Giving in, relaxing and recharging

(Picture: a deer elegantly posed quietly watching the joggers scurry by)

My last posts have had a bit of a theme, things felt off and then I was ready to restart and re-motivate. And then I didn't quite get back in the groove, but hopefully with another try I'm re-motivated again.

But, isn't that the beautiful thing about life? Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Today you can change everything about yourself. You can change something small. You can try to change and then on a different 'today' decide that nothing really changed and try again on that day.

Anyway, relating that to what's going on: work has been a bit stressful for me. First, I've got a role that requires me to review (and approve) a lot of things. Then, I've gratefully reached the point of being a knowledge expert. Which is totally great because then you know you are benefiting the company. At the same time, it does mean more questions. Which takes time. To move up, learn more, and feel satisfaction from work I also need new projects, which are very time intensive. So, to be moving in the direction I want to and take care of my current job presents some serious time challenges.

And it's been catching up. Like having trouble sleeping and not recovering between workouts. Then crashing at noon, and eating candy and drinking caffeine to get my energy back. I think I buy candy once or twice a year out of the machine. In contrast, I had m'n ms, reeses, and a brownie from the cafeteria. And three or four diet cokes, two lattes, and 2 green teas. As expected, there was a burst of energy but it wasn't really sustainable or pertaining to the root of the problem.

So, I basically didn't look at my triathlon schedule for 5/6 days. I still spent some 12+ hours being active (there was a weekend in there), but again, I didn't actually look at the training plan. I mentally escaped for the weekend, focused during the workdays, let myself feel completely overwhelmed, and then got things done. And started to recenter.

And then, after feeling a bit more recentered, I renewed my training (again). I'm not sure the exact sequencing but it went something like this: half hour destress run, bike to work day, 1.5 hour climbing, (started looking at the schedule ->) 2 hours biking, 1 hour run, 1 hour core, 45 min biking, 2150 y swim, and 4.5 hours biking.



**  special shot out to my friend who told me that she wanted to hear about my workouts, what I was eating, feeling, and tips :)  *hugs*    that helped with my motivation **

Two steps forward, one step back

Where to start? The positive? Or the learning experiences? Eh, both are positive, if you think about it.

I'm pretty darn sure that I made my best sprint time last weekend, but I had some chip problems again. In hopes that it would faster to take off my wetsuit, I took off my timing chip. It didn't make it's way back to my ankle. Yeah, so my transition time was faster. But, I don't know for sure what my times were.

But it felt really good, I pushed myself really hard (and actually needed more recovery than I anticipated).

At the race they tried something new, they put us in corals based on our swim time. I think it went 1:20, 1:30+, 1:40+, 1:50+, 2:00, novice. When I'm doing my relaxed swimming at the gym -relaxed being a very key word here- I'm swimming 2:00 minutes for a 100 kinda...  Or at least I thought. So I got in the front of the 1:50 group and, well, it was the wrong time. But it was okay because by the time I caught the other group they had started to disperse and it was just the normal comfortable messiness of a swim segment. Swimming into someone, on someone, getting kicked, etc.

Anyway, overall, I think the corral idea was good, if they make the number smaller that go each time. And as it becomes more normal people will start to pay attention to their 100 times more (leading to better grouping).

That corral start set the tone for the rest of the race, which was playing catch up. The bike felt really good, and so did the run.

Argh. I hope they are able to help me determine a time of some sort, that would be awesome. The guy in charge of timing said he would try. :)

The big big news for me is that I'm getting faster with my target heart rate zone :) The time and slowness is actually starting to pay off! Today I ran 30 mins at a 10 min per mile pace and kept my heart rate the same as it was a couple months when I was doing 4.5 mph (12 min mile).

***********

Tuesday
running/coaching session
90 min biking
30 min run

Monday
abs

Sunday
sprint triathlon

Saturday
bike
swim

Friday
Bike
abs

High winds

My sport roots come from gym class, riding my bike around the park, and skiing. Probably skiing could be considered my only real sport roots. It wasn't until I reached the double digits that I started adding other sports.

People with their fundamentals beginning in a speed sport (like skiing), quite likely, associate adreline and risk with pleasure.

In contrast, with a sport like volleyball the main risks are overuse, twisting injuries, or getting hit by the ball. In skiing, well you could wrap yourself around a tree going speeds that a person would get ticketed for in a car (in a residential area). Or you could slide down a mountain. Or maybe tople over a cliff. Or (ahem ... as I did) tear your ACL clearing the landing of a jump. If you continue to ski double black diamonds with 'no-fall' zones, it only makes sense that you enjoy the risk. I do.

That said, road biking has felt more like a zen like activity. Maybe like swimming and running. Until yesterday.

It was a very very hot day, so of course everyone is in shorts and a short sleeve shirt. I finally upgraded from my steel frame bike so I'm getting used to a fast bike. The downhills are intense, I've heard that a rider can get up to 30-45 mph. Then, there was the wind, it was definitely moving me. There would be a gust and then I would almost feel like the bike was going to be knocked out from under me. At one point I was biking slightly sideways. All of which I'm comfortable with (again we come back to a skewed perception of risk) but let's return to what this activity is being done on and what the rider has for protection.

Asphalt with cars passing.
With a helmet and a thin short outfit.

