...And we're back

[Day 87]

I think I passed all my exams! I think we're in the clear! Lol I have so much I want to write about now that I'm back on the bandwagon. Let's get to it!

Life updates:

• I'm in Maine w/ Henry and his family. The rest of break will involve some mix of Boston and Princeton (for wedding planning). The training this week is pretty arbitrary - whatever I get in is whatever I get in. I'm trying to be consistent the whole week so I can put in a big 7-10 day push once I'm back in St. Louis before taper, but that's really the extent of goals.
• I basically opted to take the whole week away from training to focus on school. It was the right call. I have probably studied more this year alone than I have in my entire life prior and it's so amazing to feel like I'm learning things and getting this whole medicine thing figured out. Like by the time I got to the end of exam week and sort of looked back and took stock of everything I'd managed to shove in my brain during the week, it blew my mind. It's really nice to feel like working hard pays off in the end. It makes me feel a lot more reassured about this training too - I haven't given it a chance to show me what it's worth yet so of course I'm swimming in self-doubt but I think exam week made me feel like there are great things coming in the next few months. I've put good time and effort in, I trust that it'll pay of. It's nice to just feel steady and confident for once. 
• Taking time away really makes me appreciate swimming/running/biking/lifting/generally being active for the sake of loving the feeling of moving. I just missed being active. I didn't care about racing or getting faster or whatever, I just wanted to get out and do what I feel like bodies are made to do. Bodies are made to move. It made me really sad to feel like I didn't have time for that. It really puts things in perspective. Sometimes I put a lot of pressure on myself to work hard and to succeed and it makes me forget that I just genuinely love doing what I'm doing. Time away always puts that in perspective. I think I need that every once in a while.
• Being still is sort of a physically horrible thing. I had some back pain (lower and upper) and knee pain (left) that nagged me all week and it was just like, ugh why I haven't been doing anything but sitting all this time. But I guess that's what happens when you sit all the time. Yeah it's awful.

Anyways, I'm in Maine now and I took two runs, one yesterday and one today. Yesterday's was nice and quick and I really enjoyed that. Today's was a little bit slower. One of the things I really like about running here is that the terrain is nice and rolling, just gentle longer uphills and downhills which we don't really get in St. Louis. I'm enjoying playing with the effort on the slight terrain. I've also been running without keeping track of pace live as I run (time of day stays on my screen throughout and I get mile splits as they happen but that's it) which is nice. It's good just to focus on the feeling of running instead of worrying about how my running actually is and trying to compare perceived effort to what I think perceived effort should be based on pace. I'm just happier when I trust my instincts and don't feel the need to have the clock validate those instincts. And it tends to work out really well for me in terms of overall pace anyways, so I'm real happy with it. 

It's worth noting that I've had some naggy come and go foot pain (not soreness/achy-ness, actual pain) which worries me a little (which was also why I opted for a shorter slower run today). I think the plan of action is to continue with what I'm doing and just keep distances short (under 6-7 miles) so long as I can handle what that feels like during my runs without compromising stride form and hopefully with the consistency things will ease up day to day. I'm also hopefully gonna be back in the gym tomorrow. The weight work typically helps with my foot strength/balance so maybe that'll make a difference as well. I'll keep you updated. In the meantime, here are the workout numbers. I'm also going to include a fun little exercise at the end: I need practice with my H&P write ups, so I'm gonna do one for me and my foot! Hope you enjoy that little tidbit. Here we go:

Yesterday's Workout: Base run, 6.5ish miles

Summary: 6.74 mi, 58:44, 8:43 pace, 178 spm

Pace splits by mile: 8:56, 8:27, 8:22, 8:51, 9:00, 8:43, 8:42 

Hit Rate: 85/93 (91.3%)

Today's Workout: Base run, 5.5ish miles (w/ Henry for the first 3.5 miles)

Summary: 5.66 mi, 51:08, 9:02 pace, 176 spm

Pace splits by mile: 9:11, 9:19, 9:16, 8:54, 8:54, 8:26

Hit Rate: 86/94 (91.4%)

Jess's H&P: We're going to pretend I'm presenting to a walk-in clinic in Maine w/ foot pain.

• CC: foot/ankle pain (R)
• HPI: Miss H is an otherwise healthy 22 yo Asian female presenting with pain in her right foot/ankle. This began yesterday during a run in which she felt the pain come and go a few times throughout the run. She had a similar experience on a slightly shorter run today and states her pain today as worse than yesterday. Her pain is localized to the area under her medial malleolus and the arch of her foot and does not radiate to any other locations. She has no pain when the foot is resting but experiences pain when the ankle is bearing weight or with movement (e.g. rolling her ankle, pointing/flexing her foot). While she is running, she feels that the pain increases with uphill and downhill running, but tends to fade away on flat terrain. When she is not exercising, the pain is more mild than it is during her runs and does not interfere with her activities of daily living, although she does not limited range of motion in her right compared to left ankle, which concerns her. At the worst, she rates the pain a 5/10 and otherwise on average a 2/10. She denies any trauma precipitating the onset of the pain. It is worth noting that she is a triathlete and recently took a week away from training on account of exam week. She reports that her current training mileage/intensity is lower than what is typical for her training. These two recent runs are her first runs back from her break. She reports a history of MSK problems (previous ankle injuries/pain/weakness, knee injuries including a right ACL tear, ongoing lower back pain) that have largely been managed through PT. She has not tried NSAIDs or other pain medication. She has iced the ankle which does appear to help with the pain and slightly improves her range of motion. 
• ROS: Negative for symptoms outside of those reported in the HPI.
• PMH: No significant past medical history.
• PSH: Two major dental surgeries in distant past (8+ years ago). 
• Medications: None reported.
• Allergies: Tylenol (acetaminophen - hives reaction, unclear at the time if the true cause was Tylenol but avoids the medication anyways)
• FH: (redacted)
• SxH: Pt is from St. Louis, MO, lives alone in an apartment, attends medical school, is currently visiting fiance's family. Denies any history of tobacco or recreational drug use. Reports occasional alcohol use. (Sexual history redacted.) 
• Physical:
• VS: (not actually available, but let's assume they're normal because they probably are)
• General: Well-appearing young female in no apparent distress, sitting up and breathing comfortably on room air
• Mental status: A&O x4
• Cardiac: RRR, no S3 or S4, no murmurs/rubs/gallops
• Lungs: CTAB, no wheezes/rales/rhonchi
• Abd: Normoactive bowel sounds, soft, non-distended, non-tender to palpation, no hepatosplenomegaly
• Neuro:
• CN I-XII intact (symmetric where applicable)
• 5/5 strength in all four extremities, normal passive motion and tone
• +2 biceps, triceps, brachioradialis, quadriceps, and Achilles reflexes
• Soft touch and vibratory sensation intact and symmetric in all four extremities
• MSK: Pain with touch pressure on medial arch of right foot and below medial maleolus. Slight +1 edema on posterior aspect of right ankle joint surrounding both sides of Achilles tendon. Pain on active inversion of right foot reported, no pain reported with passive inversion. Marginally reduced range of motion on plantarflexion and inversion of right foot when compared to left. 
• Aw yeah, I did the thing. Without looking at a template. And you know what? I feel like I'm doing okay for myself given that I'm an M1 that really doesn't know what I'm doing. 

Okay I'm gonna go rejoin civilization and be a normal social person now. Yay! Happy Easter friends! (:

Much love,

Jess 

Sometimes the best plan is no plan at all

[Day 81]

I live a fairly regimented life, but there come times like exam week when I really just have to let go of some of that structure and listen to myself and what feels right when I'm studying. I had a really productive studying day yesterday, opted out of the run because I wanted to keep that streak up. After my microbes exam this morning I decided to take a short run because the weather was glorious and somehow did a destructively awesome job of it. I'm not a fast runner, so any time that I'm running at anything mildly resembling real speed it impresses me a lot. Today I opted not to pay attention to my watch and just run and that's exactly what I did. It felt HARD. My lungs felt like they were going to explode the whole time but I wanted to see if I cold hold that effort because it felt good in my legs so I stuck with it and this was what happened.

Today's Workout: AM run
Summary: 4.14 mi, 34:10, 8:15 average pace, 179 spm
Pace splits by mile: 8:17, 8:22, 8:14, 8:07
Hit Rate: 84/92 (91.3%) - Note that I'm opting not to dock for any "missed" workouts this week. I decided that every session I get in during exam week is icing on the cake because the priority really is passing, not training. So only positive credit this week, no negatives. (Same sort of goes for how well I do with logging. If I don't log again Friday night, it's fine, the priority is school.)

