All I do is sleep

[Day 153]

Things accomplished today: Woke up, went to practice, came home, ate breakfast, promptly fell back into bed and just woke up again. Good job Jess lol. Doubled up yesterday, so here's the summary from yesterday and today!

Yesterday's PM Workout: Easy run, 4 mi
Summary: 4.34 mi, 42:00, 9:40 pace, 176 spm
Pace splits by mile: 10:05, 9:29, 9:53, 9:41, 8:21
Hit Rate: 18/23 (78.2%)

This was way harder than I thought it was going to be. My legs just didn't feel with it, it was a struggle for most of the way until we did a little pick up push at the end of the run. Henry pretty much pulled me the entire time. I know he has a much easier time running with me when I'm beside him but I spent a lot of the run tucked in behind him because my legs just didn't feel like they could go any faster. It was rough. But whatever, we got it done.

Today's AM Workout: CMSC practice, IM day
Summary:

• WU: 400 swim, 3 x 100 swim
• Main Set: I have no idea what any of the pace times were, I was just going last and leaving 5 off the person in front of me...
• 4 x 150 @ base + :10/:15, 100 fly/50 back, 100 back/50 breast, 100 breast/50 free, 100 free/50 fly
• 4 x 100 @ base + :10/:15, 50 build stroke/50 recovery choice
• 4 x 50 @ base + :10, 15 underwater fast/35 recovery choice
• (break)
• 4 x 150 rolling IM @ base + :10/:15 (pretty sure these were on the 2:50?)
• 4 x 100 @ base + :10/:15, 25 stroke FAST/25 recovery choice (pretty sure these were on the 1:50?)
• 4 x 50 @ base + :10, 35 moderate/15 sprint to the finish (pretty sure these were on the :55?)
• Did these 1-3 free as written, 4 easy b/c ran out of time lol
• Total Distance: 3100 LCM

Hit Rate: 19/24 (79.1%)

Swam a lane up today, was definitely the slowest in the lane and really hope I wasn't ticking my lane mates off by being too slow. They seemed fine though, they left on whatever interval they were doing and for the most part I made all the pace times so I wasn't really holding people up I don't think. And I wasn't THAT much slower than the second slowest person in the lane lol. I'm gonna try to stick it out and see how things go with swimming in this lane. I don't even know what base pace they were using, but whatever it was, it worked for today.

I'm feeling stronger in the pool than I was expecting to. I mean long course fly is non-trivial but I managed to make an okay go of it. I had some pain in my right shoulder today but it's because my hand tends to deviate outwards on my freestyle catch, especially when I'm breathing to the left. If I'm careful about my freestyle form, my shoulder holds up fine, so I guess it's a good thing that it nags at me when I swim poorly. 

My legs are less sore today than they were yesterday for sure, but they're still keeping me up at night and they're definitely far from perfect. Gonna try and take that tempo run today, I feel pretty confident in my ability to at least hit the HM pace intervals, but less sure about those 10k pace intervals...just gotta remind myself that how I feel is probably not gonna be an accurate reflection of what my body is capable of and I just have to not freak out and focus on holding good form and get after it even if it seems way harder than it should be. Hopefully things will go alright. I'll report back in the PM.

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

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

Up alllllllll the weight!

[Day 42]

Today's AM Workout: Trainer ride
Summary:

• I had a real 90 minute workout planned but I was taking the ride first thing in the morning and I was fasted and it was very clear about 15 minutes in that it wasn't going to be the quality I wanted, so instead of trying to make a workout that wasn't gonna work work, I just opted for a 60 minute as high quality as possible endurance ride.
• Totals: 12.26 mi, 1:00:45, 12.1 mph average

Hit Rate: 45/47 (95.7%)

Today's PM Workout: Lift (w/ Henry, 75 mins)
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 65#, 5 x 8 @ 105#
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, 3 x 8 @ 85#
• Deadlifts: 4 x 8 @ 125#
• Pulldowns: 3 x 12/12/8 @ 7/7/7+ plates (lol I still don't know these weight denominations)
• Shoulder press: 3 x 8-8 @ 25#/15#
• DB rows: 3 x 12/side @ 40# (these were terrible, grip strength was not a thing, I definitely had to put the weight down a lot, just more work to be done)
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/12/8 @ 55/55/65
• Superset: 3 x 
• 12 lateral raises @ 12#/side
• 12 plate front raises @ 25#

Hit Rate: 46/48 (95.8%)

I AM SUPER STRONG AT NIGHT. Lol being fed makes so much difference. I felt awful in the morning, just sort of pushed through whatever I could in a 60 minute steady state ride. This evening though, I felt super strong, was really happy with where I was at and the work I was getting done. Having Henry around is pretty key, just knowing that someone was watching meant that I fought through some spots when I really wanted to put the weight down and take a breath before I finished out. Twas wonderful.

