Not a Hangover. Just Tired.

There was a retirement party Saturday night.

Good food, good people, probably one more glass of wine than was strictly necessary. Not a hangover — I want to be clear about that. Just the kind of tired that settles in the next morning and makes a two-hour ride sound significantly less appealing than it did on Friday.

So I moved the long ride to Sunday. Today. And got it done.

That's the week, really. Nothing went badly wrong. Nothing went dramatically right. Six training days, 347 TSS, 6.2 hours. The sessions were shorter than last week, HR running lower across the board — averaging 104 for the week, which is the lowest it's been since we started tracking. Some of that is the lighter load. Some of it is the aerobic base continuing to quietly do its thing.

Today's ride was the anchor — 2 hours, 111 TSS, HR averaging 114. Controlled, steady, exactly what a long Sunday ride should feel like when you're building rather than peaking. The legs showed up. The retirement party didn't derail anything, just shifted the schedule by 24 hours.

Weight is the number I keep coming back to this week. Two readings — 175.6 and 175.3. That's the lowest and most stable I've seen since this rebuild started. Back in late March after Bellingham it was sitting at 184. Eight weeks of consistent training and the trend has done what consistent training tends to do. No dramatic intervention. Just work, repeated often enough that the body responds.

HRV held up well too — six valid morning readings this week, ranging from 7.1 to 8.0. The 8.0 on Wednesday is right up there with the best readings of the rebuild. The body is absorbing the load and recovering cleanly, retirement parties notwithstanding.

Sleep averaged 7.6 hours, which is solid. A couple of shorter nights mid-week but nothing that showed up in the data in any meaningful way.

Seven weeks in now. The weekly rhythm is becoming automatic in a way it wasn't at the start. The question at the beginning of each week isn't whether to train — it's when, and around what. Call days, late nights, family commitments, the occasional retirement party. The schedule bends to fit the life, and the training happens anyway. Not every week looks the same, but something gets done every week, and that consistency is the whole point.

Twenty-one weeks to Ironman 70.3 Washington.

The long ride is done. The week is closed.

Onwards.

Weekly metrics: 6 training days · 6.2 hours · 347 TSS · HRV peak 8.0 · Avg sleep 7.6 hrs · Avg HR 104.2 · Weight 175.3 (low) vs. last week: 4 training days · 6.7 hours · 462 TSS · Avg HR 112.5 Seven-week TSS trend: 326 → 468 → 453 → 406 → 537 → 462 → 347