I did keep my eye on the splits so I knew I was going fast starting out, but I was expecting closer to 8:40ish for that second mile and when it came out 8:22, I knew I had to just keep pushing it out until the end. Am super super amazed at how that went. Am also feeling pretty good about my ability to sit in a really uncomfortable place and keep going, because running fast is way not comfortable. It was great though, so glad I went out and did that. Dunno when the next time my body will get to move from this chair is, so I'll be back whenever I'm back...Happy Monday! (:

Much love,
Jess

And we keep coming back for more

[Day 79]

I didn't post yesterday because I ended up swapping workout days and sometimes I'm bad about posting on off days and it's exams so honestly this isn't my priority, sorry single human being who reads this blog lol. I had a pretty crappy workout today, crappy workouts tend to get me really emotionally riled up, and I was thinking about how I like got through many years of my life like this and I realized that it was because I always knew that I would be right back at it tomorrow. It just never seemed like an option that I could quit or walk away because it was frustrating, I was just gonna go back to the pool and do my thing and fail over and over again day after day until I had a breakthrough. And more likely than not, after my little breakthrough, I would go back to failing again day after day. But I think I always knew that as long as I kept showing up there would be progress eventually so I just kept showing up. I dunno how that really worked out for me long term. I wasn't the most successful swimmer. But I got to race and I loved it and honestly I'm a stronger person for it. I don't feel strong today. I don't feel persistent today. I feel like I had another workout in which my brain let me down and I'm just not where I want to be. It sucks. But I also know we'll be back at it tomorrow and the day after and the day after so one of these days it'll come together and not be horrible. Doesn't really change the fact that all I want to do is sit around and cry about it right now, but I guess it makes the long term not look so bleak.

Today's Workout: PM trainer ride, ~120 mins
Summary:

• WU: 
• 10 mins easy spin 
• 8 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• 2 mins easy spin
• Main Set: 
• 3 x 5/5/5 (you know the drill by now), no rest between rounds as written, in reality I broke for 5 minutes between rounds 2 and 3 and went 5/5/1 min easy/4 mins fast on that last one because honestly I just quit, it wasn't pretty
• 5 mins easy
• 3 x 8/2 with effort as 3/1/3/1, base +4, 60-65 rpm, +10 or more on pick up minutes, easy spin recoveries for the 2 mins 
• Extra 2 mins rest 
• 2 x 3/2 of 105/90, low resistance, focusing on the high cadence 
• WD: 8 mins easy
• Totals: 28.75 mi, 2:05:38, 13.7 mph average

Hit Rate: 83/91 (91.2%, no points off for yesterday because I just swapped that workout with this one, though it is worth noting that I'm also adjusting tomorrow's brick to just be a base run because I need time to study and that's the priority)

The only thought I have is I should work on that whole low gear high cadence thing some more, because I do struggle with smooth pedal stroke mechanics and I think it would be a really meaningful thing to work on some more. Gonna go back to my disappointment hole now and go do that. Yay.

Much love,

Jess

I don't understand mechanisms of heat/cold intolerance in thyroid disorders help me

[Day 77]

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

• WU: 
• 200 swim
• 200 kick no fins
• 200 pull no paddles
• 100 swim (as written was a 200...idk what the lane decided)
• Pre-Set: straight through, breaks indicated, if I didn't put a pace time it's because I don't know what we did it on
• 8 x 50 stroke/free by 25 @ :55 (I did 4 fly, 4 back)
• 1 x 100 free
• 4 x 25 choice (back) descend 1-4
• (break)
• 4 x 50 kick w/ fins choice @ :50
• 1 x 100 swim w/ fins @ 1:30
• 4 x 25 kick w/ fins MAX @ :30
• (break)
• 2 x 50 free @ :45
• 1 x 100 swim @ 1:40
• 4 x 25 break outs free 
• Main Set: straight through, all free
• 1 x 50 @ :40
• 2 x 100 easy @ 1:40
• 2 x 50 @ :45/:40
• 2 x 100 easy @ 1:40
• 3 x 50 @ :50/:45/:40
• 2 x 100 easy @ 1:40
• 4 x 50 @ :55/:50/:45/:40
• 2 x 100 easy @ 1:40
• 5 x 50 @ 1:00/:55/:50/:45/:40
• 2 x 100 easy @ 1:40
• WD: lol no time
• Total Distance: 3750 SCY

Hit Rate: 82/90 (91.1%)

Already dreading the trainer ride tomorrow and I haven't even taken my exam yet yay. Back to studying.

Much love,

Jess

"Will you destroy what destroys you?"

[Day 76B]

Today's PM Workout: Long run, 12 mi, easy effort (two clockwise loops of Forest Park, didn't run up/down Skinker hill the first lap because there was grounds work being done but I did on the second lap)
Summary: 12.70 mi, 2:04:42, 9:49 pace, 174 spm
Pace splits by mile: 9:52, 9:51, 9:49, 9:53, 9:27, 9:37, 9:51, 10:02, 10:04, 9:55, 9:50, 9:44, 9:41
Hit Rate: 81/89 (91%)

Notes/thoughts:

• The goal today was to make 12 miles easy and surprisingly enough I felt pretty successful with it. Definitely the best I've ever felt after a 12 mile run, and the best part is that it wasn't even much slower than my last 12 miler 2 weeks ago. Worth noting that it's always hard to compare these runs because of differences in the lead up workouts, but still cool nonetheless to feel like I have this distance in the bag.
• Worth noting there were a few rougher feeling miles in the middle there, miles 8 and 9 didn't feel super great, partially terrain related, partially wind related, but also probably because that's the point where I sort of get beyond the usual time/distance that I train so my body was probably wondering why we were still going. It picked back up though and I felt pretty relaxed going into the finish so I did rebound.
• It was windy. Let that be noted. 
• I ran with music for the first time all year today (well if you only count outdoor runs, because I usually use music on the treadmill) and it was really nice. I think it definitely helped me keep calm and relax. I kept my watch set to clock time instead of pace and I did check my pace at every mile interval when it gave me the split, but otherwise I really tried to run off feel and feel alone (I told myself I'd be happy with anything faster than an 11 min mile average). The whole goal was to see if I could cover the distance at an easy effort or if the distance would inevitably break things down, so it was important to keep effort in check today. Surprised at how well things turned out, especially in terms of split consistency and all. I should run by feel more often, I get caught up in the pace times sometimes and some days I think it's productive but I think some days it detracts from what I'm really trying to do.

Packing for a morning swim tomorrow and a looooooong day of physio review. Happy Hump Day!

Much love,

Jess

"When it's dark you cannot be afraid"

[Day 76A]

Okay so expect posts for the next two weeks to be short and to the point. Part of it is because of time crunch related to upcoming exams and part of it is because honestly I've been feeling really unmotivated and unsatisfied and I want to prioritize directing my energy at getting things (like schoolwork and workouts) done rather than overthinking how crappy I feel right now. It's okay, we'll get through. (Shout-out to Henry for keeping my sorry ass on track even though I've literally wanted to skip every workout so far this week.)

Today's AM Workout: Gym, ~1:15
Summary:

• Squats: WU 12 @ 75#, 4 x 8/8/8/6 @ 115#
• Wasn't gonna go for set 4, I don't really know what made me do it anyways lol
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, 4 x 12/10/6/6 @ 85# 
• These felt weak today, wasn't happy about that but whatever, just keeping grinding it'll come around eventually
• Deadlifts: 4 x 8/8/6/6 @ 155# 
• Not the cleanest lifting in terms of back involvement and grip strength is definitely an issue, will just take time/repetition to get better, I'm okay with that
• Pulldowns: 4 x 10-2/8-4/6-2/8-4 @ 7.5 plates alternating wide/narrow grip 
• I added the half plate today, the grip strength definitely cut into what I could do, as you can see I literally couldn't hold onto the bar...worse on the right side wide-gripping especially
• Lunges (DB weighted): 4 x 12/side @ 20#/side alternating forward/reverse by set 
• Had a knee kink on the L side in the middle of these because I was going pretty quick through them, probably worthwhile to slow down and take stock of form and all...
• DB shoulder press: 3 x 12 @ 25#/side 
• Okay we're gonna bring these up to 30 lbs and see what rep scheme I can do with that kind of weight and go from there next time...or I might do some barbell work because it's been a while since I've push pressed, etc. etc. TBD
• Wanted to do DB rows, couldn't because I literally couldn't hold onto the weight so I opted out of those today. I guess it's going to take some time for the grip strength to adjust to my back being stronger...
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/12/10 @ 75# 
• Pretty happy w/ the rep counts, had some R elbow pain during the set probably relating to my forearms being pretty weak and having a hard time with stabilization, which is funny because my L elbow has been bothering me the past few days and that was the one I was expecting to give me problems. Unpredictable at times.

Hit Rate: 80/88 (90.9%)

Back to that med school grind now. 12 miler tonight. Stay tuned.

Much love,

Jess

Going through the motions

[Day 75]

Meh. Let's not talk about it. But here is the set anyways.

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

• WU: 550 swim (600 as written)
• Main Set:
• 5 x 150 free @ 2:15, last 25 build to fast
• 5 x 50 @ 1:00, 25 kick w/o fins/25 free
• 5 x 75 @ 1:20, 25 moderate/25 faster/25 fastest
• 5 x 25 free MAX @ :30
• 5 x 100 kick w/ fins @ 1:30, 75 choice/25 fly on back
• 150 easy as 100 free/50 back
• 5 x 150 @ 2:20, 75 moderate/50 fast/25 sprint
• WD:
• 4 x 50 free @ 1:00, DPS/DPS-1
• 4 x 75 free @ 1:10, RB 7/5/3 by 25
• 50 easy
• Total Distance: 4000 SCY

Hit Rate: 79/87 (90.8%)

Much love,

Jess

Some days you feel deceptively good...