My legs really hurt right now, which surprises me because all I really did was those 5 sets of squats (which were rough but I'm super proud of hitting). The rest of me feels okay. I expect all of this to change tomorrow morning, probably for the worse lol. Swim in the morning, run in the afternoon, lots of class in the middle. Bedtime now! (:

Much love,

Jess

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

[Day 40]

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

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

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

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

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

Hit Rate: 42/44 (95.4%)

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

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

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

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

Summary:

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

Hit Rate: 43/45 (95.5%)

Notes/thoughts:

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

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

Much love,

Jess

Another day, another destiny

[Day 36]

Today's AM Workout: CSP practice, IM day (Kate coached today!)
Summary:

• WU: 
• 400 swim as 75 free/25 no free
• 6 x 50 alt. drill/swim by 25 @ :55
• odds free, evens reverse IMO
• Main set:
• 2 rounds of:
• 400 IM broken as 50 fly, 100 fly/back, 100 back/breast, 100 breast/free, 50 free w/ 10 SR each break
• (regroup)
• 2 x 200 free @ 3:00 (I did swim, some people did pull with paddles) 
• 100 IM MAX
• 50 easy
• 400 broken IM, same pattern as above, FAST
• 100 easy
• 8 x 50 kick @ 1:10 (I did the first one free and the rest fly, tried to come in under :50, with a board no fins)
• WD: 200 easy
• Total Distance: 3700 SCY

Hit Rate: 39/40 (97.5%)

Today's PM Workout: Easy run, still just focusing on strengthening that connective tissue and all

Summary: 6.19 mi, 1:03:57, 10:20 average pace

Pace splits by mile: 9:27, 10:33, 10:41, 10:35, 10:17, 10:25, 10:38

Hit Rate: 40/41 (97.5%)

I can't do the comments today. Let's just save it.

Much love,

Jess

The short and the long

[Day 31]

Today was a weird day. Lots of ups and downs. Objectively speaking a pretty good day as far as everything goes, but somehow I'm still sort of disappointed. I don't really know how or why. Maybe I'm just tired. Here's the story.

So I think I woke up a little bit off. I didn't get the best sleep last night because I was out with friends and had some wine and did things like eat way too many cookies, all just generally stuff I try to avoid. Sometimes I'm really jealous that other people get to do these things, but it also doesn't feel quite right when I'm doing them either, so I dunno. It didn't feel like my best moment. I had a lot of fun and I know that's valuable, but I really struggle with not seeing that as some kind of failure on my part. I need to be a little less uptight about everything. It's hard though to stick to this kind of routine unless you're willing to be really harsh with yourself and that isn't something I can turn selectively on and off to allow for some laid back social time. Still figuring it out.

In any case, I got to run in the morning with one of my teammates which was a huge blessing. We went short and easy, another step on the ease back into running with my knee. The knee largely felt good, a little bit of aching somewhere in mile 3 but nothing bad and it resolved before we finished so I was okay with that. We had a great conversation during the run, just sort of got caught up since it'd been a while since we saw each other, and we had smoothies afterwards and stretched and it was super nice. I think that really brightened up my whole day. We're also making plans to ride outside next weekend if the weather is nice, so I'm excited about that too.

Today's AM Workout: Easy run, 4ish miles
Summary: 4.20 mi, 40:33, 9:39 pace
Pace splits by mile: 9:55, 9:45, 9:35, 9:21, 9:35

Hit Rate: 32/33 (96.9%)

Only other note/thought I have about the run is that the cadence issues I was having before seem to be a non-issue right now. 171 average today, I'm chill with that.

The PM workout was rough. It was planned that way so I knew what I was signing up for. Everything about it was tough though, I think just from a mental standpoint, I had a really hard time knowing that the intervals were long and I was going to be upping the speed in x number of minutes and there were no real recoveries in the long main set and it made it hard for me to just focus on what I was doing in that moment because the weight of the whole rest of the set was hanging over my head. I'm also just genuinely not good at dealing with pain. Like when things get difficult aerobically, I feel like I have some capacity to deal with that, but when my legs are collecting lactate it's so tough for me to stay on track and that's something I'm really working to try and be better at. You'd think that as a backstroker burn in the legs would be right up my alley, but outside of that one specific context I actually really struggle with this. Anyways, here are the deets:

Today's PM Workout: Trainer ride, 120 mins, endurance work + some sprints to finish

Summary:

• WU: 10 mins easy 
• Pre-set: 5 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• Main Set: 5 rounds, the goal was to get them all done at base +1 gearing but it ended up being 3 rounds at base +1 and 2 rounds at base (would rather have hit the right cadences than try to be a hero)
• 5 mins low 80s rpm 
• 5 mins high 80s rpm 
• 5 mins 95 rpm 
• (no real rests) 
• 4 mins easy 
• Sprints: 2 x (6 x :45/:45 MAX sprints at base +1 over 100 rpm, 2 mins recovery) 
• WD: 5-6 mins easy
• Totals: 29.07 mi, 2:00:39, 14.5 mph average

Hit Rate: 33/34 (97%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Henry was pretty key to this entire thing even happening. Got a lot of support, was not allowed to quit before I finished, nagged me about staying in the right position, I need this in my life for every trainer ride lol.
• My butt really hurt today. More so than is typical...not sure if it was just because I was on the trainer for longer or what, but that sort of sucks. Need a new saddle, but don't really want to invest in one and also really don't have the time to go figure that stuff out. Maybe over the summer or something...
• Didn't quite hit the entire thing at the resistance I wanted, so it'll be another set to back pocket and try again later on in the process. 

