The cold is so key

I'm much faster in the cold. I think it's a combination of being more comfortable and being a taller person that produces more body heat that's hard to get rid of which makes me faster in the cold. I made a point of running in the heat and working on improving my heat tolerance over the summer, but I do feel real good about it cooling down. It makes everything so much more pleasant.

My original plan had been to take today off, but seeing as the weather was threatening rain tomorrow, I decided to just take an easy base run today and switch that for a day off tomorrow, that way I could spend some time with Henry in the morning before a very busy Saturday afternoon. I started out quicker than I was expecting so I thought I would try to stay under 9:00 pace today. I figured the weather was cooperating and I felt pretty good so I just went for it. I didn't even push particularly hard, it was actually a fairly comfortable pace to hold, which surprises me. I had to remind myself not to slow down periodically, but all in all it didn't require much push and it was definitely within threshold. My hamstrings are still pretty tight from Monday's run, which also surprises me because it's been an entire week, but I definitely was feeling them the second half of today's run. All in all it was good though, exactly what I wanted out of an end of the day base run.

Today's Workout: Easy base 7 mi run
Summary: 7.04 mi, 1:02:16, 8:51 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 8:42, 9:00, 8:59, 8:54, 8:51, 8:46, 8:47.
Hit rate: 10/11 (90.9%)

Day off tomorrow! Yay! (:

Much love,
Jess

Some days are just tough

And you have to fight through them. It's odd for me to have two tough days in a row. Things typically bounce back the day after a hard day, but I guess not this time. After not feeling great yesterday and truncating a workout, I got to masters practice this morning and spent most of the workout wanting to cry. Honestly I woke up feeling fine and figured I would have an average swim if not the best swim in the world, but there were a bunch of factors at play and it didn't turn out too great.

For one it was a great turnout today, which is awesome on one hand, but also crowds the pool and pushes some faster swimmers into the lane that I typically swim in. Not only am I currently slower than I had been most of the current year but my lane was also faster than it typically is, which made me feel pretty horrible for being the last one into the wall by a significant amount every time. I know that really no one cares or judges and I'm probably not holding the workout up by that much, but it just doesn't feel great. My discomfort with being last by a significant margin surprises me a little bit though. I've been in this position a lot in my life. I know that you have to have a certain degree of comfort with being in this position in order to progress. You don't get faster leading a lane that doesn't challenge you. Playing catch up is always how I've always improved. So it's strange that I don't like doing it right now. It's probably because I don't feel like I'm where I should be. If I felt like my swimming was the best that it could be right now, I would accept being slow, but I know I can do so much better and underperforming alongside being the slowest in our workout group is just rough.

As far as being slow right now goes, a lot of it comes down to not having the same kind of upper body and core strength as I used to. I let some of that go for the run training and due to the back injury which has kept me out of the gym, and the swimming has definitely slipped because of it. I also just don't have the same kind of sprint power I used to or the technical skill in terms of stroke efficiency/turns/etc. Part of that is probably because long course didn't lend itself to really pushing myself and part of it is wrapped up in the fact that I just haven't been swimming as much and everything down to my lung capacity is feeling it. All in all, my swimming just hasn't felt great.

Finally, there was the whole issue of expectations. It was sprint day, I guess I was just expecting nice easy short sets and there ended up being an early set of 5 x 200s with pickups in the middle on a 1:30 base (which would have been a piece of cake 4 or 5 months ago but is quite the struggle now) that just knocked all the confidence out of my person. I felt especially terrible when some of the other swimmers in my lane chose to put paddles on and basically left me in the dust despite the fact that I was still making the intervals. It was rough. There was literally nothing I wanted more than to just get out and go home in the middle of that set. But I got through it (because really what other choice did I have?) and things got a little bit easier from there on out. One of my lane mates who I swim with pretty frequently at masters practice could definitely tell that I was out of it and feeling discouraged today so he made a big point of turning back and saying encouraging things like "time for the fast one!" or "almost finished!" in a very peppy manner every once in a while between intervals. That really helped keep me going. It made me feel like someone was rooting for me and that meant a lot.

In any case, here's the summary!

Today's Workout: AM CSP practice, sprint free day
Summary:

• WU: 450 swim (should have been 600, I got in a tad late)
• Main Set:
• 5 x 100 free @ 1:30, moderate w/ head down sprint last 12.5
• 5 x 200 free @ 3:00, moderate w/ head down sprints at the end of each 100 (I didn't do the pick ups, I was just trying to make the interval)
• 4 x 50 free MAX @ 1:00
• 200 easy
• 4 x 100 kick w/ fins @ 1:30, focus on the jump off the walls
• 10 x 50 free @ 1:00
• 1, 4, 7, 10 MAX
• The rest moderate focusing on where you would breathe in a sprint 50 (breath control)
• 100 easy
• WD: 4 x 75 @ 1:15, moderate, first 25 breath control
• Total Distance: 3650 SCY

Hit Rate: 9/10 (90%)

Tomorrow is the day off! We made it! Weekend plans are yet to be confirmed because the weather is being questionable. I'll keep you posted. Time for Pats vs. Dolphins! Let's go Patriots! (:

Much love,

Jess

Today, I was kind to myself

I'm not often kind to myself when it comes to training. I guess that's really not the point of training. Sometimes I have days like today when I think that maybe I should change that. Exercise is supposed to be a kindness to your body and a kindness to your mind and a kindness to your soul and it's so easy for someone like me to push all of that aside in pursuit of faster. But today, I was kind to myself, and I'm proud of that.

I had an interval set planned, a repeat of my October 1st treadmill interval workout at a slightly faster pace, and it was one of those days where I felt like from the very outset it wasn't going to go very well. I thought maybe it was just a matter of being slow to warm up though, so I gave myself a nice long warm up before launching into it and things really didn't feel much better. There are a lot of excuses I could make (and will talk about later in this post) for why I then decided to just axe the set and go home, but in reality all it was was that I didn't feel well. I had woken up feeling well, way better than what I was expecting given the combination of the load on my body and the work at school and the hours of sleep I've been getting (which have been acceptable, but not perfect), and I didn't want to give that up today. I wanted to feel good, and I listened to myself, and I was kind to myself, and I am allowing myself to feel good.