[Day 74]

But it turns out that's probably just because you didn't do much moving all day. No overt discomfort all day so I went into my run feeling pretty confident, was gonna go for 2 easy/4 fast/1 easy for 7 miles but it became pretty clear about a half mile into the fast segment that it really wasn't meant to be today. I was actually hitting a pretty solid pace and probably could have pushed that through, but I was doing it on not the best form and over-striding had me worried a bit about my knees. My legs just had no kick to them today, it felt like it took all the concentration I had just to keep the turnover reasonable (and actually the average cadence was quicker than it felt so that was a pleasant surprise) and I could really feel the fatigue from yesterday's ride even though I really hadn't noticed that all day. Just goes to show sometimes you really don't know where your body is at until you're in the middle of the workout.

In any case, I adjusted and just decided that it would be better to try and focus on running well instead of running fast. In a race situation I'll be feeling those heavy legs anyways and it's always good to program good form in while you're fatigued so it's more natural in race situations when your brain isn't always there to take the reins. In the end the pace ended up looking much better than I thought it would, given that I really wasn't focusing on that, so I was happy about it. Also the pace definitely built as I went on, so my body was easing itself into the workout which was promising. Surprised by how trashed my legs feel from yesterday, but then again maybe I shouldn't be. 3 hours is really not a joke for someone as relatively new to riding as I am. Here's the update.

Today's Workout: PM base run
Summary: 7.05 mi, 1:04:36, 9:10 average pace, 173 spm
Pace splits by mile: 9:32, 9:25, 8:56, 9:13, 9:09, 8:56, 9:06
Hit Rate: 78/86 (90.6%)

Swim practice in the morning tomorrow and what will likely be a long day I'll split between lab and studying for finals. Honestly not being too aggressive this week or next because school is the priority and I would like to keep my wits about me as best as possible. That said, Wednesday will still be a big day, but we'll talk about that when we get there. Happy Monday everyone!

Much love,
Jess

Longest trainer ride to date

[Day 73]

Watched a hockey game for the first time in forever while sitting down for a steady-ish 3 hour ride. Really had no plan, so sort of pushed on and off for the first hour or so and then settled into a pattern of building every 5 mile segment for the rest. Deets incoming!

Today's Workout: Trainer ride, "steady" 3 hour ride
Summary: 42.43 mi, 3:00:37, 14.1 mph, 90 rpm average
Speed splits by 5 mi: 13.9, 15.2, 15.4, 13.5, 14.0, 14.0, 14.2, 13.9, 12.0
Hit Rate: 77/85 (90.5%)

Shower, food, bedtime now.

Much love,
Jess

"Rest day"

[Day 72]

I went to an intro CrossFit sesh today! It was super chill so it totally doubles as an off day. The session was pretty simple, we did some technique work with PVC pipes on air squats, back squats, front squats, and overhead squats, learned a few tips and tricks for those lifts. Then we did a short and simple metabolic conditioning workout of 50 air squats, 40 sit ups, 30 push ups, 20 bench dips, 10 burpees and that was that! I had a good time, had a good subsequent conversation with the gym owner, Tom, who is a really nice guy. In the end I decided that now wasn't the best time to add something new to my schedule, also CrossFit is a little bit cost prohibitive if it's not the only form of physical activity you do, so I decided to just hold off on trying more out until later. Maybe after this year of racing (which at this point goes through the crazy swim I have planned in October and the half marathon), I'll re-visit this and see if it's a more viable option. Until then, I'm just gonna focus on doing me and executing the current plan as best I can.

Had a 30+5 brick planned for tomorrow, but am actually going to edit that into a 2 hour ish maybe longer trainer ride. It's supposed to rain in the morning and I honestly don't want to do into a near 2 hour ride with any amount of uncertainty about whether or not I'll get stuck in bad weather. I know people do ride in the rain, but I have no confidence in my bike handling abilities in inclement weather and no confidence in drivers abilities to not hit me while I'm on the roads. So instead I think I'm going to take a trainer ride during the hockey game tomorrow night, just throw it on TV and hope on the trainer and go for however long the game happens to go. No set or anything, just gonna see what a long steady effort on the trainer feels like.

Hope everyone had a great Saturday! (:

Much love,
Jess

Friends make you better (:

[Day 71]

It's late so we'll keep it brief today.

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

• WU: 
• 400 swim
• 4 x 150 fly/bk/br by 50 @ third person rest
• 1 - kick (w/ board)
• 2 - 25 kick/25 swim
• 3 - drill 
• 4 - 25 drill/25 swim
• 300 free pull w/ paddles
• Main Set: straight through, breaks indicated
• 3 x 100 IM @ 1:45/1:40/1:35
• 3 x 100 free @ 1:40/1:35/1:30
• 3 x 100 stroke @ 1:50/1:45/1:40
• (break)
• 2 x 100 IM @ 1:40/1:35
• 2 x 100 free @ 1:35/1:30
• 2 x 100 stroke @ 1:45/1:40
• (break)
• 1 x 100 IM @ 1:35
• 1 x 100 free @ 1:30
• 1 x 100 stroke @ 1:40
• (break)
• 3 x 200 kick w/ fins @ 3:30 (I think we did more like 3:00/3:15, it was sort of arbitrary)
• 1 - 25 fly/25 free
• 2 - 50 fly/50 free
• 3 - 100 fly/100 free
• I did the fly kick on my back, free mostly on my side with some lengths on my front
• WD: 100 easy
• Total Distance: 3800 SCY

Hit Rate: 75/83 (90.3%)

Notes/thoughts:

• I didn't feel like going when I woke up this morning, but for the first time in a while, it was a very normal kind of lack of motivation. It wasn't catastrophic or devastating, I didn't feel too emotionally over-involved, I was just tired and I didn't wanna go. I wanted to stay in bed and sleep. Obviously I didn't, but it was interesting to just feel a normal emotional response instead of the overblow emotional responses I generally have. I feel like I have a much better handle now on the difference between my mentally low days that I should try and push through and the mentally low days that are probably indicative of bigger things at play that I should probably respect and rest through. It was an interesting perspective shift.
• It took me a long time to get ready to swim fast today. I really went in with the attitude of, "I have made it here, that is the most you can ask from me today, if I swim poorly then whatever", but because the set eased into the faster efforts, I found that by the time we got to the end of the main set and had to be swimming seriously, the rest of the set had already prepared me for that and gotten me fired up to go and hit those repeats fast. It was good. (:

Today's PM Workout: 10 mi building long run

Summary:

• The pattern was 3 mi @ 9:30-9:45, 3 mi @ 9:00-9:15, 3 mi under 8:45 pace, 1 mi easy
• 10.14 mi, 1:32:34, 9:08 pace, 172 spm

Pace splits by 1.5 mi: 9:21 (14:02), 9:39 (14:29), 9:11 (13:46), 8:58 (13:27), 8:37 (12:55), 8:33 (12:50), 9:45 (1.14 mi in 11:04)

Hit Rate: 76/84 (90.4%)

Notes/thoughts:

• I ran w/ Brian and Tsehay today! Having friends was super key for the pace in the fastest 3 miles, I think it was much easier to mentally attack those miles with friends who were fasting than me leading the way. Just focusing on keeping up instead of focusing on pushing harder makes a lot of difference for me mentally. I guess this is part of why I have an easier time racing than I do training. 
• Cadence was a bit low today, definitely felt that happening but also couldn't do too much to fix it. Just gotta keep working on it more. 
• The paces were all pretty on target, a few of the earlier splits were a bit faster than the target range but it all played out okay today. 
• I honestly put out a much better run than I thought I was going to. My body didn't feel great and I was exhausted today so I actually took a nap in the afternoon that I think helped give me enough juice to get through this. The fastest 3 mile block was rough, but I definitely managed it way better than I thought I would and I didn't drop off over 10 minute pace for the warm down which makes me pretty confident that it was a good effort level and I wasn't over-extending or anything. I'm really happy with how this particular run played out, I think I'm gaining more and more confidence in my running with every workout of this nature that I manage to hit well in terms of pace targets. 

CrossFit experiment happening tomorrow, along with looooooooots of studying. Happy Friday! (:

Much love,

Jess

The redemption workout

[Day 70]

It was raining in the morning so I opted for the gym instead of trying to ride in the cold/wet/slippery. Got a chance to get redemption for that pretty poor showing at the gym on Monday. Here's the rundown!

