sub8 project! More discount codes coming as well. Check out the full details in the paid section. If you’re curious and want to get a preview before I announce (or see how I made these outreaches, become a paying supporter. You can even cancel next month if you don’t find the benefit.)
RECOVERY WEEK
The goal of this week was to take the first 3 days easy. In the past, I often just kept pushing through training, often skipping recovery weeks all together. Here’s a chart from 2024—you can see my fitness progress and very few (if any dips) in it as I trained for IRONMAN Texas. I was doing 20+ hours a week for 16 straight weeks and honesty, I don’t think I had a recovery week in there at all.
Fast forward to 2026 Eric. New and improved. Or just older, I guess and need to take my recovery more seriously. Yes, I’m turning 40 next August.
On a normal week, Monday and Tuesday are usually super hard days (threshold bike, threshold run, etc).
For recovery week, I decided to start off the week by sleeping in and skipping my swim (don’t worry, I still swam the next day).
I use TrainingPeaks to monitor my form score, or TSB they call it. For me lower than -30 is pretty decent fatigue. Heading into recovery week my score was -50. So definitely needed a break.
For a recovery week, I like the keep the volume up and reduce the intensity. This is actually the opposite of what I do for taper. During lead up to a race, I like to keep the intensity up, as to not get flat on race day, but reduce the overall volume.
After 3 days easy, my TrainingPeaks form (TSB) was back down to -16. This was just what I wanted. Get my fatigue into a more manageable spot early in the week, and get back after it in the second half of the week.
Scroll down for a breakdown of the second half of the week.
HOT TAKE OF THE WEEK
I’m a little bit annoyed of IRONMAN choosing to enforce certain rules for some athletes, but not for others (particularly “influencers”).
Some of you may know, most of you probably don’t, but I was the first (and probably only) athlete to be disqualified by IRONMAN for putting an empty plastic water bottle in the front of my kit because it wouldn’t stay in my bike cage. The 4th place athlete (I took 3rd that day before my DQ) complained to the IRONMAN officials who “investigated” the issue and later issued me a DQ. Looking back I should have just littered and no one would have noticed. I dropped the empty bottle (which was giving me NO aero advantage) at the next aid station.
Anyways, back to my hot take.
IRONMAN has a rule (or a few rules) about finish lines. The first being “Obey laws and local ordinances and avoid any type of demonstration of political, religious, or racial propaganda. Failure to obey laws or local ordinances and/or failure to refrain from demonstration will result in disqualification”
Yet, back at IRONMAN Jacksonville, IRONMAN shared a video of athlete Hannah Roy crossing the finish line with a “Jesus is King” flag. This wasn’t the first time Hannah did this, but it was more so the fact that IRONMAN used this for promotion. A clear violation of rules.
Another rule states that you can’t receive outside assistance. Aka, someone cannot hand you anything during the race (outside of volunteers at aid stations). Hannah claims she had the flag with her during the race.
Other athletes, like this one below are clearing shown grabbing a flag and dancing towards the finish line. Dude is pumped. Good for him! But, let’s enforce the rules or get rid of the rules.
Another “influencer” seen here brings her phone with her throughout the race, clearly documenting her day—including her finish line. Another clear violation of an IRONMAN rule.
So where do we draw the line? Do we only enforce rules when it’s deemed there is a performance advantage? Does IRONMAN get to pick and choose which rules they enforce?
My issue isn’t with the individual athletes. It’s with having rules that seem to matter only when someone complains or when enforcing them is convenient.
What do you think?
LAST WEEK’S TRAINING LOG
SWIM
As I mentioned, I skipped Monday’s swim, but got it done on Tuesday. 3 swims again this week—same format as usual.
Tuesday: Endurance swim (4800m)
Wednesday: Speed Swim (4150m)
Friday: Strength Swim (3000m)
Last week’s swim totals:
3hrs 3 minutes
13,0369 yds
BIKE
I usually start the week with a threshold ride on Monday. Instead, I did a 2 hour easy Z1/Z2 ride. I actually ended up doing 5 zone 1 rides during recovery week, the goal of keeping the legs moving and flushing out the fatigue.
The big ride of the week was on Saturday. After an easy first half of the week, I wanted to test out my race day power and see how my body responded.
The workout was 4x40’ at race effort on 10’ easy. My heart rate was a touch higher than I wanted it to be to start but settled down on the last 2 efforts. My goal is around 150-153bpm. The power felt great though, my cadence hung around 82rpm for the workout.
Bike totals for the week
10hrs and 56 minutes
All on Zwift
RUN
After running 58 miles last week, I started the week off with some easy miles on Tuesday and Wednesday. Both runs were kept in zone 2: a 10 miler on Tuesday on the treadmill and a 6 miler outside on Wednesday.
That brought us to long run Thursday. After 3 days easy, I was ready to get back at some intensity.
The long run this week consisted of:
12 mile build to race effort
1 mile easy
10K at race effort
1 mile easy
19 miles total
The 2nd quality run this week was Saturday after my 4x40’ ride. I did 3x2 miles at race effort. Similar to last week, race effort felt a bit challenging and my heart rate was a higher than I would have liked. Can I hold this pace for 26.2 miles after a 1.2 mile swim and 112 mile bike? I really don’t know. That’s the fun part.
Run totals this week:
5hrs 52 minutes
53 miles total
THE OTHER STUFF
Recovery week meant getting a massage. In Madison, I used to have a great massage therapist (shout out to Brianna), but here in Appleton all the good therapists have full schedules so I find myself going to Massage Envy. The massages are okay, but not as great as some of the other local massage therapists I’ve worked with.
The main focus with a my glutes, quads and hamstrings. I’ve been dealing with a nagging hamstring (maybe sciatic nerve?) for the duration of my training this year.
Wednesday, Sarah and I got out for date night with some friends. Shrimp tacos again. 3 beers definitely had me feeling it on Thursday morning before starting my long run. My whoop data showed it as well with a 57% yellow recovery score (still worth it).
The weekend was pretty low key, Sarah got food poisoning which took her down hard. I some how managed to escape despite eating the same meals (we think it was the sour cream on our Totchos—because sour cream is gross and I didn’t put any on mine).
New Blogs Coming:
I floated the “Cost of Success” last week and I’m still working on it! I also have a complete list of all the products, gear, and tools I use in training and racing. This will be dropping soon.
This first round will be my “pre-optimized” setup before I really start dialing in the exact products, nutrition, and gear for my Sub8 attempt in October.
I have some new sponsors on board to help out with that.
You’re saying “Yeah, yeah, announce the sponsors already.” I will. Just need to put a proper post together.
Paying subscribers get access today to the preview of these new sponsors and will get discount codes to most of them! Your $8/month will be made up in product savings if you take advantage of them!
RECAP
Overall, I’m feeling good. The run is still the one discipline that I’m really not sure of yet. It’s going to be a fun challenge for the next 9 weeks to get there! I’m glad to have you all along for the ride!
Here’s where I transition over to the paying subscribers only. Full TrainingPeaks breakdown, Whoop data, and yes—a preview of my sponsor announcements.