Now here come all the things that could be construed (if by no one else, then at least by myself) as excuses, but I want to remind myself that they're also perfectly valid reasons to make a decision. Not every decision to not stubbornly charge ahead at full speed at all times is the wrong decision. It's like Henry said, if life were a race, you would have to pace yourself to get the most out of it.

I could have probably gritted my teeth and gotten through the workout I had planned or down-adjusted the pace, but honestly I don't know what my body would have been willing to take from that experience. It would have spent the rest of the day exhausted and likely not gotten enough sleep tonight before I hit the pool for a workout early tomorrow morning. My body would be beat up and unhappy and I would be beat up and unhappy and the marginal physical gain I was going to get from that workout really didn't seem like it was going to be worth those consequences.

Also, there is the obvious and real issue of the fact that I was tired running today, which meant my form was sloppy. That can get dangerous on a treadmill, and even when I tried really hard to focus on correcting my form, my exhausted brain really couldn't keep up with both the physical effort and the mental effort. So in the end I just called it quits, took it as a short "easier" day, and will focus on trying to make tomorrow better.

Today's Workout: AM treadmill run
Summary:

• All at 2% grade
• WU: 2400 m @ 6.0-6.5 mph
• Main Set: 400/200, 800/400, 400/200 @ 8.0/6.0 mph
• WD: 800 m easy @ 6.0 mph 
• Total (machine): 3.55 mi, 32:41
• Total (Garmin): 3.33 mi, 32:40, 9:48 pace

Hit Rate: 8/9 (88.8%)

Notice that I still let it count towards my hit rate. I'm reminding my future self that it is acceptable to be kind to myself. Also, a shortened workout is different from a missed workout and if nothing else, I'm still moving in the right direction. Not every day has to be a destructively hard and impressive day. Some days are just average. Some days are less than average. But I got out there and followed the advice that every recreational athlete has been given: Do the first 20 minutes. If you're still not feeling it, you can be let off the hook. And usually in that time period, you get into it and you can finish the workout. But some days, it just isn't meant to be. On those days, it's worth accepting that you tried and that it's better to come back and try again tomorrow. I will try again tomorrow. (:

Much love,

Jess

The rain can't stop us!

I woke up to a soft drizzle this morning. I didn't want to run the risk of getting caught in a bigger storm on my bike so I opted out of swim practice and decided to go to the gym instead. Since I woke up so ridiculously early, it meant I had loads of time this morning after I got home to Skype my family and eat breakfast and generally chill before the day really got started. The gym session was pretty chill. I wasn't very strong today, which was a bummer, but it was nice just to get in there and move some weight around. I also tried to focus on some of those pre-hab/re-hab things and did some stability work which was much needed and will hopefully be appreciated by my body. Here's the rundown!

Today's Workout: AM Gym, ~1 hr.
Summary:

• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45 lbs, working 3 x 10/8/7 @ 75 lbs, burn out 12 @ 55 lbs 
• Pull downs: 4 x 12 alt. wide/narrow grip @ 6 plates 
• Squats: 4 x 20/12/20/12 alt. bodyweight w/ band and goblet @ 35 lbs
• Superset: 3 x
• DB row: 12/side @ 35 lbs
• Single arm standing shoulder press: 12/side @ 15 lbs (that core work though)
• Step ups: 3 x 12/side @ 15/10/10 lbs/side (dropped the weight down because of hip sway, still focusing on that glute engagement)
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 55 lbs
• Superset: 3 x
• DB curl: 12/side @ 15 lbs
• DB skull crushers: 12 @ 10 lbs/side
• No rest: 3 x
• 20 bridge w/ leg extensions
• 20 bodyweight forward lunges

Hit Rate: 7/8 (87.5%)

I guess I'm gonna try and hit the pool on Thursday or Friday (probably Thursday, because Thursday night is the Pats game and I will probably want to watch that and sleep in on Friday). First up is tomorrow's treadmill workout though! That's all for today. (:

Much love,

Jess

Alllllll the running!

Turns out being consistent about working out is easier to come by than being consistent about log blogging. Oh well, I'm trying!

I had the pleasure of running with a friend yesterday, which isn't something I typically do. It's sometimes hard to find someone of a similar training pace as you and to have schedules line up. A lot of it is because I am slightly neurotic about my workouts, so I want them to be perfect, and it's really only the casual runs where I allow a little bit more variability by outside influences like friends. Typically I only run with friends on easy days, but yesterday I took a pretty normal base day run with a friend. Granted, this friend when she's in shape would be way faster than me, but she hasn't really been training seriously these past few months so it put us in a good similar place. It was nice because we took most of the run fairly relaxed (I had run a grand total of 3 miles since the half and yet my body was still feeling all kinds of beat, so I wasn't trying to be aggressive) and then we picked it up in the nice straight flats towards the end. We were holding the kind of pace that would have usually been hurting me, but it was so much easier and more intuitive with a partner holding the same pace next to you. It was really nice, really reduced the mental load, made the entire run way more enjoyable. Here's the summary!

Yesterday's Workout: Base/easy 7 mi run (which turned out to be less than that b/c we started from her apartment which is closer to the park, but whatever)
Summary: 6.49 mi, 58:57, 9:05 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 9:42, 9:42, 9:26, 8:53, 8:35, 8:28, 8:30.
Hit Rate: 5/6 (83.3%)

Today, I did my run in the afternoon and tackled an outdoor long interval workout for the first time in a long time. It was aggressive and painful and I spent most of the day dreading it and being terrified, but I went out and conquered it and I am immensely proud of the effort. Typically when I had run mile repeats before, I did a mile out and a mile back, but because of the layout of the park, I decided to do each mile as an out and back in order to take advantage of a nice straight flat path without intersections. The turn around sapped energy every time but working through that was a big confidence booster. Also I had my watch set to give me splits for the first and second half, meaning I had to hold a more even pace throughout the mile. (Before, I used to do a lot of going out super fast and just sort of dragging my feet the second half.)

Some interesting notes: The pace felt really aggressive until I really lifted my head up and looked ahead on the path instead of at the ground and then I started feeling like the pace was fast but definitely maintainable in a long race under the right conditions. Trying to bring down the perceived effort while I'm doing these is definitely a goal that I have and today I got a glimpse of the fact that it really is possible. Also, I had been aiming to do 8 mile repeats, but was fully prepared to only get to maybe 6, since I hadn't had one of these workouts in a while and they are really tough. I gritted my teeth through number 6 and told myself it was the last one, but after stopping and getting a drink (I strategically picked my start/end point so that I could get a drink between reps) I felt like I had enough for one more, so I buckled down before my brain could change its mind and went for one more (which I made!). I thought about just getting that 8th one in but my legs felt like they were going to disintegrate so I decided I would save it for about two weeks from now when I'll try this workout again. Hopefully I'll get to work both on making the reps feel easier and getting to that 8th one!