Today's Workout: AM Gym Sesh, ~1:40
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 75#, 4 x 8/8/5/5 @ 115# (failed out on rep 6 of set 3, so I didn’t go for more than that on set 4)
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, 3 x 12/10/8 @ 85# (still working towards that 3 x 12...)
• Deadlifts: 4 x 6 @ 155# (YAAAAAAAAAS; lift felt good, grip needs work and/or straps)
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12 @ 7 plates (need to go up on weight on this)
• Lunges (DB weighted): 3 x 12/side @ 15#/side, set 1 alternating forward/reverse, set 2 all forward, set 3 all reverse
• DB shoulder press: 3 x 12/10/10 @ 25#/side (how is it that I can do 3 sets of 8-8 drops at 25#-15# but I can't get 3 normal sets of 12??? More work to be done...)
• DB row: 3 x 12 @ 40# (up weight?)
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 65# (I've been making some pretty great strides on these, pretty happy with how stable this lift feels now)
• Split squats (DB weighted): 3 x 12/side @ 15#/side
• Superset: 3 x 
• Bicep curls: 12 @ 20#/side
• Skull crushers: 12 @ 15#/side
• Superset: 3 x 
• DB lateral raises: 12 @ 12#/side
• Front plate raises: 12 @ 25# plate
• Band squats (bodyweight only): 20 

Hit Rate: 74/82 (90.2%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Lol I was there for a long time...I let myself take long rests and went for mostly straight normal sets. I had a really great time actually, I just happened to be there for a while. 
• Everything felt pretty solid today. Failing out a rep back squatting was kind of scary, but I just popped the bar back onto the guard rails and it was chill. I'm really enjoying finally having full depth instead of just hitting parallel and going back up. It's also convenient because stability at the bottom means if I do fail a rep it's not likely to hurt my back lol. We'll get back at it next week and try and work up to making the full sets of 8.
• I deadlifted all the weight. Am super happy about that. Gonna figure out what to do about the grip thing too...My grip was shot the rest of the workout so I kept the gloves off, which sorta sucks because my hands are still just like ew this is horrible. 
• I'm always reluctant to go up in weight on pulldowns but I really should...

Don't really have much else to report on. Morning swim and afternoon long run planned for tomorrow. Gonna prep for that standardized patient sesh now!

Much love,

Jess

Attitude check

[Day 69B]

There's been a trend these past couple of days. It always gets like this, I always get to a place with training where I find myself really wrestling with what I'm doing and what it means and how I can go about doing these things that I love without completely mangling my love for them. It always happens and I've still not figured out how to fix it. But I always have thoughts, so I will share those. Workout summary first.

Today's Workout: Trainer ride, 120 mins, grab bag of things
Summary:

• WU: 
• 10 mins easy 
• 8 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• 2 mins easy 
• Main Set: 
• 5/5/5 @ 80-85/85-90/90-95 rpm 
• 2 mins recovery 
• 5/5/5 @ 80-85/85-90/90-95 rpm 
• 4 mins recovery 
• 6 x (3 mins on, 2 mins recovery) at 90-95 rpm, starting at base, going up one gear each minute for the 3 minute working set
• 2 extra mins easy
• 4 x 2/2/2 as base +3 @ 65-70 rpm, base +4 @ 60-65 rpm, easy spin recovery at base
• WD: 8 mins easy
• Totals: 28.63 mi, 2:00:37, 14.2 mph average

Hit Rate: 73/81 (90.1%)

Notes/thoughts:

• I did not go very hard today. It was not a bad workout despite that. Hit both 5/5/5 rounds, they didn't feel fantastic towards the end and I will admit that there were some pace blips below target (but for the most part I was consistently on target) but compared to how that felt the first time I came back and tried to hit that set, it was way way way way better. It seems like the extra rest time did do my legs some good.
• Worth noting that I did drop out of target on the 3rd minute of a few of the 3 minute sets, but again, it was a real solid effort for the most part. I actually sort of botched the second round altogether and thought it was going to lead into one of those descending spirals of "omg I can't do this" failures, but I was good about mentally checking myself and getting back on track so I'm really happy about that. 
• The point is, I didn't kill myself on the trainer today, which is what I usually do, so it feels a little bit weird to have not been entirely destroyed by the endeavour. 

Non-workout related thoughts:

• I finally cleaned the clips on my bike shoes. They are doing much better now and are way less stiff when I'm trying to get in/out of my pedals.
• I listened to 2.5 podcasts today. Two from the archives of Julie Foucher's podcast and half of one of Spin's. There were some interesting recurrent themes today in the podcasts of people just really digging into focusing on what they thought was best for them and their happiness and tuning out the rest of the noise and just doing that. I need more of that in my life. I think I try to worry about every imaginable thing and the vast majority of the things I worry about are not important. If I just let myself do me, without worrying about the plan or the repercussions or whatever, I would be fine. I've never not been fine and I imagine the world will continue to turn even if I don't have every little variable under control. I need to take a chill pill is really what I think the universe was trying to tell me today. 
• I love longer warm downs. I don't always take warm downs that amount to a full 10 minutes or more, but I find that when I do, I'm always exhausted initially, and then I recover and my body naturally amps up the pace/effort towards the end. It finds this rhythm it wants to be in and it goes and gets it, even though it's warm down and honestly I couldn't care less about what I was actually doing. And today, it was interesting because while I was watching the rpms and speed go up towards the end of my warm down, it clicked that this was my body doing the thing that it loves to do. My body loves that feeling. There's like a zone that it really enjoys being in, sometimes it's high intensity, sometimes it's low, sometimes it's comfortably in the middle. But whatever it is, my body really loves moving and experimenting with movement and it's so nice when it just gets in its groove and does its own thing without my brain having to worry about it. That's the thing that makes me feel like I was made to do this. Maybe not fast or well, but I was made to move and it's so lovely. 
• Oh now I want to tell a story. Fun fact, I spent a lot of my sophomore year of college playing around with different ways to stay in shape. I had sort of just taken freshman year off from physical activity. I took the occasional swim and the occasional jog but honestly that was all I did. Then I fell back into club swimming and starting trying to run more and spent more time in the gym and I had all these questions for myself about what fitness was going to look like in my life when I got older, because I knew that I had to make good habits early if I didn't want to fall into really poor physical health like most of the nation does eventually. So I played around. I went to yoga classes and pilates classes and group fitness classes and spin classes. I found a yoga studio I loved and I went on Saturday or Sunday mornings just to clean my hands of the week and it was fantastic. I went to spin classes early in the morning on Mondays and Wednesdays because the intensity blew my mind and I loved being pushed like that. I went to swim practice and I lifted because I wanted to swim faster and I had some cool friends that went to the pool with me. I ran occasionally still because I had always been jealous of runners because what the heck is running and how is it that people are good at it. Anyways, it was my funny foray into trying anything and everything that actually made me feel like I could run a triathlon if I wanted, after all I was a swimmer, I'd been going to spin class, and I'd been sort of running sporadically. But I'd really had no life goals beyond trying to just do random stuff at that point. And somehow I got back on that path of competing with swimming, then with tris, and like got lost from that whole adventure of just doing whatever I wanted to for no other reason than the fact that I wanted to (and it's good for you). I sort of miss that right now. And don't get me wrong, I love racing. I would do anything for racing (as evidenced by all of this going on right now) and as long as I have the ability to be racing I will probably continue racing. But I would love to find a way to be able to race and to return to my former "I just do stuff because I want to and it's awesome" mentality. That was a really long bullet point. Here let me make a new one.
• I don't know that I ever will be able to race and just have fun doing whatever I want though. So much gets invested into racing (in terms of money, my time, Henry's time and sanity and endless loving care/support) and it makes me feel like I have to work hard enough and do well enough to at least justify what's going on there. I think I'd feel really bad if these resources got funneled into giving me the opportunity to race and I didn't take it seriously and just waved my arms about and had a random fun time instead of focusing on what actually needs to get done for me to get better and do well. I dunno. Sometimes I think the pressure is unfounded. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I wish there was no good reason for me to feel that pressure but honestly I think there is. So it makes me feel a little stuck when I daydream about being a cute sophomore on a try everything streak. I want to race more than I want that life back and I guess that means that things just can't be as much fun when I'm training for a race. It's sort of a bummer. I'm still working out what that means long term. I'm still trying to figure out if I can make some kind of middle ground. I'm sure time will give me the answer, but until then, I'll just keep speculating.

Officially have a morning swim on the calendar tomorrow morning, but the weather is also predicting rain and honestly I'm not riding out/back from practice in the rain, so if that turns out to the be the case I'll just hit the gym extra early, no big deal. Only one workout for tomorrow, so should be a pretty good day. Happy hump day everyone!

Much love,

Jess

A little mix of disappointment

[Day 69A]

But also a little bit of faith. I skipped another workout this morning. Missed another blog post yesterday. I had time to do the blog post in the evening, I was just tired and used that time to veg out on the internet instead. That was on me. I missed the workout because I was at the tri team appeal last night and didn't get home until after 11 pm. The 4:30 am or even 5:00 am wake up wasn't going to happen. I actually did wake up at around 5:15 am and thought about doing what I had done Monday and just sucking it up and going anyways, but I only have two workouts in bold on my calendar this week (meaning they were planned as key sessions) and those are today's trainer ride in the PM (because my only other rides are outdoor moderate rides as the first half of brick sessions on the weekends) and Friday's long run. I knew that the combination of the physical work on my legs from the gym session and the inevitable afternoon crash from not having enough sleep would have inevitably cut into the quality of my trainer ride this afternoon, and I wanted to prioritize that (as well as my health and sanity, which sometimes requires that I get enough sleep). So I slept a little extra.