I'm really tired. Lift in the books for tomorrow morning with a short 20 minute easy run tagged onto the end. Again, hoping the knee will hold out after strength work, will see how they respond to running while tired. Enjoy what's left of the weekend! (:

Much love,

Jess

The good and the bad

[Day 29]

The good was this morning's swim.

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

• WU: 400 free swim
• Pre-set: (all were done on flexible 3rd person rest, I gave pace time estimates instead of hard cut offs)
• 4 x 100 @ 1:50, 25 free/50 IMO kick/25 free
• 300 free pull w/ paddles
• 4 x 75 @ 1:20, 25 free/25 IMO drill/25 free
• 200 swim free
• 4 x 50 IMO @ :55
• Main Set: 
• 200 free @ 3:15
• 4 x 150 @ 2:45, 50 fly/50 back/50 breast
• (break)
• 200 free @ 3:10
• 4 x 100 IM @ 1:50
• (break)
• 200 free @ 3:05
• 4 x 75 @ 1:25-1:30, 25 fly/25 back/25 breast
• WD: 100 easy
• As written, the main set had another round of 200 free @ 3:00 and 4 x 50 IMO, but we ran out of time. I want to try this set again straight through (which was how it was written) and do it all and maybe bump up the pace times a bit.
• Total distance: 3800 SCY (4200 SCY as written)

Hit Rate: 30/31 (96.7%)

Notes/thoughts:

• It feels so good to be getting back into the groove. I would have preferred pace times to be a little quicker this morning, but I wanted to be fair to my lane and I knew I couldn't hit the fast lane pace times so I couldn't move up, so I've been committing myself to doing my absolute best with these pace times as they stand. It meant that today, I led (and felt really confident doing it, which is the first time I've felt that way about leading all year) and I attacked every single repeat because I knew I was going to get in with lots of time to rest before I attacked the next one. I can't be up there swimming the challenging pace times, so I'm going to challenge myself to execute every single repeat at my best effort regardless of the pace time.
• I will, however, probably find an opportunity to swim alone at some point and try to hit this workout again with some adjusted pace times and straight through. I really liked this set, so I'm going to put it back on the calendar probably sooner rather than later, just for kicks.

The bad was this afternoon's run.

Today's PM Workout: Easy 3ish mile run

Summary: 3.11 mi, 29:41, 9:32 pace

Pace splits by mile: 9:09, 9:44, 9:39

Hit Rate: 31/32 (96.8%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Okay it actually wasn't that bad because my knee felt fine! I mean the occasional twinge, but those were more likely isolated bad steps and I'm a little bit hyperaware of it all right now anyways because it's what I'm paying attention to.
• I did, however, have some back pain that's been creeping in the past day or two that actually made me feel really tight and uncomfortable while running today. Still have to work on that form and getting lean from the ankles instead of the hips. Also need to really have that be something I pay attention to during the day when it comes to how I sit and stand. I need to have my posture be minimally taxing on my back during my non-training time so it doesn't become an issue during training time.
• It was about the pace I wanted it to be but it felt really slow and sluggish. It wasn't hard in the physically taxing sense but it did feel hard. Like my steps just felt really heavy and I wasn't getting the same kind of reflexive bounce off the ground that I usually do (I usually feel pretty light when I run) and the cadence felt slow even though at 172 spm it's not as bad as it had been previously (I was really consciously trying to work on this because I know it helps with the knee issues). I also felt very locked into a single pace, not in the sense that my pace didn't vary as the run went on but more so in the sense that if I wanted to go faster or slower, I don't think I could have made those pace adjustments very easily. It's like I got stuck in that one gear, which is how I used to always feel about running but had made a lot of improvements on in the past year or so, so it sort of sucks to feel like I'm back where I started in that regard.
• In any case, I think all of that really adds up to feeling a little bit disappointed with the state of the running. I just feel like I'm very very very far from where I want to be and it's just not exciting to think that all I can really do in the next few weeks is do a lot of slow runs that will get me back up to running longer distances and help me build the right kind of aerobic fitness to try and tackle other things. And it really is like adding insult to injury when even a short and slow run doesn't feel good. There's work to be done. I just have to set the feelings aside for now and do the work. It pays off in the end, I know that, I can look to things like my swimming for reassurance that it does pay off in the end. I'm just impatient is all.

