Falling off the radar

[Day 151]

Exams will do that to you! I am pleased to report that I did in fact survive exam week. As of yet it is not officially known whether or not I actually passed all my exams, but I think I did fine, so I will just pretend that I did pass and that I am done with first year of med school for real. I came out to Boston on Thursday after my last exam and have been mostly adventuring with Henry. We went paddleboarding on Friday, hiking on Saturday, and ran stadiums with Tony and went to a movie yesterday! It's been good. I'm not gonna bother logging paddleboarding and hiking here, although it's up on Garmin Connect if anyone really cares. Here are the rest of the updates:

Yesterday's Workout: AM stadiums (~1/2 of Harvard stadium) + dryland circuit (5 rounds)
Summary: dryland reps

• Push ups: 19, 16, 14, 14, 15 (78 total)
• Sit ups: 14, 15, 14, 14, 14 (71 total)
• Dips: 24, 21, 22, 24, 23 (114 total)
• Squats: 21, 21, 21, 22, 22 (107 total)

Hit Rate: 15/20 (3 skipped exam week workouts; 75%)

Today's Workout: PM easy run, 4-5 mi

Summary: 4.88 mi, 43:38, 8:56 pace, 175 spm

Pace splits by mile: 9:21, 8:56, 8:45, 9:00, 8:34

Hit Rate: 16/21 (76.1%)

Notes/thoughts:

• I'm really sore today. Really hoping that fixes itself by tomorrow because I have a tough tempo run on the books (and I'm planning on swimming in the morning, so it'll also be a double day) and I'd like my legs to be functional for that. 
• The Harvard stadium is brutal. They were not kidding. I'm gonna try and work on that while I'm here, good way to try and keep some power/kick in my legs for the cycling while I'm away from my actual bike.
• For some reason my body was like, RUN FASTER RUN FASTER my entire run today. I was gonna go for an easy 9:30-10:00 paced run and the entire time my brain/heart/lungs were like ew this is too fast what are we doing but my body was like, nah this is good let's keep going. It was bizarre. But I guess that instinct is also exactly why I do what I do. Sometimes I think at the core of who I am is just this sort of crazy inexplicable desire to go faster all the time. I guess that's why I keep at it. 

So yup, master's swim practice in the AM tomorrow and a tempo run in the PM. Wish me luck! (And happier legs!)

Much love,

Jess

Finding detours

[Day 20A]

The thing about life is that it doesn't always go your way, but I have an honest belief that everything happens for a reason. I have to take it down a notch with the running to give my IT band some time to decompress and recover, so in the meantime I'm going to do all the other things that I can do and just be grateful that I have more time to dedicate to the rest of the things I don't typically have as much time to do. Today, I pulled out a variation of an old dryland workout (one of my first) from my age group days. The first time I had done it I was maybe 10 or 11 and we did four exercises (push ups, sit ups, dips, lunges). I typically sub in squats for lunges but since I was going to the gym today and had my pull cords handy, I decided to add in a fifth exercise. This was how it played out!

Today's AM Workout: Dryland circuit and rowing
Summary:

• Dryland circuit: 
• 10 rounds, :30 max reps of each exercise, :15 rest between exercises, 1:00 rest between rounds, 5:00 rest after round 5
• Exercises: push ups, sit ups, fly pull (cords), bodyweight squats, bench dips
• Round 1: 14/14/20/21/18
• Round 2: 15/13/19/21/20
• Round 3: 13/13/20/21/19
• Round 4: 14/14/20/20/19
• Round 5: 11/13/19/21/18
• 5 min rest
• Round 6: 14/13/21/21/19
• Round 7: 13/13/19/20/19
• Round 8: 12/14/19/20/17
• Round 9: 10/14/19/20/17
• Round 10: 11/14/20/21/19
• Totals: 127 push ups, 135 sit ups, 196 fly pulls, 206 squats, 185 dips 
• (This takes 48 minutes to do.)
• My biceps felt a little neglected in all of that, so I did a few rounds of single arm DB curls because some people tell me that muscular balance is important or something.
• 12/side @ 15 lbs/side, 8 @ 20 lbs, 7-5 @ 15 lbs, 12 @ 15 lbs
• My left wrist was giving me some amount of trouble, more joints I have to give time to get stronger.
• Rowing: 20 minutes steady state (Concept2, resistance set at 7)
• 4098 m, 20:43 total time, 2:31.5 average/500 m, 23 average s/m
• Do any of my rower friends know what stroke rate is supposed to be when you're rowing? I have no idea if I'm doing this right. 
• Total time: ~75 mins