It's a bummer because it means my only gym session this week was a poor showing on Monday, and I don't like to leave things like that. But at the end of the day, I also know that's not my priority right now and that's okay. This is where the faith comes in: it puts a bit of pressure on to nail the trainer ride this afternoon (and hopefully not crash in the afternoon? Although even with the extra sleep I definitely didn't get enough sleep lol). But that's how these things tend to go isn't it?

Anyways, to make up for missing yesterday, here was the swim:

Yesterday's Workout: CSP Practice, mid-distance free day
Summary:

• WU: 2 x 300 swim, last 25 kick
• Main Set:
• 4 x 250 free @ 3:40-3:45, as 200 mod/50 faster, broken at the 200 for 5
• 4 x 50 free @ :45
• 4 x 200 free @ 3:15, as 150 mod/50 faster, broken at the 150 for 5
• 5 x 100 kick w/ fins as 75 choice/25 free kick on side @ 1:30
• 4 x 150 free @ 2:15, as 100 mod/50 faster, unbroken
• 100 back easy
• 4 x 100 @ 1:45 negative split
• WD: 100 easy
• Total Distance: 4300 SCY

Hit Rate: 72/80 (90% - includes this morning's missed session)

I felt really crappy yesterday to be honest and my swimming was pretty subpar. I was just exhausted. It was hard. I struggled. I got through it. Lots of rest time between yesterday morning and today's afternoon workout, so hopefully my body has had a bit of a chance to sort itself out. We'll find out later I guess.

Much love,

Jess

Honesty is the best policy

[Day 67B]

Long post. All the personal messiness. Brace yourselves.

So I think I got carried away. I'm really ambitious. I want to be the absolute best that I can be and I work off the assumption that in the long run I am limitless. I allow myself to believe that because I think it's the only way you ever find out exactly where your limits are. If you pre-define your limits without really searching the space, you'll never figure it out for real. But the other half of that story is that it makes me prone to (a) thinking I'm way more capable than I actually am and (b) me beating myself up a lot when it turns out that that isn't true or (c) me not being willing to admit that (a) is true and beating myself up over some character flaw or another (usually it's related to lack of discipline and focus and an inability to actually work hard enough). I got carried away. Sometimes I want to be better so badly that it makes me a little bit blind.

Henry suggested this morning that I take my run this afternoon with my watch face blank. No pace/distance/cadence/whatever numbers, keep it on to track stats for afterwards but just run however I wanted to run. I had told him that I was upset that there was no joy in the lift this morning. I'm usually so happy in the gym. I usually love the crazy way it feels to use your body at the limits of what it is capable of doing. It's amazing. And today it just wasn't amazing. I hit the heaviest deadlift reps I've ever hit (and if anyone is going to tell me that 145 is no weight, they can stop and shove it because it is for me and I'm really proud of it) and there was just no excitement about it. I don't want that. I don't do this because there's any inherent value in how much weight I can pick up off the ground and then immediately drop. I do it because it feels satisfying. I do it because it makes me happy. And today I wasn't happy and that was upsetting. (And you see what not being happy does to me - it makes me walk out in the middle of a workout because I'm actually really terrible at trying to do things that make me unhappy.) So Henry told me to just ditch the numbers and goals and things for a day and try to enjoy some nice weather (the weather is beautiful today) and find what makes me happy.

I was skeptical. I wasn't gonna do it. But when it came time for me to run this afternoon, I took his advice. I ran however my body told me was best (which was funny because I think it's still really blown from yesterday - I felt like a baby deer learning how to walk, I just felt so unsteady and clumsy on my feet today) and just let myself enjoy the process. I forgave myself for being not as fast as I want to be and I got to think a lot about everything that's been going on. There was a lot to those thoughts. Summary first, then we'll talk.

Today's PM Workout: Easy base run, 7 mi
Summary: 7.02 mi, 1:09:48, 9:56 pace, 170 spm cadence
Pace splits by mile: 9:34, 9:56, 10:09, 10:08, 10:10, 10:00, 9:39
Hit Rate: 71/78 (91.0%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Title notes: What I mean by "honesty is the best policy" is that I need to listen to my body more, like I did today. One of the things I thought about on the run was the fact that these past two months have been the most consistent block of training that I've gotten in since junior year of college (when I strung together about 2 or 3 months of pretty great swim training that was sort of stalled by a lot of binge drinking). The last time I had been training this consistently was high school. The volume is new, my body is adapting to it, it goes through waves of feeling good and feeling bad and the process isn't linear. I haven't been wanting to listen to my body, but it's seen a few big workouts this past week (three 2+ hour workouts, two of which were bricks with fairly fast runs coming off the bike and one of which was the longest run I've taken all year) and it can't just keep pounding on like that forever. I am tired, it's forgivable, I need to listen and be willing to go slow on days like today so I can give myself opportunities to have more big days (and not just any big days but productive big days that realistically aid in building my fitness and aren't likely to get me overworked and injured).
• Outside of just having to listen to my body, I think I need to come back around to being comfortable with what training on accumulated fatigue means. We swam a lot in high school. You were always slow at practice. It was okay because we deloaded before the big meet and BAM magic speed came out of nowhere. That's how endurance training works. I have to get comfortable with not seeing the kind of numbers in runs and bikes that I expect to see race day. The fact of the matter is that I will likely not be seeing those kinds of numbers until race day, when I will likely very pleasantly surprise myself. 
• The caveat to the above thought: It doesn't matter if I don't pleasantly surprise myself. Races are fun because you never know what might come of them. You don't control conditions, you don't control the course, you control what you do to prepare and the rest is up to fate. You can be as fit as can be and some days the tide swings in your favour and some days it doesn't. That's okay. As much as I'm expecting the work to pay off with gains on race day, I can't demand that. It either will be or it won't be and I have to be accepting of that either way. 
• Another interesting thought to that end: Sometimes I find myself wanting to say things to the effect of "but I worked hard so I deserve this". I have to be better about not feeling entitled to progress just because I did something. Plenty of people do things. There's more to progressing than just working or just working harder and there are so many variables that you're never going to have it all figured out. Putting in the work is a requisite part of the process, but that in no way entitles you to progress. I believe that if you put in work consistently enough for a long enough time, progress will eventually come. But that doesn't mean I can demand progress just because I've been working. I have to be better about remembering that fact. 
• One of the things I think I've said on this blog before is that I need to start where I am, and not where I want to be. I've been jealous of how much success my friends have been having in training. I've been jealous of boys and their naturally high testosterone levels (and probably generally greater athleticism when compared to me outside of that) and girls with talent I could never even fathom. I want to be that good. I'm not. And you can't fake it. You can't just "try harder" and be there. I'm not on that level. I know that. I would like to work towards that. But I have to start where I am, not where I want to be. 
• Which brings me to another point: Patience. A lot of the things above relate to me being impatient. I've been working for a few months and I want to see that turn around in fitness and it hasn't been a crazy drastic thing like I want it to be. But if I look back a year in the past, there are definitely lots of bits of progress I can see. Sure, my run paces are pretty comparable and haven't budged much (if anything I might be a little slower on average right now) and my swimming is pretty much in the same place, but the average volume I'm sustaining week after week is way higher, the amount that I can comfortably do on the bike now has increased by a ton, and my comfort with longer workouts (runs, bricks, whatever) has increased too. It takes time to get better. And not just a month or two of time, years and years of time. When I was a freshman in high school, my swim season was cut short by an ACL injury and one of my coaches had told me to not worry about being set back by that time out of the water because swimming was a sport of "accumulation". (He had used the Chinese term "积累".) The whole idea is that I didn't get good at swimming in a few weeks. We built base and technical skill and speed and strength and power over years and years. I wasn't going to lose the years in a few weeks. I'd be rusty when I got back, but those years would still be there, I would just have to work on dusting them off to get back to where I wanted to be. But that's the thing, I had to put those years in first to get that base. I'm sure the same thing goes for what I'm doing here and now with triathlon. I'm only a year and a half into it, I have so much to learn and so much to improve on, and it's going to be a process of accumulating miles and experience so I have that foundation. The progress doesn't come overnight. I need to be more patient. 
• The other issue that came up in my conversations with Henry is that sometimes I have no confidence in the training I'm doing. Which is stupid. I know what I'm doing for the most part with the plan. The plan is the way it is for a reason. The funny thing is, that reason is probably why I worry about it. I didn't really build the plan to be the perfect triathlon training plan. I really built the plan to try and balance gaining fitness for racing with doing things that I enjoyed. Sometimes I enjoy being challenged so I throw in hard days. Sometimes I enjoy just going easy and slow so I throw those days in too. There's really not a fantastic reason for me to be lifting the way I do, and frankly there's not a ton of reason behind how I lift, but I do it because it's fun and I love it and it makes my life better. (And I'm pretty sure it makes me just more fit in general, and even if that doesn't directly make me a better triathlete, it probably doesn't hurt right? Outside of lost opportunity cost. Which I'll take in terms of the happiness I get out of it in return.) There's probably no reason at all for me to be going to sprint freestyle days, but those are some of my favourite workouts so I keep going to them. Conversely I should probably go to more distance free days, but I don't like them as much so I sprinkle a few in there but I don't demand that I do that every single week. I was cognizant of balancing the things that made me happy with the things that made me better when I planned it. And all of a sudden when I started feeling pressure to improve faster, I started second guessing the planning and the values that drove how I planned. I need to stop doing that. I made this thing so that I could be happy doing it. It won't make me the absolute fastest I can possibly be, but it'll help me improve while helping me stay in love with these things that I do genuinely love. I need to have more faith in that, not just in terms of trusting that the plan will get me to where I want to go but also in terms of really believing in the value of my own happiness as a key part of the equation. 
• Related to bullet point above: I'm trying a CrossFit class on Saturday! If you read this blog, you know I've been following the open and it's just been super inspiring watching people of so many different skill and ability levels tackle these crazy workouts. I love trying stuff. I love doing things with my body. I love learning new physical skills and I've always wanted to learn to do the Olympic lifts and be better at pull ups. But CrossFit has always felt like the wrong thing no matter how much I loved watching it. It's just such a crazy mix of high intensity and high volume work and I'm training for an endurance sport and if anything it'll just get me injured right? Well I've been actually thinking about that the past few days now that I've gotten myself into the messy situation of planning to actually trying it out because what if I like it? What then? I mean it's super easy if I don't like it, wipe my hands clean of that and move on, but it's been interesting to think about what might happen if I do like it. And on the run today, after all the thoughts above, one of the things I realized is this: It's like everything else, you figure out how to do the things you enjoy. You give them a chance, you work them into your schedule, you adapt, you accept that everything comes with a sacrifice. Training inevitably means my schoolwork quality suffers. Not to the point that I want to give up training altogether, but it's something I have to accept. Conversely, sometimes I have to focus on school and inevitably training suffers. But again, those are my priorities on those days and it's something I have to accept. If it turns out there's another thing in the world I want to give a spin and it'll encroach on all my sort of planned out triathlon specificity, well I guess we'll have to see if I like it enough to give up some of that. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I'm a little less nervous about Saturday knowing that I've thought about what it could mean for some of the other things going on in my life. 
• Last thing: Effort. I feel like I almost constantly find myself telling myself that I should be working harder or trying harder or whatever. But honestly, that's not what anything is about. There is a certain level of effort you should give to everything. And when you have it in you to give more, you should. But you can't be full throttle 24/7 because no one actually has that capacity, and me sitting around pretending that I do and beating myself up for it when it turns out that I can't actually do that helps literally no one. Not every day can be destructively awesome, it would kill you. Average days are good days too. I really have to try and believe the contents of this particular bullet point. This is a valuable and honest bullet point that I forget over and over and over again and it causes me a lot of misery sometimes. 