Today's Workout: Interval run, 7 x 1 mi repeats @ 7:30-8:00 pace w/ 3 mins rest between reps
Summary: 10.79 mi, 1:44:13, 9:39 pace (total including warm up and warm down)
Pace splits for each set: 7:45/7:40, 7:46/7:43, 7:53/7:43, 7:53/7:44, 7:55/7:48, 7:53/7:49, 7:56/7:52
Hit Rate: 6/7 (85.7%)

Needless to say, my legs feel pretty destroyed right now. I'm going to hit the sack early tonight, planning on hitting up masters swim in the morning, so lots of rest will be needed. It'll be a tough couple of days, but I will most likely either be taking Thursday off or taking it as an easy run or easy swim day (or putting my planned Friday gym day on Thursday and taking Friday easy) so there will be some amount of relaxation waiting for me later on in the week. Just gotta get through it! (Still riding that super proud of myself high. Awwwwww yeah. Hope this feeling stays!)

Much love,
Jess

It's funny how destroying a workout and getting destroyed by a workout can feel exactly the same...New shoes be all dusted up now! #milerepeats

A photo posted by Jessica Hao (@newxheights) on Oct 26, 2015 at 2:22pm PDT

RNR

It's weird to have to admit that despite having a lower load training week than usual (easy swim/run on Mon/Tues, Wed off, real workouts on Thu/Fri) I'm still not really fully recovered from my half. There are plenty of people who can run a half marathon and have a super quick turn around time, people who don't get sore or stiff or achy and have bodies that bounce right back. I'm not one of those people. I noticed it after my last half too: Even though I wasn't really sore, it took quite a few days of real rest before I was back to being ready to run again. And it was summer, so I was at home relaxing, which really helped push that process along. This week has been crazy for me because the training that I have done has been interwoven with a lot of school/life busy-ness and the recovery has been slow but I haven't wanted to slow down. It's meant that I've not really recovered as well as I wanted/expected and that's made for a couple of tough nights this week. Last night Henry really convinced me that I need to take it easier on myself, so I decided to sleep in today and thought about canceling my other plans too if I didn't feel well.

I'm feeling really good actually. After a super restful night's worth of sleep, I'm definitely feeling better both physically and mentally. I'm going to try and keep it low stress and low pressure today. It feels weird not to be working out when I had planned on working out, but I know that in the grand scheme of things it's not all that important. Once again, I find myself making adjustments to my training plans, but we'll make them work. The week ahead will be tough but I really have to work on finding the right balance so that I can keep mental stress a little lower. Sometimes I forget that the summative tole on my body can be really high and I need to respect that and give myself some quality RNR time. It's okay to not be constantly pushing forwards, you have to pace yourself in life just like you have to pace yourself in racing. It's a marathon, not a sprint. We're gonna make it. (:

Hit Rate: 4/5 (80%)

Much love,
Jess

First thing's first!

Started the day with a swim today. 4:30 am alarms are never easy, but I think it's generally better to start my days with a workout rather than spend the entire day anticipating it. The thing about genuinely loving and caring about everything that you do on a daily basis is that it's draining. The things we learn sitting down in a lecture hall are draining, the things we learn standing at a dissection table or at the bedside are draining, the extracurricular things I do that I care about and love are draining, and genuinely being about everything that you're doing does not make it any less draining, so given the choice between the 5:15 am workout with a 4:30 am alarm and the 5:00 pm workout after a full day of school/work, I'd probably prefer the 4:30 am alarm just because it's so hard to have anything left to give at 5:00 pm.

That having been said, I have "I've been up and at it for 12 hours already now" problems. It's 4:30 pm, I should really have spent the past half hour of somewhat free time either working or cleaning my apartment and I did neither, I just sort of sat on my computer and browsed Facebook. I get that everyone needs breaks throughout the day but honestly I feel terrible when I'm this busy and I take breaks. I don't have time to take breaks. I really just have to get through what I have to do.

The weekend's also shaping up to be a stressful one. Weekends are full of errands for me (grocery shopping, lots of preparatory cooking for the week, cleaning, etc.), as well as long workouts, sometimes volunteer work, and time I have to carve out to spend with Henry and hopefully get some amount of academic work done, so it's a lot and they're honestly not very relaxing. You know you're probably in a bad spot when it's the end of the workday on Friday and you're dreading the upcoming 72 hours. (And I cap it at 72 because I can't think about the upcoming week after that yet.) Just want to rest. But no rest for the weary...Anyways, the point: I'm glad I swam this morning, because if I had a workout scheduled for now (which I don't because I have a PT appointment in less than 30 mins and an event I have to attend from 6-8 pm after that), it would so not be happening.

Today was the first time I'd gone back to masters swim in a while. The commute is long, a half hour on my bike out and a half hour back, going at a leisurely pace on my hybrid. It means I tack about an hour of activity onto a 1:15 swim and on the way back, my legs burn real easy if I don't make a conscious effort to go real slow and just spin in low gears. Today was IM day, which I generally enjoy, although the soreness from yesterday's gym session made certain parts of the workout a little rough. I'm generally disappointed with how slow my swimming is right now, but seeing as I haven't been seriously training the swimming recently, it's to be expected. I've got a lot of work to do in the pool, but for now I'll save that for January and those mid-winter months when I'll probably be spending a lot of time focusing on my swimming while working on base building for the bike and maintenance for the running in the lead up to prep for USAT Collegiate Nationals. I treat my pool time now as just a necessary part of staying well-rounded while I do my little run-focused block. Here are the details!