In other news, I'm going ice skating tonight! It's a sponsored event school is hosting and I'm really not one for turning down free ice skating in the park. Will have to stretch tonight and then tomorrow is a day off! Yay! Days off = so glorious. I'll do my weekly recap tomorrow. (:

Much love,

Jess

Learning to pick up the pace

[Day 27B]

One of the exciting things about triathlon is that no two races are ever the same. Races may be of the same distance if they're standard distances, but otherwise the terrain and conditions are super variable from course to course and from day to day on the same course. One of the things that I struggled with when I first started learning the land disciplines is how to deal with terrain. We don't have terrain in swimming. (Well I guess in open water we sort of do, in the sense that conditions are sort of like terrain, but as someone from a swimming background I have the feel for the water and experience to get me through whatever is thrown at me conditions wise so I've never really had this issue with swimming.) In addition, coming from a really flat place (Windsor, Ontario, Canada), my experience with hills was literally zero. So when I was first trying to get the hang of running and biking hills, what I found was that I was usually pretty good at grinding my way to almost the top, but as soon as the steepest section passed and the uphill slowly started to level out, I would lose all of my drive/energy/momentum and just sort of die. The hardest part of any hill for me for some reason was never on the parts with the steepest grades, but rather the section that came just after that as the hill started to level out at the top.

In trying to tackle that, I sort of fell back on open water racing experience, which had taught me a lot about how important it is to be able to kick it up a gear on command and then come back down to whatever race pace was without needing some form of extended recovery. (Sometimes you have to pass people or sometimes you have to catch up to someone to get in a good draft spot, etc. etc.) So quality active recovery was something I trained in the pool so I could up the intensity and drop back at will without blowing myself completely. It was something I started to play around with on the bike and on the run last summer in a bunch of different contexts because I figured it would be a useful skill there too. So that was a really long winded explanation of what I was going for here with today's set. Here it is!

Today's PM Workout: Trainer ride
Summary:

• WU: 10 mins easy 
• Pre-set: 5 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• Main set: 10 x 5 on/1 off, alternating...
• 2 rounds split as 2 @ base (95 rpm), 1 pick up @ base + 10 rpm, 2 @ base, 1 recovery 
• 2 rounds split as 2 @ climb (+4 gears, 60 rpm), 1 pick up @ climb + 10 rpm, 2 @ climb, 1 recovery
• (until you get to 10 rounds)
• Technique work: 10 x :45/:15 single leg drill 
• WD: 5 mins easy 
• Totals: 21.47 mi, 1:30:17, 14.3 mph average

Hit Rate: 28/29 (96.5%)

Notes/thoughts:

• I feel like my bike set up needs adjusting again. I'm not sure what the deal is but normally I find myself wanting to push back in the saddle during the harder efforts but today I was definitely shifting forward, which is strange for me. I may or may not try and play around with that, see if higher/further forward works a little better for me pedaling mechanics wise. I will also probably go get re-fit professionally in the spring, but in the meantime I figure it can't hurt too much to try some positional changes, especially since my body is asking for it. Just have to make sure I don't do anything that results in weird mechanical joint/muscle pain. Will be careful...
• Not gonna lie, the knees are achy. Gonna take an NSAID tonight, hopefully won't linger. The knees were fine during the day and I spent a lot of time on my feet today, so that was reassuring, but I hope the biking doesn't continue to be sort of tough on them.
• I can't decide if I found the lower cadence rounds to be harder or the higher cadence ones...Maybe really what I found hard were just the one minute push intervals? Lol I don't know. It was pretty rough. I can usually tell because somewhere in the middle my brain totally goes and I can't remember what's coming next unless I look at my timer to tell me. That happened on like round 4 or something and I was like, oh, this is going to be a long one. But I got through and I'm pretty happy with how it panned out in the end. 
• Random one: APAC is starting on the other side of the world in about a half hour. I will be diligently stalking prelims via MeetMobile. Yesterday was the 5 year anniversary of my last APAC. I had posted a Facebook status about making it through to 3 finals and being on two girls relays that medalled. It made me really nostalgic, it had been a really great way to close out my high school swimming career, I miss that team so much all the time. I hope the little ones (some of whom I have known since they were literally in elementary school) have a fantastic time and do a fantastic job this week/weekend. 

Okay, it's been a long day, time to go home and double check my bike tire pressure so I can hit up the pool tomorrow morning. Happy hump day!

Much love,

Jess

No room for noise

[Day 25B]

That was the hardest short trainer session I've done in a while...Wow. Just goes to show that I'm bad at pinning down what workouts will feel tough and what workouts will feel easy. Here's the rundown:

Today's PM Workout: PM trainer ride, 60 minutes
Summary:

• WU: 10 mins easy 
• Pre-set: 5 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• Main Set: 8 x (3 mins on, 2 mins recovery) at 95 rpm, starting at base (big ring in front, 2nd biggest ring in back to start), going up one gear each minute attempting to hold cadence throughout 
• Cadence thing did not happen, it looked more like 95/90-95/86-92 as average ranges
• WD: 5 mins easy 
• Totals: 14.69 mi, 1:00:38, 14.5 mph average

Hit Rate: 25/26 (96.1%)

Honestly, it's just been a really long day and it's going to be a really busy week and I'm mildly stressed about everything there is for me to do. Today it's been pretty non-stop, I had practice, I had class from 8:30-5:00, I dealt with some secretorial-esque errands for about an hour after class and had to field a phone call from my mom so I wasn't even home until 6:15 pm and couldn't be on my trainer til 6:30 knowing that I had to eat dinner and take care of some emails before hitting the sack early so I can hit the gym early tomorrow. This was the kind of day where I would have been happy to just let workout number two slide and bump down that hit rate a bit because it was genuinely a little crazy. But I had so much good momentum from this morning and Henry had given me the best pep talk last night and I know that some days are going to be hard but they make you better in every sense of the word so I felt like I had to do it so I did. 