Soooooooo. Now that the full contents of my soul are laid out in a blog post, I think I can...heat up dinner and get some studying done now? Lol hope everyone had a good Monday. (:

Much love,

Jess

PS - Plan is AM swim for tomorrow, along with a tri team appeal for more Nationals/Wildflower funding in the evening. Fingers crossed that that goes well. Too bad the appeal meeting is late at night, will make getting up early to lift on Wednesday super rough. Original Wednesday morning plan had been to do some circuit work or something, but I'm gonna try and do a repeat of this morning's planned lift on Wednesday instead and hopefully actually get through the entire workout. There will also be a long trainer ride in the PM on Wednesday. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Just wish us luck for that appeal tomorrow!

When the weight on your shoulders doesn't make you feel any stronger

[Day 67A]

Days like today happen. Sometimes I get through them, sometimes I don't. All I could do was give it a swing today and if it wasn't meant to be, it wasn't meant to be. I got through 3.5 things in my workout and called it a day. Story later, summary first.

Today's AM Workout: Gym sesh, ~40 mins
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 65#, 3 x 12 @ 105#
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45#, 3 x 12/10/8 @ 85#
• Deadlifts: 3 x 8 @ 145#
• Pulldowns: 3 x 12/8-4/12 @ 7 plates alt. wide/narrow grip

Hit Rate: 70/77 (90.9%)

I had a late night last night. Anxiety/stress has been getting to me lately. I think I still have a really hard time justifying why I do this. I'm like literally one of the least athletic people I know, I just happened to have been involved in an endurance sport my entire life so it seems like I could pass for someone who is actually athletic but I'm really really not. Most people with a little bit of talent and some amount of training would fly by me when it comes to this stuff so I always find myself asking exactly why it is that I even bother funneling all this time and energy into something I'm just not very good at. And that's really discouraging. I'm still sorting those feelings out I guess.

But the point is, I was up late and I was thinking I would likely just have to pass on the gym this morning to make sure I got enough sleep but I ended up waking up at 5 am and thought about going back to bed but decided I should just suck it up and go to the gym. So I did. And I really wasn't into it. I got through the squats and bench and deadlifts alright but after that I just wanted to go home so badly. I sat around for a bit and eventually talked myself into hitting the pulldowns, but I didn't even finish all four sets of those. I just wanted to go home. So I did. Even though I did pretty well in terms of what I did do weight wise and rep scheme wise, I'm just really unhappy about quitting like that. I hate feeling like a quitter. I hate not enjoying what it is that I'm doing. I hate feeling like all of this is such a slog and I'm not getting anywhere and I need to work harder but my mind is so resistant to it right now. I'm giving it my best but my best is just a poor showing and I don't really know what to take from this other than that.

Henry's been trying to help me sort it out. He just wants me to be happy but I honestly don't know how to be happy with anything short of accomplishing exactly what I set out to accomplish. And right now that's not what's happening, so of course I'm not happy. Some people think the answer to that is to lower the bar, but honestly how is that any different from just falling short? It's like falling short but without even trying. That's gotta be worse. I dunno. Working through it. Easy run in the afternoon. We'll see where the day takes us.

Much love,
Jess

Longest workout of the year to date

[Day 66]

Oh no I missed another blogging day! Yesterday was so hectic it completely slipped my mind that I hadn't blogged. This is what happens on rest days. I forget stuff. Okay well let's do a recap of yesterday and a recap of the week before we get into today's workout log.

Rest day: Yesterday was a pretty good day all in all, got some studying done, went to Schnucks Screenings, performed in the Vagina Monologues, had fun focusing on non-training related things that made me feel like I had a life again. I actually had a great day just being a normal person. That was probably why I forgot to log lol. The body felt pretty good most of the day, a little bit of residual exhaustion from the run on Friday but nothing super notable. Good stuff all in all.

Weekly Recap:

• 2 swims, 2 runs, 1 trainer brick, 1 gym session, 1 core session for a total of ~10 hrs in 7 sessions.
• I missed a swim this week and took 3 rest days which sort of made it not the week I wanted it to be but for what it's worth, I think I put in some great efforts during this week's sessions, especially with regards to running.
• It was nice to finally hit some harder efforts with the running. I'm pretty slow but it's coming along really well I think in terms of finding speed while tired. It's really shown through in the bricks, where I've been taking much faster efforts than I typically do. Makes me think I could pull out a pretty good 10k time in the next race. We'll see.
• I haven't done great this week with the sleep. I think that's worth noting. I've had to take afternoon naps twice and I think it says something about my sleep habits that needs to be fixed. Gonna really try and fix that in the upcoming week because it'll be a big week and I'll need to try and keep my energy reserves up. 

Okay time for today! Here's the weekend brick update:

Today's Workout: Brick (30 mi ride + 4 mi run, moderate effort)
Summary:

• Bike: 29.66 mi, 2:00:30, 14.8 mph (Geyer-Adams-Ballas route)
• Bike speed splits by 5 mi: 14.4, 14.7, 15.2, 14.5, 14.7, 15.2
• Transition: 2:30.60
• Run: 4.24 mi, 38:07, 8:59 pace, 178 spm cadence (flat half of the park)
• Run splits by mile: 8:36, 8:56, 9:13, 9:08, 9:11 

Hit Rate: 69/76 (90.7%)

The ride felt really good. I took it pretty moderately and honestly felt way more energized in the second half than I thought I would. Was mostly pretty calm too, wind started up towards the end but it was very manageable. I spend some time out of the saddle in the first half but pretty much tried to keep my climbs seated in the second half because I need to work on the steady seated climbing (Collegiate Nationals and Chicago should both be flat courses so it makes more sense to just stay seated rather than amp up heart rate with standing climbs when there are small hills). The run felt pretty rough today, not gonna lie. Didn't have the same spring in my step I usually expect and I felt outrageously slow, but the splits came out well and I got some good practice forcing myself to focus and stay positive and finish strong. It's just as important to work on the mental side of things so I'm glad there are days that really challenge me in that department. The only other thing worth noting about the workout is that I took two gels on the bike and had most of a bottle of Gatorade. I didn't eat breakfast beforehand, just had a Clif Bar, some water, and 3 Shot Bloks. It seemed to meet my calorie needs pretty well though, so it's good to feel like I have that part of the game plan down. Will probably stick to a similar pattern for the rest of the workouts that clear 2.5 hours in length. 

