The Elephant Is Taking Shape
Three weeks out. This is what three weeks out looks like.
Five training days, 380 TSS, 6.3 hours. Friday was the anchor — 3.2 hours, 220 TSS, HR averaging 107.5. That number keeps doing something that catches me off guard. 107.5 average on a 3-hour session. The aerobic base that felt so fragile back in March, when 100 watts on the bike pushed the HR into places that made no sense, is now running clean at efforts that actually mean something.
Five consecutive valid HRV readings — 7.0 to 7.8, Monday through Friday. Sleep averaging 8-plus hours four nights in a row. The body in the final weeks of a build doing what a well-rested body does.
Then Saturday. Date night with Kristin — tapas, good wine, the particular luxury of a night out that belongs entirely to the two of you. Came home and Grace helped me sort out a wardrobe for Italy. Italy being the vacation on the 22nd, two days after race day, which is a very good thing to have sitting on the other side of September 20th. Grace is interviewing for optometry school right now. That's its own kind of big week happening alongside everything else in the house.
It was a very good night.
Then today: first sitting of the tattoo.
Ali found his new shop. The elephant is taking shape — further along than I expected from a single session, which is either a sign of Ali's efficiency or the particular clarity that comes from having thought about an image long enough that it arrives quickly once the needle starts. The goldfish is next. The MLK quote after that. The 2.3 hours of sleep that followed is the data footnote for the day, sitting in the log next to today's 52 TSS like a small honest confession.
Three weeks to Ironman 70.3 Washington.
The course is in my legs. The bike is built. The wheel is on it. The tattoo is started. Grace has opinions about what I should wear in Italy. Kristin and I had a good night. The elephant, apparently, never forgets — and right now there's quite a lot worth remembering.
The race is close enough now that it has a specific gravity. You feel it when you wake up. You feel it on the long rides. You feel it at 2am after a tattoo sitting when the adrenaline has worn off and the race is twenty-one days away and the only thing left to do is show up and do the work.
Three more weeks of that.
Then Italy. Two days later.
Onwards.
Weekly metrics: 5 training days · 6.3 hours · 380 TSS · HRV 7.0-7.8 (5 valid days) · Avg sleep 7.3 hrs · Avg HR 115.6 · Weight 173 Friday: 220 TSS · 3.2 hrs · HR 107.5 — best controlled long session of the build Today: tattoo first sitting · elephant taking shape · 2.3 hrs sleep · worth it 3 weeks to Ironman 70.3 Washington · Italy Sep 22 (2 days after race day)