It was tough. I was not expecting it to be this tough but it really really was. Gonna keep this particular workout in my back pocket and try to hit it again in a few weeks and hopefully do better at holding the goal cadences. I definitely like almost called it quits about 3 times but I was listening to Swimcerely and gosh these women are just so extraordinarily inspirational. Let me explain.

I think one of the things that I struggle with a lot is the idea that someone out there is looking at what I'm trying to do with my life and going, "That's unsustainable. She's trying to do too much and she's just going to burn out and she can't be successful at all of these things that she wants to be successful at". And as much as I'm more than willing to take that challenge head on and prove people wrong, I also have to wonder if maybe there's some or even a lot of truth to those statements. (The best thing about this situation is how hypothetical "these people" are.) Anyways, my point is that Swimcerely really reminds me that there are people out there doing crazy hard things that commit to it and chase after it with everything they have just because they love it and it's what they want and it doesn't matter how plausible it is or isn't to other people. All of that is just noise, and in my case, a lot of the noise I hear is coming from nowhere but my own head. I just have to ignore that noise and do me. Follow your bliss right? And hey, it's not like I don't have a wonderful support network to get me where I want to go. I just have to be a little better at believing. 

Okay I've been really sappy today. Sorry I'm not usually this sappy, but it's honestly just how I feel. I think a little bit of this sappiness underlies everything about me, it's just hidden under a lot of other stuff usually. In any case, already past my bedtime so I'm gonna shower now and try and get lots of sleep. Happy Monday! (:

Much love,

Jess

"What breaks your bones..."

[Day 12B]

"...is not the load you're carrying. What breaks you down is all in how you carry." - The Fray

How amazing is that line? The song came on (thank you shuffle!) during my walk home today (on my way to this workout!) and I was like wow that's amazing. I need to share this. And for all of you readers out there (so...all two of you...), if you ever catch me freaking out about my life, please direct me back to this quote thank you very much.

Also if you listen to the rest of the song and think that it's really sad, remember that it ends like this:

"Loneliness has always been with me, with me
Maybe we were meant to be on our own
But I got to try or it will destroy me
Cause maybe we don't have to be all alone"

It's not sad, it's amazing.

Oh and before we get into the real meat of the post: One of my fellow M1s mentioned my blog today while we were in class and I hit her up about it afterwards but I wanted to extend an invitation to anyone else who is reading as well (again, all two of you). I am always up for people joining me on workouts! Doesn't matter if you haven't worked out in forever (or ever) or if you're super hardcore and way more intense than me, I'm always up for a buddy for workouts. Just hit me up! (:

Anyways. Here's part two of the double!

Today's PM Workout: Trainer ride, a grab bag of some steady state efforts and max efforts
Summary:

• WU: 10 mins easy, 5 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• Main Set: 
• 2 x 10/2 @ 95+ rpm working
• 2 x 5/2 @ 95+ rpm working 
• 1 min extra recovery 
• 2 x (5 x :45/:45 MAX sprints, 2 mins recovery) 
• WD: 7 mins easy 
• Total: 19.14 mi, 1:20:07, 14.3 mph

Hit Rate: 12/12 (100%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Regarding the workout: the 10 and 5 minute intervals were at whatever resistance I felt like I could hold throughout the set. Wasn't worried so much about it being difficult as I was about just getting smooth and really being above 95 rpm (because I've done a lot in the 90-95 zone recently where I seem to be more comfortable but I wanted to work at the higher cadences a bit). Brought it up two gears for the max efforts, tried to be above 100 rpm on those but inevitably fell as the set wore on. It was nice to just tear out really hard full on efforts though, I haven't done that in a while (in any of the sports or in the gym really) so that was a total blast. Surprising, because I was sort of dreading those, but they were actually super awesome. (They were also short intervals, I gave myself those extra 2 minutes recovery in the middle, blah blah blah but let's not step on my moment.)
• Just a side note: I know a lot of people without power meters like to try to use trainer speed as a proxy for power, but that's terrible. I don't even know why I keep those distance and speed numbers in my summary, because honestly I think that really depends on how tight I tighten the flywheel on my trainer on that particular day. Pretty sure the numbers can't vary that much day to day. (I do most of my trainer rides off feel, I've been swimming long enough to have a good sense for effort and I don't mind training by effort, especially given that's how I race.)
• Fun story: I hilariously spilled a ton of water on myself during one of my longer recovery intervals today. I know that it takes me more than a single bottle of water to get through any trainer ride longer than 60 minutes, but I never poor myself more than a bottle, I always just leave my Brita filter next to me, which is stupid. So today when I went to refill, I totally just like poured it all over myself because that's what happens when you're tired and dehydrated in the middle of a workout. Lesson learned? We shall see the next time I ride...
• Random thought: The step counter on my Garmin can be so obnoxious. Some days it's like "you didn't hit your goal today" and I'm over here trying to explain to it that I did two workouts but it doesn't understand that because they weren't walking based workouts. -sigh-
• No drill set today. Mainly because I didn't want to be on the trainer for more than 80 minutes (those minutes will come up as we get into the thick of things in the next few months, I'm in no rush for longer trainer days). I'm going to keep trying to integrate that at the end of my workouts though, I do think it's important and I do think it makes a difference to my riding. 
• A quick update about early morning thoughts: I will keep my second swim this week on Thursday morning instead of Friday, just logistically easier given the rest of my schedule, so I guess no more free rides for me this week...Will be biking to practice on Thursday. Fingers crossed for warmer weather and no wind!
• I've been listening to this awesome new podcast called Swimcerely with Spindrift. I usually listen to a podcast during my trainer rides, usually something sport related (some of my favourites are this one, Endurance Planet, Pursuing Health with Julie Foucher, Winging it in Motown, some old series of podcasts from like 2014 involving a lot of pretty big name triathlete interviews that I've forgotten the name of, etc.) and I just wanted to give this one a shout-out because it's competitive swimmer specific and I figure there might be some other people who would like checking it out. It's fantastic. I'll just leave it at that. 
• Body still feels good mostly, not too much change, some amount of upper body soreness, back really starting to kick in but it's just muscles being tight. I've been stretching/foam rolling throughout the day and I actually think the bike has helped loosen up my back a bit. (People don't typically say that, but hey, apparently it's happening right now.)

