Desperately seeking a massage...

According to my 26 week Ironman performance plan, I am in my 5th week of training with only 21 weeks to go until the big day. This week I am suppose to train 12:30 hours which includes 2.5 hours of strength training, 3.5 hours of swimming, 3:00 hours of biking and 3 hrs of running. Today, Friday, I am supposed to bike one hour. Tomorrow, I have to swim 1:15 and run for 1:30 and Sunday I will bike for 2 hours.

I have to admit, I am pretty tired and sore today. It's been a long week of training and work. So far this week I have trained about 6 hours. I am toying with the idea of resting up for the weekend by skipping the one hour ride I am suppose to do today. Such thoughts make me feeling guilty, like skipping school or something. Nevertheless, the weekends are very important and should not be missed because they are "key workouts". Key workouts are important because they achieve new levels of fitness by breaking through the limitations of physical barriers. This is why key workouts are the toughest workouts of the week and generally occur on the weekends.

This weekend, I plan to email my physician via kp.org to see if he can refer me to a sports massage therapist within Kaiser Permanente. I'm not sure Kasier Permanente has them, but I hope so. If possible, I want to schedule a massage every two weeks. Massages (and stretching) are critical in helping to avoid injury and arrive healthy on race day. Plus, I want my doc to refer me to a Kaiser Permanente nutritionist to consult with me about my diet. While I'm at it, I will schedule a check up with my primary doctor too. This will help me to do some level setting to gauge my progress over the months in terms of weight loss, blood pressure, etc.