It's pretty cool to note that my longest workout last summer in the lead up to September racing was a 30+5 brick and a 24+6 brick and I've hit a 30+4 and we're still 7 weeks out from racing. I'm feeling super fit and super pumped to keep working towards putting together a good race in April. Excited to see where this goes. 

Lifting in the morning tomorrow and taking a nice easy run lap of the park in the afternoon. Seems like it'll be a light day in terms of school hours which will be nice, give me a chance to keep trying to catch up on lectures and things. Big week of training coming up, let's get it! (:

Much love,

Jess

Well that was mildly unpleasant...

[Day 64]

We did end up doing core stuff last night! Along with that timed 100 push ups challenge. And watching the 16.2 announcement, which was freaking insane. Made even more insane by the fact that one of the judges counted Dan Bailey's reps wrong and he's probably gonna have to do the workout again. Ouch.

Anyways, if you don't know what the 100 push up challenge is, it's basically a thing that Henry and I do because I enjoy winning at stuff where we take turns doing 100 push ups for time. Not continuously, because honestly I have a hard time linking together push ups past 20 reps. But you know, broken up however you want until you get to 100. Henry went first yesterday and set the bar really high and put the fear of god in me and I subsequently crushed it. 6:57, best time yet by a lot. I broke them up pretty similar to how I usually do but I was able to stay in the 5 rep range for longer and I think my reps were faster and my breaks were shorter. I was very very happy about that. Then we did some core stuff, and since we were sort of on a challenge streak, we started with some max reps stuff. Literally unbroken reps until I failed out of one, which was fun. (Yes, this is the kind of thing I find fun.) Unfortunately, fun doesn't always mean productive? I mean it was a great workout, but I also definitely didn't focus as much on form as I typically try to and blah blah blah. A good thing to do every once in a while, but probably not something I should get in a habit of. Also I need to plank, which we skipped yesterday because of the push ups. Here's the summary of that.

Yesterday's Core Work:

• 100 push ups for time: 6:57
• 128 sit ups (unbroken)
• 92 leg lifts (unbroken)
• 200 Russian twists, broken twice (at 96/179 if I remember correctly)
• 35-18-12 V sit ups (was aiming for 35-25, but the reps got ugly and I reset and tried to hit good ones)
• 10 x 10 second leg lift negatives

Then I swam this morning! Henry gave up some of his life yesterday to make sure he could be home and support me so I could make it out to the pool this morning, so when I woke up and felt pretty crappy and didn't wanna go, I sucked it up because of him and got my butt out the door. The workout in and of itself wasn't bad, but I felt pretty terrible. Even not hard things felt hard today, I just didn't have it. We got through though. The lane sort of opted out of deciding on pace times, we just swam. There are like 5 of us girls that are virtually the same speed so it does work out in the end, but it was kind of weird for me to be like, I don't know what the send off is gonna be but as long as I come in some reasonable amount of time after Emily it'll probably be fine (I went third in the lane). The ride back was terrible and very slow. I was very tired. Biking while tired is slightly dangerous. I kept feeling like I was veering and not very steady (probably because I was veering and not very steady...). Here's the summary:

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

• WU: 
• 300 swim
• 300 drill
• 250 alt. 50 kick/50 drill (was supposed to be 300, but idk what my lane decided to do...)
• Pre-Set:
• 4 x 200 IM
• 1 - drill, 2 - swim, 3 - kick w/ board (no fins), 4 - swim 
• 5 x 100, odds IM descending 1-3-5, evens free
• Main Set: 3 x 
• 125 double up IM (first round 50 fly, second round 50 back, etc.)
• 50 weak stroke (breast)
• 100 free
• 50 strong stroke (back)
• 75 IM no free
• WD:
• 200 kick (free w/ board no fins)
• 100 swim
• Total Distance: 3650 SCY (3700 SCY as written)

Hit Rate: 68/75 (90.6%)

Had a pretty productive day, ended up taking a nap in the afternoon though because the exhaustion from the morning never really cleared up. Ran right after my nap, opted for a 12 miler instead of a building 10 miler today because I've done more speed work than I typically do this week and I knew I had no kick in my legs today (based on the swim/ride). So long and steady it was. 

It was actually pretty nasty in terms of how it felt. I was honestly aiming to be just under 10 minute mile pace, I figured something nice and leisurely would do for the longest run of the year to date, but it just didn't feel nice and leisurely. By about mile 8 or 9 I was struggling with the focus and the pace and my legs just felt shredded. I got through though and held on for the finish. It's weird because these long days used to really intimidate me, but now I almost feel like I can compare it to any other run when I just don't feel so hot. Sometimes I take easy 5 milers and they feel horrible. You know you're gonna get through it, it's just gonna feel horrible. I could tell myself the same thing about today's run, except it was 12 miles. I don't know where that confidence of "oh of course I can run 12 miles, there's no question about whether or not I'll finish, I just have to decide to do it and go out and do it" came from, but it's nice. Progress. Even if today's run in particular ended slowly and with me in a lot of pain, I can see the progress hidden in it.

Today's PM Workout: Long run (12 miles), easy pace

Summary: 12.65 mi, 2:03:19, 9:45 average pace, 176 spm (Nailed that! Didn't realize it til just now but I'm real happy about that)

Pace splits by mile: 9:48, 9:52, 9:43, 9:44, 9:30, 9:47, 9:38, 9:53, 9:44, 9:46, 9:47, 9:48, 9:45

Hit Rate: 69/76 (90.7%)

I've been a huge lump since I've gotten home though. Don't feel so hot, haven't really been able to stomach much real food so I had a smoothie and have been munching on random snacks that don't upset me (tomatoes eaten as if they were apples because tomatoes are amazing, hummus and pita chips, roasted potatoes, yeah I'm random). It's late so I'm gonna stretch now and probably hit the sack. The real planned day off is tomorrow. It's interesting, that'll be the third day off I've had in seven days, which is way more than is typical. The workouts this week have been longer and higher intensity though, so I feel pretty justified with the extra rest. xD Maybe I'm just making excuses. But right now my body definitely doesn't feel that way. It'll be nice to have the day off. TGIF!

Much love,

Jess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S-ODexQkFo

[Day 63]

The lyrics of the song are largely irrelevant, all I was trying to convey with that link was the fact that I had a really hard time getting to sleep last night. Sleepless nights are rough because I don't have a few hours to waste lying in bed and it's frustrating to have that be a part of my life experience. When I was in high school this was more nights than not, I always had a hard time getting to sleep which is why I went to bed so early most nights and even then there were too many nights when I came out of it with only 5 hours of sleep to show for it. I opted to sleep in instead of go to practice but there's nothing I can do to make up that lost workout time today because my day is so packed. I did a little bit of yoga in the morning with Henry and Henry is promising me core stuff tonight, but honestly that's contingent on everything else in my day running smoothly so I end up having enough time (which I really think I won't). It's frustrating. I'm frustrated. But that's life for ya. Hope your Thursday is off to a better start than mine.

Hit Rate: 67/74 (90.5%)

Much love,
Jess

First (planned) brick of the year!

[Day 62]

Today's Workout: Trainer ride brick, 90 mins + 4 mi run
Summary:

• Trainer set:
• WU: 
• 10 mins easy 
• 8 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• 2 mins easy 
• Main Set: 
• 5/5/5 @ base +1, 80-85/85-90/90-95 rpm 
• 2 mins recovery 
• 4/4/4 @ base +1, 80-85/85-90/90-95 rpm 
• 2 mins recovery 
• 3/3/3 @ base +1, 80-85/85-90/90-95 rpm 
• 2 mins recovery 
• 2/2/2 @ base +1, 80-85/85-90/90-95 rpm 
• 2 mins recovery 
• 1/1/1 @ base +1, 80-85/85-90/90-95 rpm 
• 2 mins recovery 
• 15 mins steady state riding (cover the clock, just find whatever gearing/cadence works for you) 
• Run set: 3 miles hard, 1 mile easy
• Garmin numbers:
• Ride: 22.05 mi, 1:30:24, 14.6 mph
• Transition: 2:40.70 (slow today because I had to change into cold weather running gear)
• Run: 4.26 mi, 38:34, 9:04 average pace, 175 spm 
• Run splits by mile: 8:37, 8:56, 8:55, 9:44, 9:13 (0.26 mi only)

Hit Rate: 67/73 (91.7%)

I'm really proud of this one! Recap in narrative form today. I think I had expected to feel really awful because I was pretty sore/tight today from yesterday and I was also sort of scared of throwing that round of 4s into the main set, but it went okay! I am actually super proud of myself because I worked really hard at being positive going into this workout. During the warm up and during each recovery interval I literally talked to myself out loud and just tried to say really positive things and reaffirm that I could do this and I had it in me and I think it went a long way towards getting me through the ride portion. I definitely was tired going into the workout because it was the afternoon and I'm always tired in the afternoons and I felt like I was going to fall asleep on my handlebars at first, but I got into it and it definitely woke me up and gave me more energy as I went on.