Today was a good day, weirdly enough. It started on such a "meh" kind of note and I did the whole carrying on thing and I'm really happy with how it all turned out in the end. A lot of validation for that whole "action is always the cure for doubt" idea. I mean it wasn't a perfect day, but it was good. I'm happy with it. I'm proud. It's nice because I ended yesterday on such a disappointing note. I'm glad I'm in a better place tonight.

As for tomorrow, only one workout on the books, a morning treadmill run done as a big long continuous hill climb (lol we'll see how that goes) and some core work following (please do it future Jess please please please I know you hate this but please do it). I'm gonna shower and eat and stretch and roll out and hopefully get some more reviewing done (yay med school...) and then hit the sack! Have a good evening all! (:

Much love,
Jess

Double double toil and trouble (and weekly recap!)

[Day 8]

Two double days in a row is usually real rough but we made it work!

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

• WU: 3 x 300 
• 1 - swim (free) 
• 2 - 50 kick/25 swim (free) 
• 3 - 50 drill IMO/25 swim (free) 
• Main Set: straight through unless break indicated 
• 100 IM fast (1:30) 
• (break) 
• 4 x 50 fly @ 1:00 
• 3 x 50 free @ :50 
• 4 x 50 back @ 1:00 
• 2 x 50 free @ :45 
• 4 x 50 breast @ 1:00 
• 1 x 50 free @ :40 
• (break) 
• 100 IM fast @ 1:40 (1:30) 
• 200 IM fast (3:10) 
• (break) 
• 4 x 50 kick @ 1:05 (back) 
• 50 fly @ 1:00 
• 3 x 50 kick @ 1:05 (back) 
• 50 back 
• 2 x 50 kick @ 1:05 (back) 
• 50 breast 
• (break) 
• 300 IM @ 10 SR 
• 200 IM @ 10 SR 
• 100 IM @ 10 SR 
• WD: 50 easy (lol "warmdown") 
• Total Distance: 3450 SCY

Hit Rate: 7/7 (100%)

Thoughts about the swim:

• I'm starting to mind the bike out and back a lot less. It's hard because I'm tired on the way out and on the way back and none of it feels good per se, but it's nice to be able to do the biking at a relaxed pace and just try to focus on not being stressed out. It's therapeutic transit time I guess.
• I felt sort of bad today because there were two slower swimmers in my lane who were struggling with the pace times and I hate to do that to people, but I don't set the pace times, even when I do lead the lane (which is what happened today)...this is why I prefer lanes and workouts based on base times better since everyone has a better sense of where they stand in a workout, but I guess there's not much to do about that. 
• That having been said, the pace times were mostly pretty forgiving to me. I feel like I probably should have done other strokes during the kick or at least worked on something (like improving my underwaters, which suck) but I just wanted to enjoy getting back into the pool and I didn't want to try that hard this morning honestly. My body's starting to feel much better, I probably should have worked harder, but I just wanted to be in the pool and swim and enjoy swimming. So I did that. I'll probably continue to allow myself to slack off in the interest of having fun for the next couple of weeks since they're just base weeks anyways. Will worry about putting in the actual hard work later on. 
• The biggest places where my core weakness shows through is (a) during fly and (b) when I try to swim freestyle with faster turnover and I wobble in the water. I really need to do more core work. But I hate it so much. God help me.
• My shoulders are also super weak right now. On the 300 IM, by the 75 I felt like such an age grouper, it took soooooo much effort just to get my arms to clear the water. I either have to swim more or lift more or both because that problem also really needs to be remedied. 

Today's PM Workout: Base run w/ Tsehay

Summary: 6.79 mi, 1:05:28, 9:38 pace.

