Today I was ready to quit

This was the first week of the strength building block of my training. My workouts have been at a higher heart rate and intensity than I have been doing. The rides are in the Endurance or Zone 2 and maintained for 1 to 2.5 hours. This was really tough to do but I did manage to complete them all this week. The runs have been Endurance or Tempo (Zone 3) for 45 to 1.5 hours. 

Yesterday I swam and rode for 2.5 hours. My legs are not sore, they just feel really fatigued. Today the schedule was 1hr 35mins Tempo pace. My legs were tired right from the start. I got to the first hill and had to walk up instead of run. Then I got going and managed to maintain my HR around 160-164. There was snow on the ground and it was -24c with the windchill. It was hard to get good footing. A few times I really wanted to stop running but just pushed on. Finally at 50mins, I just couldn't run anymore. My friends were no longer with me at this point. I really wanted to run but my legs just wouldn't go. It was the exact same feeling I had the first time I did GWN Half Iron and walked almost the entire 21.1kms. My quads just wouldn't move.

I felt like such a failure. This is WEEK ONE of actual training and I couldn't do it. How am I ever going to get through this upcoming week of full training when this week was a "light" week? While walking back, and running every once in a while, I kept thinking that this was only a glimpse of the pain I'm going to be in on race day. Then the doubts start in....am I really good enough to be Ironman? I've never really felt like an athlete and today I just felt like an imposter. After a few tears, I started to get logical...this is week one, of course you can't finish Ironman today, that's why you're training for it! This block is meant to push your muscles to their limits, that's how you get stronger. So it was a humbling experience to have the will to go but your body to tell you "not today."