Quick rest day update and weekly recap

[Day 59]

Updates! Resting is great. So is eating really high calorie foods apparently because I had two cinnamon roll cupcakes today (recipe via BuzzFeed, go look it up) and for the first time in what feels like eons, I was satisfied for more than an hour and a half. I wasn't scavenging for food after dinner. It was amazing.

Body is not sore but very tired. Even walking out and back from the grocery store today was a bit of a struggle. It's funny to have to think about efficient walking form because your body is tired. I feel like it's gotten better as the day has gone on though, confident it won't continue to be a problem.

Weekly Recap:

• 1 swim, 2 rides (1 trainer, 1 outdoors), 3 runs, and 1 gym session for a total of 12:44 in 7 sessions. Hours skewed by that one long ride. 
• Wasn't quite the week I wanted, really bummed out about the low swim counts, but we'll work on getting back on track with the swimming in the upcoming weeks. 
• I'm not a big fan of having one single long workout take up the majority of the training hours in the week, it's pretty not sensible in my mind, but this weekend was probably unique in that regard so I'm not gonna dwell on it too much. We'll see if the long rides continue to be a thing or not, really up to how Brian and the teammates want to plan things and how they fit in my schedule.

Next week we officially move into Block 2, so there'll be some more specificity (brick work, faster runs, etc.) coming. Ready to do some good work before finals for med school Block 2! (:

Much love,

Jess

A note to sad/tired/upset/frustrated/discouraged Jess

[Day 34B]

I've definitely written letters to myself on this page before, but I'm too lazy to go look up what those contents are so I'm starting fresh right here. Days like today are a big part of the reason I even keep this log: there were valuable things to be taken from this day and I want to be able to look back on this during the moments when I really need it. Disclaimer: this post is going to be long and possibly too touchy-feely, so if you're not about that, you can stop reading (all I did was run a boring slow 5 miler this afternoon, you're not missing out on anything I promise). But if you're curious about some of the things that go through my head on a good day, read on! (And if you're future-Jess, having a rough day for whatever reason, please be willing to really hear these words from past-Jess. They're important and they're honest and I want you to listen and believe and find your spark again.) Let's start with the recap:

Today's PM Workout: Easy run, 5 mi
Summary: 5.01 mi, 51:28, 10:16 average pace
Pace splits by mile: 9:46, 10:23, 10:21, 10:32, 10:19
Hit Rate: 37/38 (97.3%)

Run specific notes (and some random details about my day):

• It's been a long day. I started the day at 4:50 am, spent some time studying, hit up the pool, showered and dealt with emails, went grocery shopping, came home, ate lunch, studied some more, had my clinical mentoring session, immediately went out for a run, ate dinner, interviewed a (super impressive and lovely) Princeton applicant, and now I'm here. It's been a crazy day. As such...
• I was tired on the run, the kind of tired where even though I was running, my eyes kept trying to fall shut and stay shut. My body has also honestly felt a little bit off the past day or two, but that's not really my point. I was tired. 
• Given that I was tired, I ran based purely off of effort. I checked my watch, I knew how slow I was going, but the heart rate and the breathing told me I was in the right place so I just stuck with it. I'm definitely coming to terms with the fact that the next few weeks will be strictly easy (aka slow) running, just looking to build some base running fitness so my joints can handle the harder things to come (which may or may not involve speed work but will definitely involve brick work, so I have to strengthen everything up bit by bit and make sure they can handle that when the time comes). It's not super satisfying to do this kind of work, but like I was telling Helena yesterday when we were talking about her 5k plan, it's important to get the right kind of base at that easy/moderate effort before you go looking for more because it's the foundation of everything else that you do. You can't cheat the basics, so even though there's nothing glorious about them, I'm going to keep doing it and doing it right. 
• Cadence is still looking good, 172 spm average today, so I'm happy about that.
• It was cold. And windy. I'm just complaining. There's no real point to this bullet point.
• My knees felt good. While we're talking about joints, it's worth noting that my right elbow was giving me the business during my swim this morning and I bit the bullet and went and got a supplement to try and deal with that. (And a note about supplements: I do take multivitamins daily, along with usually half a dose of B100, and especially the past few weeks, the difference between the time blocks when I am good about supplementing and when I'm bad about supplementing are pretty stark. It makes a big difference to my energy levels so I figure it must have something to do with the repair stuff going on in my body. I have had a few different things for joint supplements in the past because I have a history of joint issues, I just went for an easy over the counter low dose glucosamine chondroitin complex that I'm taking at even lower doses than the maker recommends because in general my policy is the less supplementation I have to do the better. Better to get your nutrients from food than from a pill I figure. But it's helped in the past so I'm giving it a go to see if it makes a difference now.)

