"Sometimes I feel like I'm about to quit..."

[Day 40]

"...but it's about that time I get over it."

Thanks for the kick in the butt shuffle, I don't think I would've gotten on the bike trainer this afternoon if it weren't for that. Let's get to it!

I feel like I've been on a real hot streak recently with the swimming and I knew that it was going to end sooner or later but I didn't really dwell on it because I would have preferred later to sooner. Well today was the first roadblock I feel like I've hit in a while. It was a good run, but all good things must come to an end. I don't even know what it was, I guess I felt a little bit more tired than usual this morning and I really just couldn't get into it with the swimming. It went okay for the first half of the workout but then my lane mates all sort of left for one reason or another and the person who typically goes before me and pushes me the most in these workouts had some shoulder issues today so he just chilled it. Before you knew it, I was left finishing the set alone and whatever momentum I had been getting from just swimming around other people fizzled out pretty quickly. It sucks because I just couldn't focus on doing the best that I could do so in a lot of ways I feel let down by my tired brain more than I feel let down by my body, and I hate feeling like the limiting factor in my workouts is my brain. I feel like I should have a handle on that part of things by now, but it's hard to mentally on point every workout. Anyways, here's the summary:

Today's AM Workout: CSP practice, mid-distance free day
Summary:

• WU:
• 400 swim
• 4 x 75 kick/swim/kick @ ??? (sometimes I don't pay attention to the interval and I just swim...)
• 300 pull w/ paddles
• 4 x 50 free descend 1-4 @ :50
• Main Set: straight through unless otherwise indicated
• 3 x 200 free @ 3:00
• 2 x 150 free @ 2:20-2:25
• 100 free FAST (~1:20)
• (break)
• 3 x 150 free @ 2:15
• 2 x 125 free @ 1:50-1:55
• 100 free FAST (~1:25)
• (break)
• 3 x 125 free @ 1:50-1:55
• 2 x 100 free @ 1:30
• 75 free FAST (I didn't get a time on this one)
• WD:
• 2 x 100 kick choice w/ fins @ 10SR
• 2 x 75 swim choice w/ fins @ 10SR
• 100 easy
• Total Distance: 4100 SCY

Hit Rate: 42/44 (95.4%)

Another thing worth noting is that I haven't been feeling as recovered as I typically feel after a day off. This day off was pretty special too, because it was straddled by a morning workout and an afternoon workout so I actually got 48+ hours of rest when I usually try to limit myself to around 36 hours or less, so I was expecting to feel way more refreshed yesterday and today than I've been feeling. I guess this is the point at which things really start accumulating and that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's sort of the point of endurance training. I'll have some time early next week to sort of decompress and get a bit of that out of my system anyways, so I'll just have to be tough and get through this week feeling the way I do.

The day was a little bit stressful. I just feel like I have a lot going on at school and obligations keep popping up for the remainder of the week and it makes it tough to stay focused and motivated. I'm trying not to let all that get to me, but it really does. Also anticipating Henry coming soon really doesn't help me. I just want time to pass faster so he can be here, but I also don't because I have so much to do before he gets here, and all that's sort of stressful too. Anyways, my point is that it's the kind of situation that makes me super unmotivated when it comes to getting home and jumping on the trainer for two hours. It was honestly just the last thing I wanted to do. But Henry sent me a text telling me to remember why I'm asking my body to do this for me and that song (Invincible by Our Last Night) came on and I couldn't say no to that. 