Hit Rate: 18/19 (94.7%) - Note that I didn't dock myself a day for skipping the trainer ride last night. I did that mostly because I just ended up rearranging the rest of my week. It's going to be an 8-session week still if things go according to plan so I don't think it'll be a big deal. 

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how that went. The push up numbers aren't great and I definitely died a bit there towards the end, but it's something to work on. (Remember the 100 push ups for time thing a little while back that I added an entire minute on compared to like last year? Yeah, strength needs work.) It was nice to be back on an urg, I hadn't rowed in a while so it was nice to do switch it up and do something different today.

The plan is to hit the trainer in the afternoon today and see how my knee handles that. I did wear my knee sleeve all morning and the squats didn't bother it at all. It's been a tad bit achy while walking but nothing major that affects my biomechanics so I really don't mind. I've also taken a look at my schedule for the next few weeks and made some tweaks to try and ease up on the run mileage and intensity so I can try to keep these IT band flair ups at bay. Just have to be more patient and work back into it slowly. 

I also made a few adjustments to the rest of the week because an opportunity came up to shadow on the floors at Children's tomorrow, which means I have to be back from my morning workout in time for pre-rounds which means I can't swim in the morning tomorrow. (I don't have a ton of confidence in my ability to bike out to the pool at this point anyways, so it wasn't a huge loss to change that part of the schedule.) As of now, I think the plan for tomorrow will be to just get a one hour session in alternating 20 mins rowing, 20 mins easy treadmill running (only if the leg continues to feel good today), and another 20 mins rowing. Just some nice easy non-specific cardio while my body sorts itself out. 

Alright, time to get down to business with catching up on schoolwork!

Much love,

Jess

Killington day one and weekly recap!

[Day 16]

Not a ton to talk about today honestly. I'm out at Killington right now, shredding it up with Henry. Actually got to spend a lot of time working on the technicals today, doing less aggressive runs, working on short turns, skiing on bumps/moguls, doing things I don't typically do. Had a ton of fun just exploring and learning and getting better. I love skiing, it's been a fantastic day! It's good to be back on my own skis instead of rentals too. I've been running my short all mountain Rossignals today instead of my Atomics (there was some fresh snowfall overnight and in the morning so I figured the wider more versatile skis would be the better choice). Will probably keep with it for tomorrow because I'm actually enjoying the short turn radius.

The only thing I sort of feel bad about is the fact that I eat terribly when I'm on vacation. When it comes to skiing, I think it's just part of the experience. I like to be fueled by copious amounts of really fatty food and alcohol, because that's just what the ski life is. I need the extra calories to balance out the cold? Right? RIGHT? Lol it's only two days, I'll survive the lapse in reasonable food-related judgment for two days. xD

Some reflections on Week 2:

• 3 swims, 2 trainer rides, 1 run, 1 lift with a short run for a total of ~8.5-9 hrs.
• Slightly shorter week than last week, mostly because of the dropped late week double b/c of the knee. In general I have felt way better physically this week than the last, although the workout quality has been pretty comparable across the two weeks. 
• I actually amazingly have nothing really more significant to say about the week than that. Maybe it's because I'm distracted from dinner/drinking/PATRIOTS FOOTBALL (Pats leading 21-6 some amount of minutes into the third, Gronk just scored a TD) but you know. Whatever!

I've updated the "Current Project" page with the general training plan for the next few months if anyone wants to check that out. Other than that, I guess I shall return tomorrow with day two updates from Killington! (:

Much love,

Jess

The rain can't stop us!

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

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

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

Hit Rate: 7/8 (87.5%)

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

Much love,

Jess