Reach for the moon

[Day 7A]

Remember those elementary school posters that read, "Reach for the moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars"? I hated those things (not to mention that's just like scientifically wrong), but I do feel like it properly captures how workout intensity tends to go with me. I get really overzealous when I'm planning and think I'm gonna be really fit and do really well and whatever, then I get on the treadmill and I struggle bus through the entire warm up and am pretty convinced that I'm going to die and I'm like, whoops, I got ambitious. But I always tell myself that I have to try, and I can make adjustments if I honestly fail, so I gave it my best and ended up only having to down adjust one part of the planned run (the second mile repeat was supposed to be at 7.5 mph, but that wasn't happening today). Aiming high meant that my workout was pretty quality anyways, even after I had to adjust some stuff.

The same sort of goes for core work. I had more planned than what I ended up doing, but had I not planned on doing more, I probably would have done nothing and just went home. I was real tired but I felt bad cutting out that big a chunk of the planned workout, so I got some easy core/PT work in too (and stretched a lot, because my legs are still hurting me). Anyways, here's the morning report!

Today's AM Workout: Treadmill run + post-run PT/core/stretching
Summary:

• Run:
• WU: 1.5 mi @ 6.0 mph
• Main Set: 3 x 1 mi @ 7.0 mph, .25 mi @ 6.0 mph (recovery) 
• WD: .75 mi @ 6.0 mph
• Treadmill numbers: 6.10 mi, 56:44 
• Garmin numbers: 5.77 mi, 56:24, 9:46 pace.
• Post-run core/stability: stretching b/w every set 
• Cobra into extended plank, 5 x 10 second holds 
• PT leg lifts (R/L/B) x 10 
• Cobra into extended plank, 5 x 10 second holds 
• PT leg lifts (R/L) x 10 
• Cobra into extended plank, 5 x 10 second holds

Hit Rate: 5/5 (100%)

One of the things I was thinking about while walking out and walking back from my workout was that days like yesterday are hard because I always feel like I need validation that I'm doing enough or I'm doing the right thing. It was easy when I had coaches to fall back on, because you just trusted that whatever they planned for you was right and if they made adjustments, there must have been good reasons. I had lots of faith, I just went with the flow, and whatever happened happened. Now things are harder because I have to make my own decisions and they never seem like clear cut decisions to me and the athlete side of me thinks, well more is always better than less, right? Right? So if I'm not doing more I feel like I'm not doing the right thing, when objectively speaking, that's just false. 

And then I realized that I'm sort of like that about schoolwork too. My mom used to swing by and check in on me when I was working and if it seemed like I was banging my head against a wall about a certain thing for too long, she kicked me out of the house or made me hang out with my brother or something. Because she could see that doing more wasn't the answer, a little break would do me good. I'm much better about identifying that kind of thing with school than with training. With school I think I've always felt like there's a big difference between doing a lot of work and learning a lot of things. Endurance training is such a volume driven ordeal though that I have to associate some degree of volume/physical pain with progress, which makes it harder for me to step back when I should be stepping back. 

But then I was thinking about how a lot of people give advice about this kind of thing and they all say that we have to have self-awareness and be self-sufficient in identifying what we really need. That seems to me like such a massive hassle though. Like I have enough responsibilities as is, I don't want to take on the mental burden of being a self-awareness guru as well. I'm a big believer that you have to set your environment up in such a way that it maximizes your likelihood of success. A big part of that in my life is surrounding myself with the right people. When I was younger, it was coaches and my mom that kept me on track and reined me in when necessary. Nowadays, a large percentage of the time it's Henry that keeps me on track (and reins me in as well). I would like that to not solely be his responsibility though. I wish I had better environmental cues to help me figure out what the right thing to do is, outside of just someone straight up telling me. I'm gonna spend some time trying to figure out what those cues could be. I'll report back if I have any breakthroughs. 

Okay those are my morning musings. I just had a breakfast sandwich (bagel thin, egg, turkey), a post-workout smoothie, and an avocado for breakfast and I will likely need a pretty hefty snack for morning classes today. Gotta shower and change now and get some review done before 8:30 am genetics lecture. I have an afternoon trainer ride planned, another pretty boring base ride, and I will hopefully not be too jetlagged and still have the ability to report back after that instead of promptly passing out (went to be at 7 pm last night but was honestly totally blown by 6 pm). We'll see though. Have a great day! (:

Much love,

Jess