Pace splits by mile: 9:11, 9:31, 9:40, 9:41, 9:43, 9:51, 9:55

Hit Rate: 8/8 (100%)

Thoughts about the run:

• Another swim/bike/run day! (If you count the biking commute to and from practice.)
• Friends are lifesavers. Tsehay and I just talked the entire time while we ran and every once in a while it would register in my mind that I felt awful but I had someone beside me so I just kept going and it was done before I knew it! I felt kind of bad because she was about a step ahead of me the entire time and I'm pretty sure I was holding her back, but I honestly couldn't have run any faster...I did tell her to go ahead up the last hill and she charged away from me which was kind of fun to watch from behind. 
• The weather was great today. In the sense that it wasn't too cold. It was really overcast and I was worried the sky would open up and rain us out but that didn't happen which I'm very happy with. The sun even made an appearance for our last mile!
• My turnover is still terrible. 166 spm again, really need to focus on bringing that up.
• Today has been weird in that my legs hurt markedly less but they feel really exhausted. It's funny how soreness and energy/strength don't always go hand in hand. 
• I MADE IT! Week 1 is done! Rest day tomorrow yay (:

Reflections on Week 1:

• 2 swims, 2 trainer rides, 3 runs, 1 lift with a short extra run for ~9-9.5 total hours.
• Things could honestly not have gone any better. There was the unexpected soreness and the hiccup on Wednesday but honestly that's all so minor in the grand scheme of things. If the next two weeks of base focused work go as well as this week, I'll be in a great place to start ramping things up and start going longer/faster/whatever it may be.
• The major takeaways from this week: sleep is super key (earlier jetlagged days were mentally rougher than they needed to be, sleeping well makes everything better), I need to do more core work and strength work (but that has to come slowly, as evidenced by my body's really negative reaction to Monday's gym sesh), and batch cooking a ton of food on Monday really came through in the clutch for me.
• It's always funny seeing my body realize that we're getting back into training again. I'm normal appetite wise for the first couple of days and then all of a sudden it's like, I NEED CALORIES NOW. GIVE ME ALL THE CALORIES. Basically I'm hungry constantly. -sigh-
• As for next week, I technically have a plan laid out already but I'll revisit it today or tomorrow and make adjustments as necessary and put it all in my schedule (and I'll also work my studying and meal prep time into that schedule). 
• Not too much else to say, other than what a great way to kick off 2016! Really hoping to keep up this great momentum going into next week! (:

Much love,

Jess

This seems familiar...

[Day 7B]

...It's almost like I've already been here before today. Oh wait. I have. Good to be back. (:

This afternoon was somewhat interesting. I had the afternoon mostly free from obligations save a 1 pm meeting with my PI, so it was nice to get to decide what I wanted to do with my time. I got laundry done, studied some immunology, and took a trainer ride. Now I'm eating dinner (love it when I still have curry from Monday on Thursday, with even enough for lunch tomorrow!) whilst Skyping Henry (or really watching him make dinner over Skype) and writing this post!

I will admit, I was a bit stressed out this afternoon. I felt like I had a lot of studying to do for school and I wasn't going to have enough time to do that and errands and working out and feeding myself and everything else that's going on. I was freaking up pretty much up until the moment that I got on the trainer and got started. I put on an Endurance Planet podcast (I'm currently listening to the Badwater series they just got started on, it's a really great podcast, highly recommend) and settled into my ride and surprisingly enough the workout really calmed me down.

I decided not to push the resistance today (I never really track resistance on my trainer rides anyways because I'm not always consistent with how I tighten the flywheel on the back) and just focused on getting to a comfortably quick spot while hitting the right turnover with good form. The workout was pretty similar to what I did last Sunday, just a tad longer and in a reverse pyramid structure. I want to work on being able to conquer the longer parts of my sets towards the end of the workout. It's easy to work your way down but it's hard to work your way back up just in terms of the mental side of things, so I wanted to mix it up and try and get comfortable knowing I was starting and ending on my longest interval (which, granted, at 7 minutes was not very long).

It all felt surprisingly good. I've been having on and off mild knee pain from slightly over-extending my knee on Tuesday (when I'm really sore my legs tend to wobble when I walk and sometimes I can get strange kinks in my joints because of it) and I was especially worried about the double today, but it felt good on the bike and it feels good now, so hopefully that will continue to hold out. Not too much to comment on other than that. Here was the workout!

Today's PM Workout: 75 min base trainer ride
Summary:

• WU: 10 mins easy 
• Pre-set: 5 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• Main Set: threshold intervals of 7/2, 5/2, 3/2, 3/2, 5/2, 7/2 
• Drill set: 10 x :45/:15 single leg drill 
• WD: 8 mins easy 
• Total: 16.26 mi, 1:15:07, 13.0 mph average

Hit Rate: 6/6 (100%)

Tomorrow is another double! Morning swim practice (yay IM day!), afternoon run with a friend (5-7 miles? Probably easy? TBD?). And then Saturday is my off day! And the start of playoff football! All good stuff. Gonna eat and shower and get some work done before that early early bedtime. (:

Much love,
Jess

Some days the the sun's hard to face

[Day 5]

Props if you know the song reference. I'm exhausted, I technically have comments on today but honestly the best that I can do today is just tell you what I did. So here it is.