Today's Workout: AM CSP Practice, IM day
Summary:

• WU: 500 swim
• Pre-set:
• 4 x 125 IMO, 50 kk/50 dr/25 sw @ 3PR
• 3 x 100 pull w/ paddles @ 1:35
• 4 x 75 IM no free @ 3PR
• 6 x 75 kick choice w/ fins @ 1:15, 50 mod/25 fast
• Main Set: 3 x
• 50 stroke IMO by round @ 1:00
• 200 IM @ 3:30
• 50 stroke IMO by round @ :55 (1:00 for breast)
• 100 free @ 1:35
• Extra 30SR per round
• WD:
• 50 easy
• 4 x 75 free/stroke/free @ 3PR
• Total Distance: 3600 SCY, 75 mins

Hit Rate: 4/4 (100%)

Tomorrow morning will start w/ an easy 7 miler I'm planning on running with one of my friends. She's a lot faster than me so hopefully I'll be able to reign her in and keep the pace where I want to keep it. That's important to me right now since I've been aching from last weekend still and a lot of it is in my joints so I want to prioritize being safe while I'm easy back into the serious running. Time for PT! Send me good vibes to get me through the rest of this long long day...

Much love,

Jess

No room for ego

I forgot where I had first heard that, but somewhere along the line I had picked up the phrase, "There's no space for your ego at the gym". It's a crazy true statement, especially given where I'm at right now. Having not seriously or consistently been in the gym for almost half a year now and nursing this back injury meant that I had to be okay with what almost felt like going through the motions at the gym. Wanting to do everything the right way and the safe way meant there wasn't much pushing (and to be honest, the combination of it being early and me being not super pain adapted right now meant I didn't really want to push that hard anyways) and a lot of generally being weaker than I want to be. Had to check my ego at the door and just work smart today, gotta trust in the long-term plan and be patient. Despite not being as strong or as healthy as I want to be, it was a good way to start the day and I know it's just another starting point. I'm going to try and get back into the gym more regularly, at least once a week, so I can start building back some strength and so I have an opportunity to do more work on stability and movement efficiency. Here's the run down of my hour.

Today's Workout: Gym, full body, compound focused, stability-focused lower body work

• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45 lbs, working 3 x 8 @ 75 lbs, burnout 12 @ 55 lbs
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12 @ 6 plates (I don't know these weights...) alternating wide/narrow grip by set
• Squats w/ band around knees: 20 bodyweight, 12 overhead w/ small bar (25 lbs?), 20 bodyweight
• DB shoulder press: 3 x 12/12/8-3 @ 20 lbs/side
• DB row: 3 x 12/side @ 35 lbs
• Step ups: 3 x 12/side @ 15/side (DBs) - focus was on keeping hips even throughout movement (stable lower spine)
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 55 lbs
• Stretch cord butterfly: 3 x 20
• Back extensions: 12 w/ 10 lbs, 12 bodyweight

Hit Rate: 3/3 (100%)

In other news, today I changed my first flat! Which was an adventure and harder than I thought it would be, but I did it, and I'm immensely proud. I then took my bike to the post office so I could mail something and made sure that it was in fact functional, and it is! So I will be taking it out tomorrow morning to swim practice very early in the morning. Time for me to clean up the cookware from dinner and hit the sack super early so I can be up super early! Yay!

Much love,

Jess

Accepting your limits

There are a couple of big factors that I think have really shaped my mentality and the way I approach life nowadays. I grew up with Asian parents who were big on telling me exactly where I stood both in terms of my abilities/talents/limitations and in terms of my work ethic. I was smart and not very hard-working when it came to school, I had a moderate amount of musical ability but again no work ethic when it came to piano, I had no talent and an average amount of work ethic when it came to dance, I had a tiny bit of talent and a lot of work ethic when it came to swimming. Unlike a lot of parents, my parents weren't really "process" parents. They didn't see it as my job to try my best on everything. I think they knew that if I were to throw myself at everything 100%, I would burn out super quickly because I have the capacity to invest myself in things too fully. At the same time, they also made it very clear that in the arenas of life where I was capable and fell short because I didn't work hard enough, that was on me. I think the message at the end of the day was always to set goals and know exactly where I want to be and balance the talent/work division in such a way that I got there without wrecking myself.

The other big factor is that I grew up as an endurance athlete. I lived within the confines of a sport that rewards the kind of work ethic that doesn't stop for anything. It's hard to be successful as a swimmer. You put in a lot of hours, your easy days are few and far between because the sport is so low impact, you're sore pretty much all the time because the sport is year-round and even with periodization, you don't really get many real breaks from the grind. A few big things that I took away from those years are that (a) accomplishing what you want to accomplish can be really difficult and (b) you are deeper than you think (as is everyone else, so if you want to keep up, you'd better be working).

I think all of this has put me in a place where I honestly believe that when my dreams are big (by my standards) and are the kinds of dreams that require a lot on the work end to make up for a lack of talent on the talent end, I feel like I always have to be working at the edge of what I'm capable of. And the biggest problem I have with that right now is that I can't define that edge very clearly, and even when I can, I don't necessarily want to acknowledge it. One of the things you learn from going to practice day in and day out is that your brain always wants you to quit before your body really will, so it doesn't matter how much it hurts or how hard it is, you just have to suck it up and keep pushing. It's never been okay to just stop and rest, because even though that might make things easier or the rest of your workout faster, it's going to stall your progress in the long run.

But then real life steps in, and strangely enough my earliest interactions with physical exhaustion have all come in the form of swim practice. So when I'm exhausted in real life and I have a list of things I should be doing but I just want to take a break and recharge a bit, I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of letting myself do that because it's like quitting in the middle of a set. Physical exhaustion always feels like something I should just be able to push through and when I can't do it, it makes me feel like I've really failed.

Why am I here writing this thing? Yesterday was a tough day. It ended really rough for me and I ended up just staying up really late crying over how exhausted I was and how I really couldn't face this day up ahead because there was so much to do (including an early morning workout). Logically, all that says is that I should take the day off and cut myself some slack for not being perfect while taking recovery more seriously than I am right now, but in my heart it just feels like I've failed. It feels like I stopped pushing and let go in the middle of a set I should have fought through.

Regardless, I guess the point is this: I slept in this morning. I will not be working out today. I'm pushing the gym session back to tomorrow and making a few adjustments to the rest of the week. I didn't have a rest day planned this week so it really doesn't hurt to take one (so no hit against the hit rate), especially since I haven't actually taken a full day off since the half and this will probably be good for me in the grand scheme of things. I thought these thoughts were worth the update. I'm sure I'll come back to them at some point in the future and they'll ring true for another day later in the cycle. Wish me luck with the rest of the day. I'm going to try to be the best that I can be, even if I didn't get off on as good of a start as I had wanted.