Here's the fun thing about that song: it reminds me a lot of a mentality I really grew into back when I swam in high school. I knew all the girls from the other schools in our conference who were roughly my speed and roughly on my developmental trajectory as far as swimming goes. We were all a pretty tightly clustered bunch when it came to times and I was determined to come out on top every time. And the way I handled being tired and especially swimming hard practices when my body just felt awful was that I told myself that I didn't want to be able to beat these girls just on my best day, I wanted to be able to beat them every day. I wanted to be good enough that at my worst, I could beat them at their best. That's what I worked towards and it helped me hang on during the really hard days. That's sort of what that phase "I want to be invincible" meant to me, so when the song popped on, it was almost like a challenge. You're having a terrible day. What are you going to do to prove that you can come out on top even on the worst of days. Here's the summary:

Today's PM Workout: Trainer ride, 120 mins, endurance work with some speed thrown in

Summary:

• WU: 10 mins easy
• Pre-set:
• 8 x :40/:20 pick ups @ base/base/+1/+1/+2/+2/+1/+1
• 2 mins easy recovery 
• Main Set:
• 20 minute steady state effort, 90+ rpm @ base
• 5 mins easy
• Speed work: 6 x (6 min efforts, 2 min recovery) broken as 2 min base @ 100 rpm, 2 min base +1 @ 90+ rpm, 1 min base +2 @ 85+ rpm, 1 min base +2 @ MAX rpm
• So I didn't hit all the targets here, I was more or less hovering around the targets instead of staying above them, see the file if you're really interested
• 20 minute steady state effort, 90+ rpm @ base 
• WD: 7 mins easy
• Totals: 29.70 mi, 2:00:17, 14.8 mph average

Hit Rate: 43/45 (95.5%)

Notes/thoughts:

• I think I have a tendency of psyching myself out sometimes when it comes to what certain cadences at certain resistances should feel like and I actually do a lot better when I'm not staring at the numbers on my watch. For the 20 minute efforts today, I literally threw a towel over my watch and handlebars and didn't look at them the entire time and just let my body figure out what the right pace to be moving at was for that kind of steady effort. It hit it pretty bang on, which I was really impressed by. And what's even better about it was that it didn't necessarily feel hard, it felt like I was in exactly the right place, whereas sometimes I think when I'm looking at those numbers I psych myself out and it actually raises perceived effort when it really shouldn't. So that was an interesting experiment.
• The interval set in the middle was something I had pulled from a workout I did last year that was a shorter overall ride. I wanted to hit it again so I sandwiched it between two steady state efforts. The base +2 cadence target was 90+ rpm before and the MAX target was specified at 100+ rpm, but it was pretty obvious I wasn't going to hit those today so I made adjustments. I don't know if it's because I had that steady state interval beforehand or if it's because I'm using a different base gear (I used to ride mostly in my small ring in front and I've shifted back to starting mostly in my big ring in front but I normally have the back gear set such that what I define as base feels like a pretty comparable effort to me, so idk what the deal is) but either way, it was more of a struggle than I was expecting it to be. (Not that it was like easy by any means last time, but I think I made more of them, so that's saying something...)
• Today was a music day. Which was interesting, I hadn't had one of those in a while. I feel like I've done a lot of podcast days or silence days, but today I felt like I really needed music to help with the motivational lapse. It did work super well. There were so many amazing songs that came on that really pushed me through. A lot of it reminded me of my high school swimming days, especially the days at school that were just rough for whatever reason and ended in me jumping in the pool and just swimming my heart out because I didn't know what else to do. I really drew from that entire set of experiences, it was a reminder that I've gotten through a lot in life and if I could get through that I could get through this. I feel like sometimes when I'm pushing my absolute hardest, that's when I'm most brutally honest about who I am and what I love and I don't feel apologetic about it which is nice. I think normally, I'm worried about being too intense or specifically being judged by other people for being too intense, but like ADTR put it "cast your stones, cast your judgement, you don't make me who I am". (Not gonna lie, I cried a little bit in the middle of that last 20 minute segment when this line came on. It was partly the song, partly the workout, partly the rest of life. I want to cry during hard workouts pretty frequently, I don't typically do it, but music can tip me over that edge sometimes.)

I'm tired and I need to eat dinner and study for our microbes quiz tomorrow but honestly I think I'm going to fall asleep just like sitting here in this chair. So exhausted. Lift tomorrow morning (maybe a short treadmill run tacked on if my legs are feeling okay) and swim in the PM (either rec swim or tri team practice, TBD depending on how the rest of my day goes work-wise). Hope everyone had a great Tuesday!

Much love,

Jess