The mushy stuff:

• For when you are feeling discouraged: I am so insanely proud of myself and this day. I feel so incredibly blessed to be where I am and doing what I'm doing. I had a stretch of time in the afternoon after lunch and before my hospital session where I was exhausted and I knew I had to get studying in and the rest of my day seemed so daunting and I just sat at my carrel with a cup of coffee and wanted to cry about everything. But then I got to go into the hospital and practice my history and physical skills and found myself in an environment where I really feel like I thrive. I have a lot to learn and a long way to go before I'm good at all of these skills I have to master, but just getting to interact with patients is such a powerful reminder to me of what I get to spend the rest of my life doing. I get that wonderful sense that this is exactly where I belong, this is what I was born to do, not because I'm good at it necessarily but because it makes me come alive and I feel so lucky to have found that and to have the opportunity to work towards being the best that I can be at it. That was specifically hospital related, but honestly it applies to training too. I'm not a great athlete, but I don't feel like I was born to do this because I'm good at it, I feel like I was born to do this because it makes me come alive. I am so lucky to have the opportunity to work towards being better at these things that make me come alive on a daily basis. The work, the opportunity, that's the blessing. Don't ever forget that.
• On confidence/frustration/slow days/trust: If I had taken this run session yesterday morning, I would've been upset because it was so slow. It was almost 2 minutes a mile slower than my half marathon time, and it's only a 5 miler. But a lot of things happened between yesterday morning and right now. My whole conversation with Helena about why base training is important happened, my swim this morning which gave me such a huge confidence boost happened, and all of a sudden I find myself very comfortable with just doing the very mundane and non-glamorous work that is running slowly until I get my running groove back. It's the kind of thing that I would have been ashamed of in the past or gotten flustered and nervous over because it would make me feel like my running was terrible and was never going to get better and I didn't have any of that today because I had a kind of trust in the process that I think I've been lacking for a while. It's the inevitable reality of still feeling somewhat new to the sport and still learning what works and what doesn't and not knowing if I'm going to see the results that I want. But I'm starting to trust in the training a little bit more and I'm starting to let my ego go and it's helping me be okay with the reality that right now my only focus is on getting back into running without reaggravating any injuries. That's going to involve some very slow running and that's not something for me to be worried or ashamed or scared of. It's just another day in my schedule and it doesn't have to be any more emotionally loaded than that. 
• Let's talk about my relationship with food: I've been stressed out about food recently. If you know me, you know that's weird, I'm normally more of a "see food and just eat it" sort of person. But triathlon is annoying because it's gravity involving and therefore for the first time in my life my weight matters to me. In August the pounds honestly just sort of fell off my body, I didn't even know what was going on but I got super lean and it was kind of cool but also kind of disconcerting. I sort of thought the same thing would happen when I picked up with training this time around, but that's really not what's happened all of January, so I think I've been a bit flustered about that because I don't know the first thing about trying to drop a few pounds. I think it's made me really weird about food and that needs to stop. Pretty sure I'm tired because I've been slightly undernourished these past few days. Pretty sure I need to be better about controlling blood sugar swings by eating more frequently seeing as I can't eat very much in any single sitting. I need to be better about eating right after I workout. I need to be better about ensuring quality when I'm snacking because my body is definitely feeling the need for wholesome nourishment between real meals and I haven't been giving it any of that. I also need to relax about indulging, it's not going to kill anyone, but the stress is probably really bad for me. I'm gonna try to be a little bit more laid back about this, because honestly I think my body might think it's starving right now and I don't want it to think that. Trying to reframe the dialogue around food not in terms of quantity but in terms of quality. As long as I'm eating good quality food, I will let my body have its way in terms of quantity. It knows what it needs, I need to be better about listening.
• On a related note, body image: I had an awesome swim this morning, which can largely be credited to all the parts of my body that I can't stand (i.e. my arms and my lats). Like sure, they're sort of ridiculous looking, but they are also the reason that you get to fly in the water. I want you to think about any breakout off the start during any race ever. Is there anything that you wouldn't give up to have that feeling? Adhering to terrible and incredibly not meaningful beauty standards? Would give that up in a heartbeat. Just think about it.