Much love,
Jess

Letting things not go according to plan. Being bigger than the fear.

So the drafting of the training plan from now until the Hot Chocolate 15k is well underway and my life has already thrown me enough curve balls that I've had to modify my first week plans about three times. It's a funny reminder to just keep focused on the big picture instead of getting caught up in the details. I guess it's really the only way to make training work alongside everything else in my life (by which I really just mean med school). Flexibility is key and flexibility is not detrimental to my progress so long as I do it right. Gotta remember to keep that in mind over the course of this training block.

Yesterday I went for a swim in the evening with Victoria. I don't know why I decided not to take a day off (I'm actually not planning on taking a day off for a while, just planning on doing a lot of active recovery) but that's what I decided, so I rode my bike out to the Athletic Complex and took a swim! I blew a flat on the way out which was a bummer because (a) I had to ride half the way there and the whole way back on a flat, which was rough on my legs and also likely rough on my bike and (b) I was planning on going to masters swim on Thursday morning but it seems like that won't be happening until I get my new tubes in the mail (thus more plan readjusting!).

In any case, the swim itself was alright. I had been planning on just chilling it but ended up doing some real work because Victoria was there with a friend and they were actually working out so I hopped in and out for parts of their set. I was extraordinarily slow and it really hurt to be swimming intervals that should have realistically been easy. I'm sure it was a combination of having been out of the pool for a while (and not really focused on the swimming in recent months even when I was getting pool hours in) and having run a half marathon the day before. There was also a lot of dawdling and chatting during the workout so I spent about an hour and a half at the pool but only maybe 50% of that was real swimming. It was fun though, I got to hang out with my friend and meet someone new and make a new friend, and I got some swimming in. All in all it was a very enjoyable experience.

Monday's Workout: PM rec swim

• WU: 1000 SKIPS
• Main Set:
• 2 x (2 x 100 free @ 1:30) w/ copious amounts of rest in the middle (I just butted in during parts of Victoria/Thomas's workout)
• 8 x 75 @ 1:15, odds 50 swim easy/25 kick fast, evens 50 kick fast/25 swim easy (this was particularly rough on my already roughed up legs...)
• WD: 100 easy
• Total Distance: 2100 SCY

Hit Rate: 1/1 (100%)

Today, after quite a long day in terms of general life, I took a short easy run just to shake out the legs. Nothing fancy. I had this entire conversation with myself while I was out there about the upcoming training block and how it's crazy that my PB in this recent half marathon has really made me feel like if I worked hard for it, I could improve my running by a lot. It makes me want to be really focused and disciplined and structured about my training and it really makes me want to chase speed rather than just chasing more endurance. That's also really tough though, I find intensity a lot more mentally challenging and intimidating compared to distance so I know it's going to be a struggle to really get myself to commit to something that is in reality just going to hurt a lot and be really difficult. But now that I think I have the ability to improve, I can't just let that go to waste, I feel like I have to pursue it. And I guess more importantly, I really really want to pursue it. So it's all very scary and I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to rise above that fear and get what I need to do done. I have no answers, but I figure if I tackle it one workout at a time the way I tackled the race one mile at a time, I'll end up getting to where I want to be (or at least I'll be however many steps ahead of where I am right now, even if I do ultimately fall short). 

Today's Workout: PM easy recovery run

Summary: 3.13 mi, 30:35, 9:46 pace.

Pace splits by mile: 9:40, 9:54, 9:44, 9:38.

Hit Rate: 2/2 (100%)

As you can see, I'm starting up the hit rate measure again. I'll keep this up until the race in December and see if it continues to serve me well. In the meantime, the current update is that tomorrow will be an early morning gym session, the contents of which I will be flexible about pending how my body feels when I wake up. I'll hopefully be reporting back more frequently than I have been the past few weeks as well. I think I'm off to a pretty good start. Excited to start on this new block! Yay! (:

Much love,

Jess

PS - I signed up for next year's Rock n Roll St. Louis Half Marathon yesterday! Presale pricing was too good to pass up, can't wait to run this race again in a year and hopefully scrape off some more time! (:

Race Report: Rock 'n' Roll St. Louis Half Marathon

I've been saying this for weeks now but I swear at some point I'm gonna get it together and get back to logging on this blog regularly. But again, I find myself here playing a game of catch up. So. Quick skim through the two weeks leading up to the race first, then I'll do my race recap!

The Final Workouts:

• 10/07 Wednesday: short trainer ride, sprint intervals, ~45 mins
• 10/08 Thursday: OFF
• 10/09 Friday: trainer ride, under/over threshold intervals and single leg drills, ~1:25
• 10/10 Saturday: long run, 10.47 mi, 1:35:16, 9:06 pace
• 10/11 Sunday: easy run w/ Henry, 4.08 mi, 38:17, 9:23 pace w/ two legs of fast pick ups in the middle
• 10/12-10/14: OFF (med school midterms)
• 10/15 Thursday: tempo run, 7.07 mi, 1:01:05, 8:38 pace
• 10/16 Friday: tempo run, 4.79 mi, 41:38, 8:42 pace
• 10/17 Saturday: OFF
• 10/18 Sunday: RACE DAY!

A couple thoughts about the lead up two weeks:

• I'm glad I did my longest run a little further out than I had originally planned. Getting comfortable with the distance more than a week out was pretty key.
• I'm not really sure why I was doing trainer rides, I think it was a matter of convenience more than anything because I was busy and trainer rides are quicker. Also there were some rough days thrown in there where I couldn't get a run in during the day and my only options after dark are indoors, so the trainer just ends up being a good default. I also had some knee pain in that time span so I thought maybe less impact would be helpful.
• The tempo runs I took just before the race blew my mind. I was feeling great because I was rested from not training during midterm studying and the weather had cooled down, which was super key. Between those things, I busted out some pretty quick runs and was feeling pretty good going into the race yesterday. 
• As per usual, I had a ton of phantom pain the night before the race and I had a really hard time sleeping. Luckily I got a lot of good sleep two nights prior, so I definitely had the rest reserves I needed. 
• I think I put quite a bit of pressure on myself to do well, because my running has been improving and I've been seeing it come through in the training, so I really wanted to come through in the race as well. It made me really anxious and it made the experience a little bit stressful, but on the other hand, "it hurts because it matters", right? Or at least that's what I told myself. I care. It's not bad to care, that's how we get to where we want to go.