So basically it's skin vs asphalt.

I played that game in Boulder when I was 20 years old. In contrast I was going maybe 10 mph with no wind (just rain). The asphalt won, my ankle (bones and tissue) did not. I was -not- going 10 mph and there -was- strong gusts of wind.

So, here's to good kick of adreline and a new appreciation for road biking :) 

...although...  I still prefer mountain biking  shh... don't tell anyone ;)

*************
Thursday
60 min run (6 miles)

Wednesday
climbing

Tuesday
90 min bike ride

Monday
45 min core
2100 swim (not masters, schedule conflicts, hoping for Thurs)
90 min bike ride

Week 11 in review

   Have you ever had a week where everything feels off? Yeah, that's how this week felt. Mostly I was plagued with the one crucial part missing.

   Like one morning, I got up super early to ride and then could not find my keys. Whenever I can't find something, I clean so the positive is that I got caught up on things like laundry, etc. However, after quite a bit of cleaning they were nowhere. I mean my room was empty and completely put away. ...until I picked up the book I was reading. There they were, like a small child in the impossible hiding spot, looking up and laughing. *_*  Augh. There went the bike ride.

   Anyway, that's how life goes. Sometimes we go mountain biking in a ski helmet because our bike helmet is at home.

  Here's the week in review (I accidently deleted Mondays post)

Monday
1 hour core
couple hours gym climbing low intensity

Tuesday
1 PT session (I'm going try to lead with my knees - doesn't happen but often corrects form)
90 min run

Wednesday
2 hours climbing
30 hour core

Thursday
30 min run
90 min bike ride

Friday
75 min run
climbing

Saturday
multi-hour stomping around in the snow
core

Sunday
2 hours mountain biking
2 hours trail running
core
45 min swim

  It was the swimming workouts that I missed... so this week: masters!

  Masters swim in the boulder area, particularly the gym I go to, is crazy. Those people are in such good shape. One morning I accidentally joined masters swimming. I got there early, didn't realize there was an upcoming class and then suddenly people joined my lane. After half way through a girl who was following the leader, turned to me and said, 'he's breaking my spirit', half joking, half not. She got out and left after 45 mins. I could swim behind him in the beginning, by the end I was at the back of the group, feeling like jello had replaced my muscles.

  So, as I was saying, it's an intense workout and back in the day of highschool swimming, if we were bad it always led to intense workouts. Last week I was bad... so I'll do masters this week :)

Race results and reflections

(image is of the female age 25-29 division)

First, I'll start this blog with saying I'm happy with the results. Athletes in Boulder are all very very athletic, which gives lots of room for inspiration and encouragement  -- and room to improve.
At the end of the event I had a ton of endorphins and wanted to do more (after I sat around and ate some fruit), which is good news considering that I'm training for a longer event. Then I finally came down a bit and took a nap when I got home.

Anyway, here's a break down of the events, and reflections (which may lean towards the side of constructive criticism, but again, I'm overall happy).

Prep - forgot to get cereal for the morning, ate pizza at about 5:30 am

Swim (start at 7:10am) - water was so cold even with a wetsuit. It took about 5 mins for me to keep my head in for normal swimming, about half way for me to adjust and feel normal about swimming. During the first half I kept having to switch to back stroke to slow my breathing (again due to the cold). After turning around the halfway mark, it was smooth cruising and then I realized I forgot my timing ankle band. At the transition I talked to them about it, ran and found it in my bag, ran through the timing area and back to my bike.
My main take away is that I need to look into the best way to adjust to cold water swimming. And I have to put glide stick stuff on my neck.

Transition 1: felt a little overwhelm, and struggled to get the wetsuit off. For the Ironman, I think I'll need to try to drink more water to recover from the swim. I'll also need to have the food situation a bit more organized.

Bike: it was a very steady ride, I drank one water bottle and I think that was a good amount. I need to be better about getting in my bike workouts and I really need to get a new bike.

Run: Felt so loose from all the energy from the other events I had no problem keeping my shoulders relaxed. I paced behind Cassie for quite a while (see results), she really really helped me with rhythm. I didn't drink enough water, I was still fighting a bit of the nausea.  I probably drank at the rest stops 3 times and two swallows. It was less than half of the times that I passed them.

My list of stuff (as I remember it):

  Sports bra, tri shorts and top
  Towels

Swim
 wetsuit 
 goggles
 cap
 glide stick

Bike
 1 water bottle with accelerade
 1 package of sport gummies
 1 borrowed bike :)
 socks
 shoes
 helmet
 gloves
 sunscreen
 sunglasses

Run
 shoes
 visor


( additional workout)
 4400 yards swim
       4*75 (last 25 is back stroke)
       4*1000 (750 swim, 250 kick)
       2*50 easy

Workouts

Saturday
1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) swim
40 kilometres (25 mi) bike
10 kilometres (6.2 mi) run

Friday
Off

Thursday
2600  swim
200 swim, 200 kick, 200 pull, 200 swim
8*75  (1 in 1 min 30 sec, 2 in 1:25, 2 in 1:20, 3 in 1:25)
300 pull
6*50  (3 in 1:00, 3 in :55)
150 pull
2*100 (1:45)
100 pull
2*50 (1:00,:50)
50 cool down