The transition was a little slow because of the inevitable delays of having to change into winter running gear (and try to dry myself off as thoroughly as I could with a towel so I wouldn't freeze as soon as I got outside) but I kept it under 3 minutes which I'm fine with as far as transition time goes. I love running off the bike. I think my legs are firing so many muscles on the bike that when I switch to the run, my brain recruits a bunch of muscles it typically doesn't when I'm running, so the amount of power in each of my strides blows my mind and it feels so good to have that kind of strength in my running. I can never really find that spot when I'm just going for a run, so I think the extra level of sensory awareness I get from running off the bike is always nice. Also I'm already warmed up, which is one of the things I struggle the most with when I'm running. It usually takes me forever to get into it when I just run, but running off the bike is almost easier because I'm already warm and my body is so ready to go.

I pushed the pace today because I felt good, so I wanted to take as many miles fast as I could. I was definitely fading in mile 3, was hovering between 9:05-9:10 average for probably 2/3s of the mile and then decided in the last little stretch that I really wanted to get that mile in under 9:00 so I put in a pretty good surge and kicked really hard to try and get there. I was pretty sure in the last minute or so of that mile that I was going to throw up, I worked really hard to keep the contents of my stomach in my stomach. I was impressed that I finished out in under 10:00 pace once I slowed down for my cool down mile given that I pushed pretty hard on that run, so I'm really happy with how that went. Also worth noting that the spm stayed high, which is good because that's usually something I worry about when I run coming off the bike. Glad I kept that up too, it was definitely something I was trying actively to think about (that along with running form in general).

I think the craziest thing is looking back on just a year and a half ago when I was new to this sport and my longest bricks were like 12 or 18 miles of biking (I honestly don't remember) plus a 6 km run and it felt like death and I was just holding on for dear life by the time I was 5+ minutes into the run. This workout was already longer than that and the fact that I could even think about pushing pace and feeling strong blows my mind. I've come so far, it's pretty cool to see that play out. Don't get me wrong, I still live in a constant state of "ugh I'm so bad at biking and running", but in fairness I am way way better than I used to be.

Gonna finish up with laundry and pack up for tomorrow and maybe do a tiny tiny bit of work before I hit the sack tonight. Swim tomorrow morning, only one workout, rain in the forecast which is sort of uncool but I'll get up and see how that actually plays out. If the weather seems bearable, I'll brave it for the swim. Fingers crossed! (:

Much love,
Jess

I am unstoppable (but also very tired)

[Day 61]

Double day report! So I was pretty ambitious with the gym plan as always. Didn't quite get all of it done, but had a solid 1.5 hr lift followed by some rowing so I'm not complaining at all. I was actually a little freaked out going into the workout because I knew it was gonna be a big day, but I really tried to be positive about it right from the get go (like literally from the moment my alarm went off) and I tried really hard to focus and talk myself up instead of down and it paid off so much. I felt like this was one of those days when taking myself seriously helped me instead of hurt me and I was able to accomplish so much by just telling myself that I could over and over again. I'm really proud of how this morning went down.

Today's AM Workout: Lift + rowing, 1.5 hrs + some
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 75#, 3 x 12 @ 105#
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, 3 x 8 @ 85#
• Deadlifts: 4 x 8 @ 135#
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12 @ 7 plates, alt. wide/narrow grip
• Giant set: 3 rounds at 55#
• 8 clean and presses
• 6/side (12 total) back loaded forward lunges
• 12 bent over BB rows
• 6/side (12 total) back loaded reverse lunges
• Tried to do these no rest within rounds, rest between rounds. I didn't ever put the bar down within an exercise but I did put the bar down between exercises to reset/reload.
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 65#
• Accessory work: 2 rounds of
• 12/side single leg bridges
• 12/side single leg Romanian deadlifts @ 25# (better on the R than on the L)
• 15 band squats
• Shoulder press: 3 x 12/7/5 @ 25#/side
• Rowing: 
• Set: 1000 m warm up, 1000 m hard, 500 m easy, 500 m hard, 500 m easy
• Numbers: 3521 m, 17:06 total time, 22 strokes/min average, 2:25.6 average per 500 m

Hit Rate: 65/71 (91.5%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Back squats: These were interesting...harder than I thought they would be. Or maybe just as hard as I should've been expecting. First round was rough, 6 straight and then 6 singles basically, I needed to stop at the top every time to breathe. On the second round I did a little bit better, found the pop in my legs towards the end when the reps were feeling a little desperate and all of a sudden everything got better. Felt like I was launching out of the bottom of my reps instead of squeezing them out, which was pretty cool. The third set was pretty bleh. Right knee spent almost all of the reps trying to cave inwards, so it was a good thing I did some stability work later in the day to try and get at that particular weakness. Next week I'm probably gonna go same weight same rep scheme, hopefully it'll feel a little more comfortable, I might throw in a drop set at the end if things are looking good. If that goes well, I'll try and push up to sets of 8 at 115#.
• Flat bench: felt strong, gonna try and work up to 12 rep sets.
• Deadlifts: THESE WERE SO SATISFYING. I was expecting them to be hard because they were hard last week (and I was only expecting to do 3 sets, not 4), but I think the pop I found with the squats really came out in the deadlifts too. I think getting my legs involved today was just easier than it typically is and I tried to focus more on driving the whole way into the lock out and they just came so easy. But then this happened...
  
  ...Which was pretty traumatizing. Um I'm super embarrassing. Don't know what I'm gonna do with this particular tidbit of information now. :\
• Giant set: More cardiovascularly taxing than I was expecting. I have to be better about not breaking between movements. Also on round 2 when I was getting tired I definitely unloaded the bar sort of unsafely a few times and caught myself and focused more and was better about it on round 3, but just for future sets like this I need to remember to be safe when I'm putting weight down. Probably going to try and up some reps on this the next time I do it. I wanted to play it safe with the lunging because I don't normally lunge with this much weight and I wanted alignment and form to be good, but I think I can go for more. 
• Incline bench: Super proud of this! Feels like I'm getting stronger every day or something. Gonna work my way up to 3 x 12. (:
• Accessory work: Should have probably done three rounds, but my brain was really going at this point...Sometimes when I don't control my core correctly, there's some back pain with the bridges, which can get exaggerated by the Romanian deadlifts. Gotta focus on that more so it's all done perfectly. 
• Shoulder press: Sadface this was so bad lol. First round was pretty solid and then I just had no push. Could've probably squeezed out more reps but my brain and my arms were just totally gone by this point. 
• Rowing: Couldn't decide if I wanted to go steady state or a few efforts so I threw some short efforts in there. My butt and hamstrings were really feeling this. 
• All in all it was a great morning workout. Also apparently I had A LOT of comments to make about this.

Between workout one and workout two was a looooooong med school day. I was pretty exhausted honestly by the time I got home and I vegged out for a bit but eventually convinced myself to take this run. I decided that because I wasn't feeling too hot, instead of running by time goal, I would run by effort. The original plan was to go 2 mi easy, 4 mi hard at under 8:45 pace (I think ideally the goal would have been to average around 8:30), 1 mi easy. I ended up playing it by feel and the numbers will speak for themselves.

Today's PM Workout: Tempo run as 2 mi easy, 4 mi hard, 1 mi easy by effort (no watch checking today)

Summary: 7.02 mi, 1:04:53, 9:14 average pace.

Pace splits by mile: 9:46, 10:02, 8:46, 8:50, 8:43, 8:38, 9:56

Hit Rate: 66/72 (91.6%)

Notes/thoughts:

• I was really hoping for faster splits in the tempo effort but it was the right effort so what am I gonna do about that right? Keep working, get faster, you can't force that kind of thing. 
• It felt really surge-y today, which isn't how I like my running to feel. My best running days tend to come with this kind of momentum that doesn't necessarily make the effort easier but does make maintaining a nice consistent pace easier. Today though, it felt like every time I stopped actively monitoring my pace, it fell off and I'd have to catch up again, which sort of sucked honestly. It was a tough 4 miles and I knew I wasn't going as fast as I wanted because I could sort of feel that just in terms of my stride length and ground contact time, so it was hard to feel slow and know that this was probably the limit to what effort I had to give.
• I was pretty wrecked after this workout. I came home and had a post-workout snack and showered but then pretty much like couldn't convince myself to move for another hour or so and eventually managed to do enough to make/eat dinner but it was a rough evening all told. The soreness is starting to set in from the morning too, so I stretched but we'll see how that changes overnight into tomorrow.

So I'm pretty tired now. It's a good thing I get to sleep in tomorrow. I'm so behind on work though, which is a bit rough. Feel like I want to sleep in but also feel like an early start could help me a lot with how behind I am. Conflicted. Will work it out somehow. Trainer brick in the books for tomorrow in the afternoon. Freaked out but also a little excited. As hard as those days are, I get a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction out of running off the bike. Hopefully my legs will recover a bit overnight and cooperate with me tomorrow. Happy Super Tuesday! (:

Much love,

Jess