Race report time!

5:10 AM - Woke up, ate breakfast (a breakfast sandwich, a banana, a bottle of water), got changed, headed out. Took a 6 am metro train down to the venue, consumed half a bottle of Vitamin Water in the process.

6:30 AM - Arrived at the venue, used the porta-potty, took off all the layers keeping me warm (it was 30 F out and I had made the decision to race in shorts and a t-shirt) and packed it away for bag check. I took a gel 15 minutes from the start w/ half a bottle of water and stayed warm with an old mylar blanket from the Philly Half Marathon. Got in my corral and waited for the start gun!

7:00 AM - The first corral was off! We were off about a minute after that. The pack I was in took off at a nice leisurely pace which I needed. I pinned my eyes on two guys who were running about the pace I wanted in front of me and just relaxed into that pace. I was getting passed by a fair number of people in the earlier miles, but those two stayed right on track in terms of how fast I wanted to be running so I calmed myself down that way. The first 4-5 miles felt really easy. According to my watch, the first set of splits were: 8:14, 8:19, 8:22, 8:00 (mostly downhill), and 8:28. I was enjoying some great cover bands and music from the 80s/90s every once in a while and just cruising along fairly happily. To be fair, I was hoping to start out in the 8:30s range in terms of opening pace, so I did genuinely take it out too fast, but the effort had felt smooth and I decided to take the risk of crashing in order to maybe be rewarded with a big PB. Who knows, I thought it was worth it and I went for it. I really don't regret that, despite the fact that there were tough times ahead in the rest of the race.

Then there came a stretch with a little bit more elevation variation (the entire course was super super super flat, I'm just saying there was a little bit more less flat in this section than in others) and the effort started feeling a bit harder. The guys I had kept my eyes on before ran away from me as I assume they started picking up the pace, as a lot of people around me had. I just kept my eye on my watch and tried to stay the course. The splits from miles 6 to 9 were: 8:08, 8:23, 8:36, 8:36. As you can see, the pace started slipping a bit on miles 8 and 9. It's also worth noting that my feet really started to hurt around this point. I guess I normally train on softer gravel and the combination of the pavement and my shoes being way past their shelf life was really wearing on my feet. I just ignored it for the rest of the race though because it wasn't a problem I could solve, so I just put it out of mind.

After passing the mile 9 marker, I started picking it up knowing there were only a handful of miles left. At mile 10, there was a clock showing a little after 1:25 (gun time) and I knew that it would take a big push to get under 1:50. Honestly any PB was my goal, but a sub-1:50 would have been amazing, so I really tried to step down on it and push hard. The next round of paces (miles 10 to 13.1): 8:13, 8:23, 8:02, 8:02. I was really hurting all those miles. I got through it by just repeating to myself "Who do you want to be? What are you willing to fight?" and I knew I was willing to fight through it to get to my goals so I just kept pushing. My face must have looked terrible but that's just a part of racing for me: I can't keep what I'm feeling off of my face ever. My effort is probably better expended on trying to run faster. 

I could usually tell when I was slowing down because my posture got more and more upright and my head tended to lean back. Every time I noticed that I would just reset and look down and lean forward a bit and focus on just driving and I would feel the pace come back up. It sucked, but it was getting me closer to where I needed to go so I went for it. I tried really hard to do the thing where I kept my eyes on someone ahead in those last miles and would reel them in and pass them. I got a couple girls that way, although one fought her way back and ended up crossing the finish line just seconds before me. 

The finish involved a rather long uphill into a turn into a quarter mile "home stretch". My brain was so ready to quit by that turn and my pace was definitely slowing down. Then I hit my Garmin and switched it over from giving me lap paces/times (I wanted to focus on one mile at a time while I was racing) to giving me the cumulative time and I saw that it was around 1:48. I didn't want to miss that sub-1:50 so I really busted it out and ran hard into the finish and managed to make it under! I was insanely proud of that. 

All in all, I think the pacing and the racing went of as smoothly as I could've asked for it. I didn't wear gloves, which was a mistake, because my hands were going to freeze off, but otherwise I'm glad I went the t-shirt/shorts route because the weather was perfect for it in my opinion. I do best in cold weather races anyways, so I'm glad the cold front came blowing through. And now I have a huge PB to show for it!

Here are the official race result details:

8:50 AM and onwards - This was around when I finished. I picked up my bag, bundled up, found a med school friend randomly and went and watched my M2 big finish his first race! (He killed it, it was awesome.) Then I headed home (and ran into an M1 friend who had just finished his first race) and proceeded to spend most of the rest of the day lamenting the physical condition my body was in. I was lucky enough to not feel super terrible after my half at home this summer, probably because my mom drove me home (I didn't have to walk) and immediately put me in a bathtub full of ice for 20 minutes. I had no such luxuries yesterday, I was really hurting the entire day. When I got home, I took a bath/shower, ate lunch, and just laid in bed for a while (eventually I fell asleep and took a nap). The nap helped give me some energy back but my body was still pretty wrecked. I did end up taking a shopping trip in the afternoon (got new running shoes and socks and swim suits at Sports Authority because I had a coupon from the race and then groceries) and that helped shake out my legs a little bit which was nice. The rest of the day was just dinner and errands and PATRIOTS FOOTBALL and then bed!

This morning I woke up way more sore than I was expecting to be, which, again, is a bummer (the surprising parts of that include how sore my obliques and my forearms are...) but I'll get by. Next up on the calendar is the Hot Chocolate 15k in mid-December! I'll be back with an update on what the training plan will be for that soon hopefully and hopefully that will help keep me accountable these upcoming months. Yay!

Other comments on the race: 

• The course here is super flat, aka super fast, which is really awesome.
• Rock 'n' Roll events are really well organized. Most big races are, and it's fantastic because everything runs so smoothly.
• There were so many photographers on course! I hope there are some good photos of me. Although I sort of doubt it because I was definitely riding the struggle bus. 
• Cold weather races = ace. T-shirt and shorts is fine, but wear gloves.
• St. Louis is definitely a smaller city. There was nothing like the crowds of the Philly Marathon Weekend, but I guess you can't expect that kind of turnout for every race. The people who did come out to cheer were awesome though. As were a lot of the volunteers and staff and safety personnel who were so positive and amazing. 
• I am so insanely proud of myself: I wanted to think that I had a sub-1:50 in me but I really didn't know and the fact that I've come so far in the past year or two of running just really blows my mind. It also gives me so much hope and motivation towards continuing to get better and I can't wait to chase getting faster and improving as a runner and as an athlete. 
• I can't wait to do this again next year! Woot woot!

