Working Around It-Easter calls for Jelly Beans!

There's a skill that doesn't get talked about much in endurance training.

Not fitness. Not pacing. Not even recovery, exactly.

The skill of working around your life.

This week had three call days — Monday, Wednesday, Friday. For anyone outside medicine, being on call means you're available, which sounds benign until you understand what it actually costs. Sleep becomes conditional. The mental load of waiting for a page sits somewhere in the background of everything else you're doing. Even a quiet call day has a weight to it that a normal day off doesn't.

So the training went on Tuesday and Thursday. Not by accident. By design.

Tuesday: 118 TSS, 1.8 hours, average HR 112. Thursday: 154 TSS, 2 full hours, HR 115. Today, Sunday, a third session to close the week — 95 TSS, HR 121, which ran a little higher than the previous two, which makes sense given last night came in at 4.5 hours of sleep. The body was working with less than it wanted. It showed, mildly, and that's fine.

Three training days. 366 TSS. 4.85 hours. HRV back and valid all week — 6.7 on Wednesday, climbing to 7.8 by Thursday, holding at 7.6 Friday. Weight back to 180 after the Bellingham bounce. The oysters and wine have cleared the books.

The knee, which earned a spot on the watch list last week, showed up with nothing to report. No issues during activity, no issues outside of it. Sometimes the body resolves things quietly without requiring intervention. Good news, noted, moving on.

Yesterday felt a little off — not dramatically, just that particular flatness that comes from a short night and a week of call shifts. It's worth naming because it's also worth contextualizing. A little off after three call days and 4.5 hours of sleep isn't a signal. It's arithmetic.

Four weeks of data now, and a pattern is becoming clear.

The training doesn't require perfect conditions. It requires a workable schedule and the discipline to use it. Call on Monday means train Tuesday. Call Wednesday means train Thursday. The body adapts to what it's consistently given, not to what it's occasionally given on ideal days. That's the whole philosophy, really — not finding the perfect week, but building something durable inside the imperfect ones.

HRV has been valid and stable for four consecutive days this week, which matters after two weeks of interrupted morning measurements on the road. The aerobic numbers are holding — HR in the 112-115 range on the bigger sessions, which is where it should be at this stage of the build. Nothing heroic. Nothing wasted.

Twenty-four weeks to Ironman 70.3 Washington.

The foundation keeps getting laid, one ordinary week at a time.

Weekly metrics: 3 training days · 4.85 hours · 366 TSS · HRV 6.7→7.8 · Avg sleep 7.4 hrs · Avg HR 116 · Weight 180Four-week TSS: 468 → 453 → 406 → 366 (partial week)