Today's AM Workout: CSP practice, mid-distance free day (bike commute, 45-60 mins)
Summary:

• WU: 200, 300, 300 swim (as written was 3 x 300, but we had counting issues) 
• Pre-set: 8 x 50 free @ :50 relaxed 
• Main Set: 
• 4 x 100 free @ 1:35 as 25 moderate/50 strong/25 recovery 
• 4 x 200 free @ 3:10 as 25 moderate/50 strong/25 recovery 
• 3 x 100 kick w/ fins choice @ 1:30 as all easy except 3rd 25 fast 
• 50 easy 
• 400, 350, 400 free as 1st one fast, 2nd one moderate, 3rd one recovery (as written as 3 x 400 but again, we had some counting issues) 
• WD: Basically the last 400 of the main set… 
• Total Distance: 3900 SCY

Hit Rate: 3/3 (100%)

Today's PM Workout: Easy run (w/ Tsehay)

Summary: 4.01 mi, 37:56, 9:27 pace

Pace splits by mile: 9:17, 9:41, 9:26, 9:26

Hit Rate: 4/4 (100%)

Brief list of things I have to say: 

• I'm really sore today.
• The set intervals being easy during morning practice was super key.
• I left my old goggles in China (I think...?) so I got to break open new goggles, which was pretty fantastic.
• My hair froze on my bike ride back. Getting in the hot shower and thawing that out afterwards was nice. 
• Things jetlag are good for: I got to eat breakfast before morning practice. 
• I need warmer socks for that commuting ride. 
• I'm really proud of myself for going running despite feeling pretty horrible. I'm also pretty happy with the pace given how horrible I felt. Running with a buddy makes everything better.
• The cadence on the run was too low (166 spm average), probably because I'm sore which makes the turnover poor, but bringing up that cadence is something I'll have to keep in mind this month as I'm running. 
• I swam, biked, and ran today, which is sort of cool (even though the bike was a commute and not actual training).

I had a lift planned for tomorrow which probably won't be happening. My body needs time to recover, the jetlag means my sleep has been horrible and I need to rest or I'll just be breaking myself down. I'll probably do some yoga/stretching/mobility work and a full core workout in the morning instead. Okay, back to studying physiology now. 

Much love,

Jess

Going longer on that trainer...

Today started with a very early lift and finished with a long afternoon trainer session. The lift was similar to what I did last week, with some minor tweaks and the addition of glute bridges. I didn't do a short treadmill run after the workout because I felt lazy. As of right now, I'm physically feeling much better than I did last week at this time. Although the soreness is starting to set in, it's definitely not as bad as it was last week, which is promising. The lift in and of itself also felt easier than last week, which is also promising since I did a similar amount of work/weight. I may have taken more rest breaks though, which may have factored into experiencing less fatigue. I definitely have to get over my fear of dudes...they will be in the gym while I am in the gym. I just need to get used to it. It'll take time is all I guess.

Today's AM Workout: Lift
Summary: 70 minutes

• Front squats: WU 10 @ 45, pyramid 10 @ 65, 8 @ 85, 5 @ 95, 8 @ 85, 10 @ 65 (5 working sets, first and last = light)
• Flat bench: WU 10 @ 45, 10 @ 65, working 3 x 8 @ 85 (last set split 6/2 rest pause)
• Weighted glute bridges: WU 15 @ short bar, working 3 x 12 @ sb+20
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12 @ 6, alt. wide/narrow grips
• Superset: 3 x
• DB shoulder presses (seated): 12 @ 20/side (if you get bold maybe it's time to move up to 25…)
• DB rows: 12 @ 40
• Forward/backwards lunges: 3 x 12/side @ sb+20

Hit rate: 38/41 (92.6%)

Note that sb means the small straight bar. I have no idea what it weighs but I figure as long as I'm consistent with the use of this particular bar, it's not super important.

The afternoon trainer session was long, but I kept it at just below threshold effort so it wasn't the hardest. The entire second hour to be honest was sort of grueling and my butt definitely really hurt by the end, but I kept it nice and consistent throughout and I'm really proud of the effort.

Today's PM Workout: Long trainer ride
Summary: 29.01 mi, 2:00:29, 14.4 mph

• WU: 10 mins easy, 5 mins base of a hill building up to 100 rpm in the last minute
• Main set: twice through…
• 2 x
• 4 mins @ 90-95 rpm race pace (base)
• 4 mins @ 60 rpm race pace (climb)
• 4 mins @ 90-95 rpm race pace (base)
• 3 mins @ 90-95 rpm sprint pace (+1)
• 1 x
• 12 mins @ 90-95 rpm race pace (base)
• 3 mins @ 90-95 rpm sprint pace (+1)
• 5 mins spin recovery
• 5 min spin down (after recovery from last set)
• Speed splits: 13.2, 15.1, 14.5, 14.9, 15.0, 14.0.

Hit rate: 39/42 (92.8%)

Now I'm going to go get Henry from the airport! And tomorrow is my day off! Yay!

Much love,

Jess