That's all for now! Time to grab noms and go to anatomy. (:

Much love,

Jess

Making peace with the distance

Woohoooooo took that long run yesterday, went for 12 miles instead of 10, did them all slow instead of mixing in some faster efforts. Originally, I had planned to go for 10 today and then 12 on Saturday and another 10 on Monday, but I figured if I just made peace with the distance earlier and if I could do it on tired legs (the mileage these past four days have been 10 mi, 3 mi, 6 mi treadmill intervals, 12 mi) then there really was no reason for me to continue pushing the volume into the next week. So I bit the bullet and went for it.

It was the first time I've ever taken two laps of the park, I had been really worried about my mental status but actually it wasn't that hard to just keep going onto the second lap. I really focused on just holding that nice steady sub-10:00 pace every mile and working through it mile by mile made it a lot easier. I also stopped twice for water at fountains, which I don't usually do, and that was probably much needed and very helpful. All in all, it was slow but I'm proud of how it went. It was by no means easy even to hold the slow pace I was going, probably a product of tired legs and midday heat. I finished feeling fairly put together though and even though my legs were definitely achey the rest of the day, they've also definitely had worse. The running has come a long way. And I'm glad the highest of the volume is behind me now. Here's the summary!

Yesterday's Workout: 12 mile long run (easy)
Summary: 12.68 mi, 2:04:42, 9:50 pace.
Pace splits: 9:38, 9:54, 9:53, 10:03, 9:53, 9:51, 9:57, 9:54, 9:44, 9:45, 9:47, 9:44, 9:50.

So some changes in plans for the rest of the week: I had been planning on swimming today but a bunch of personal things kept me up a little later than expected last night and put me behind a bit on the rest of life, so I'm probably going to take an interval trainer session on my bike this afternoon instead (have a fun/terrifying sprint set lined up). Tomorrow is a day off and now I'll be dropping some of the volume from next week, meaning my longest run will probably be Saturday for 10 miles with some fast efforts mixed in and everything else will be single digit mileage, specifics TBD (and probably quite flexible depending on how I feel). I really need to start focusing on studying for exams though! Must pass.

That's all I've got for now!

Much love,
Jess

Always a game of catch up

I'm starting to realize that I'm never actually going to be on top of what's going on, and for the most part that's okay. The problem with not blogging about my workouts daily though is that it sort of defeats the purpose of blogging. I'm not here just to spit my workouts back at the page, I do that when I log on my computer or on Garmin Connect. The point of the blog is reflection, and if I don't take time to reflect the day of a workout, it tends to generally just fade away by the time I get to writing about it...I think I really need to try to prioritize this on a daily basis. It doesn't take me more than 20 minutes to write one of these posts and I think it is really meaningful towards qualitatively assessing my training. Trying to do better. Here are the updates:

On Friday I took it easy after the pounding what was my first treadmill interval session of the year. Was planning on taking a 30 minute treadmill run in the morning, because it was the only time I was free, but ended up only doing 20 minutes and a small amount of lifting instead. The treadmill is do-able when broken into chunks but pretty tough as one slow slog so I took some of the mental load off and did something a bit more fun. Kept weight really low and reasonable for the lifting, trying to protect my back and my body more than I am trying to get strong.

Friday's Workout:

• Easy run:  treadmill, 20 mins broken as 5 @ 6 mph, 15 @ 6.5 mph, 2.25 mi, 21:14. (Garmin numbers: 2.1 mi, 20:53, 9:57 pace.)
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45 lbs, working 3 x 12/8/8 @ 75 lbs (legs up to protect my back)
• Pull downs: 4 x 12 alt. wide/narrow grip @ 6 plates
• Goblet squats: 2 x 12 @ 45 lbs + 5 squat jumps following each set. (Even this felt hard on my legs, funny how the run before hand really changes the game.)

On Saturday I took my weekend long run, which happened after a nap cut short by Henry waking me up because I told him to and me throwing a somewhat uncharacteristic tantrum and crying for a bit. I wasn't feeling too hot so I started really slow and just told myself to try and pick up the pace by :15 per mile every two miles and I ended up having a really great building run. I didn't think I had those kind of splits in me and I was really impressed by my own running. Unfortunately I also ended up developing a pounding headache after the run that lasted for hours and pretty much wrote off the rest of my day. Check it out though, I was really proud of this one:

Saturday's Workout:

• Long run: Forest Park and Wydown, 10.37 mi, 1:36:12, 9:11 pace.
• Pace splits: 9:40, 9:54, 9:41, 9:38, 9:13, 9:22, 8:58, 8:30, 8:39, 8:36, 8:38.
• Note: The weather was perfect, nice and cool and overcast, which probably played a lot into the quick pace of the run.

Sunday was another easy day. Sunday made my Monday sort of wonky because it was in reality a really unproductive day when it didn't need to be that way and it makes me feel really stupid for not having gotten more done because now I feel really overwhelmed. As far as the workout though, it was just to shake out the legs after a big day on Saturday. I took the opportunity to take some random roads in Forest Park and run through some grass and explore a bit, which was relaxing and fun. Apparently Toby saw me while he was biking and I totally didn't see him. Whoops!

Sunday's Workout: Easy run, 3.04 mi, 30:27, 10:02 pace.

Yesterday, I took another morning treadmill interval workout, this time it was a set that was sent to the tri team GroupMe last week and it was intended as a track workout, but I figured it worked well enough for this purpose. I kept the intervals at a similar speed as last workout but the recovery breaks were shorter, so I didn't know how it was going to play out. The set itself was also shorter, so that was another factor. The one thing I really like about treadmill intervals is that you're forced to keep up. You don't have to constantly be worried about making sure you're on the right pace, the treadmill does that for you, you just have to keep up. It takes that extra mental dimension out of it, and on one hand, I realize that it's important to train that mental dimension, but on the other hand, I know that this is one of the reason I avoid doing interval and speed work. If the treadmill removes some of the mental barriers and helps me get more speed into my training, I will take it and develop that mental resilience some other way or later down the line. 

In any case, it was by no means an easy run even though it was a shorter set than what I had done a few days ago. I got through it though and was very happy with how my body handled it overall. Also, my legs were a little rough in the morning but ended up feeling great the rest of the day. I don't really know what the deal with that is, but I'm not going to complain about it!

Monday's Workout:

• Treadmill interval run: 2% incline throughout, 6.02 mi, 54:08.
• WU: 2000 m
• Main Set: 3 x [1000, 600] @ 7.5 mph w/ 200 recovery @ 6 mph between each rep
• WD: 1600 m
• Garmin numbers: 5.57 mi, 53:53, 9:41 pace.

It's worth noting that I'm posting both treadmill and Garmin numbers. I figure both are pretty inaccurate, but whatever, they give me a sense for the range of what I'm doing.

As for the rest of the week, the plan was a long run today (10 miler, some tempo pick ups, not sure about whether I'll actually do those yet, we'll see how I feel this afternoon) and an easy run tomorrow (4-6 miles). I may actually scrap the run tomorrow though and go to morning swim practice instead, since I dropped out of some shadowing work this evening (need time to study) and will have the chance to hit the sack early and get up early for that. It's also IM day! Which would be fun. So we'll see what I decide in the end. Regardless, Henry gets here tomorrow evening, Thursday will be a day off, and we'll see what Friday and the weekend bring! Gotta go deal with the rest of my life now. Glad I finally got around to writing this post. (:

Much love,

Jess

Easing back in

I really have to get better about the updates. What happens is I miss one, and it sets off this chain of, "Oh well I'll have to blog that other workout at some point anyways so I'll just do them together later" and it lasts into eternity because the size of the post gets longer and longer and longer which makes me feel like I'll never have time to do it. In any case, I've got some downtime between now and class in the afternoon, so I'm going to take care of this before I fall too far off the wagon. Here's what I've been up to since the race!

9/21 - 9/24 Monday - Thursday: Off - part rest, part "I'm really behind and need to study like mad for anatomy" (which I passed, and P=MD, so yay!).

9/25 Friday: Easy run, easing back into it because I took a bunch of days off. Also it was early morning which put me in a bit of a time crunch. 3.3 mi, 31:45 total time, 9:38 average pace.

9/26 Saturday: "Tempo" run, by which I really just meant that since I only had time for short workouts, I figured I might as well take them quick(er than I usually do, because even though it felt like I was trying to run fast, I was still pretty slow objectively speaking). (Still studying for anatomy at this point in time, the exam was on Monday 9/28). 5.13 mi, 45:27, 8:51 pace.

9/27 Sunday: Off - studying, football, you know the deal with Sundays.

9/28 Monday: Post anatomy run! First full lap of Forest Park in a while. Took the counterclockwise loop. 7.04 mi, 1:07:16, 9:34 pace.

9/29 Tuesday: Still time strapped, went short, 1 mile easy, 2 fast, 1 easy. Aimed for under 8:30 pace in the middle two, which realistically should have been easy but wasn't (I think I missed it by a little bit on the second fast mile too, which I wasn't too happy about). 4.31 mi, 37:54, 8:48 pace.

9/30 Wednesday: It was an 8:30 am - 5:00 pm then need to go grocery shopping and eat sort of day so I cut myself some slack and just took it off. A couple late nights and budding cough made me feel like it was the right decision.

10/1 Thursday: Today! So the continuation of the late night trend did not end last night, but Henry convinced me it was worthwhile to power through my dread for today (it's a long busy day and it started earlier than I've been starting my days recently - habit is a powerful force) and just get what I needed to do done. So I did it. Took my first treadmill interval run of the year, it was an inevitable development as daylight hours get shorter and I'm really glad I just bit the bullet and did it. Now there's less novelty and I'm not going to dread having to put in treadmill time as much as I had been previously; I've already proven I can handle it. The set was as follows (all at 2% incline):

• WU: 1600 m @ 6.0 mph
• Main Set: interval pyramid
• 400 m @ 7.5, 200 m @ 6.0
• 800 m @ 7.5, 400 m @ 6.0
• 1200 m @ 7.5, 600 m @ 6.0
• 1600 m @ 7.5, 800 m @ 6.0
• 1200 m @ 7.5, 600 m @ 6.0
• 800 m @ 7.5, 400 m @ 6.0
• 400 m @ 7.5, 200 m @ 6.0
• WD: 800 m @ 6.0
• Total: 7.51 mi, 1:07:17
• Total by watch: 6.94 mi, 1:08:46 (forgot to turn this off at the end…), 9:55 pace.

So according to my watch I was going way slower than the treadmill said I was. In reality I'm guessing it's more of a midway between what my watch said and what the treadmill said. I feel like I was working at the right intensity though, the longest repeat hurt and so did every other repeat after that, I was definitely pushing just under threshold and that's where I want to be for now. Not being super aggressive with the speedwork, seeing as I haven't done much of it in the past few months, I don't have the best running base in the world right now, and I haven't seen a treadmill since I was in college. It was a good confidence boost though, just knowing that I can run intervals (which I'm pretty intimidated by still) and can handle myself on a treadmill for over an hour while staying focused and motivated (thank you for all the pep talks Henry) makes me feel like I'm in a better place and am moving in the right direction.

All in all, my plans to do a recovery week followed by two weeks of working hard are not really going that way. I took a "recovery" week but only because I was really busy and I think the ultimate result is that I'm not in a position to be doing really hard work. I'm adjusting appropriately and just focusing on finishing the Rock n Roll half in the best time I can given what I've got right now. So I'm focused on just preparing my body for the pounding and not worrying too much about the speed. I signed up for a December 15k, so I'll probably try to make a more regimented plan to build up to that race because I really do want to work on the speed side of things instead of just the endurance. That'll be a training plan I'll try to stick a little tighter to and will share once I've written.

As for the rest of the week, I'll be doing some morning stretching and dryland work (particularly stability work for my lower back) in the morning and taking a short run outside (3-4 miles, depends on what time and daylight allow) tomorrow, taking a long run on Saturday (probably around 10 miles), and taking a ride (24 mi) with Molly on Sunday. Still trying to figure out what the best plan is for next week, I'll post it up once I have it sorted out. Yay!

Much love,

Jess