That's all folks! Bedtime.

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 first workout!

But not really. This is definitely not my first workout. But it is the first I will log in this manner, so for that I will allow it to count as a special first.

Today's workout: 8 mile run, starting moderate and building.
Summary: 8.3 mi, 1:14:18/1:14:31 total time, 8:57/8:59 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 9:27, 9:10, 9:06, 8:57, 8:41, 8:38, 9:01, 9:07, 8:05.

I am in the lull period before serious planned training takes place, so really all I've been doing the past month is running (distance/workout details determined depending on how I feel that day) and swimming on the occasion when I want to mix it up. I'm currently in Boston (the run was along the river in Cambridge/Allston today), but will be leaving for St. Louis on Wednesday. Between making this first move and going back to Canada next week in order to pick up furniture, the training will be sporadic at best. But I'm going to make an effort to not lose too much of the base run fitness I've been gaining.

The run today was a test. It was conceived of as a build run with two steps at which I was going to turn it up a notch. Was really imagining the splits to go something like 9:15-9:30 range for miles 1-3, 9:00-9:15 for 4-6, and sub-9:00 for 7-8. But I got going early on and really wanted to try and push the pace so I adjusted to a very ambitious 9:00-9:15 for 1-3, 8:45-9:00 for 4-6, and AFAP for 7-8, which made the last two miles comparatively slow and very very very very painful. I'm glad I pushed the pace though, because I've been struggling at convincing myself to push the limits because I am afraid of pain/failure so tackling those fears is important to me.

I spent a lot of time over the weekend being really down about the state of my training, and Henry had said to me that I need to be willing to suffer in order to get what I want. Suffering is an integral part of the process and whenever things get hard and I take my foot off the gas I need to remember that the suffering is making me better. I really tried to dig deep into that message today, I kept saying to myself that I needed to prove that I was willing and able to endure this kind of suffering in order to get better. I also got sort of delirious towards the end and kept saying to myself that I had to prove my idiot brain wrong about what my body was capable of. (I was watching a Red Bull endurance video series in the morning and one research project they had going on was trying to figure out how to tap into the physical reserves that exist beyond the point which the brain allows us to push ourselves. So I kept saying that I had enough to keep going, my idiot brain just didn't want to acknowledge that, and I had to be the boss and push through to those abilities I knew I had. Maybe a dangerous mentality, I will acknowledge that, but it did work at keeping me pushing as hard as I knew how.)

I'm not happy about the fact that I died in those last two miles, but I'm very very satisfied with the effort. It was probably one of the most painful runs I've taken in a long time, I'm sure if you had seen my face on the way back in you would've understood. It was the kind of run that ended with me swallowing back a lot of bile. I really feel like I know where the "deeper" in digging deeper is now, or at least that it's deeper than I thought it was, and I'm going to try to channel that going forwards.

Not every workout is going to need to be a workout at this level of intensity (and it probably shouldn't, because this kind of effort gets counterproductive without proper recovery) but knowing that I have what it takes to work at this level when I ask it of myself is really reassuring.

Post-workout, I came home, hydrated, showered, started the laundry, and promptly collapsed into bed for a nap. I should have probably eaten something beforehand, but I was just so blown out. (Also had an early morning because Henry had a 6 AM flight to Florida to catch.) Mistake turned out to be problematic when I woke up an hour and a half later and was starving but so tired I could barely get myself out of bed to obtain food. I ended up heating up a piece of fried chicken from the weekend (we ate so poorly over the last weekend...it was such a problem) and am munching on it now as I write. I will have to go to Whole Foods in a bit and pick up some greens to go with the leftover lobster we have from Henry's uncle's restaurant. I'll probably also make noodles tonight because noodles are faster than rice. Or maybe I'll even pan fry some potatoes, because potatoes are good carbs. We'll see.

Tomorrow, I will have to finish packing (the state of the room is horrendous right now!) but I will try to get in a short recovery run (around 4-5 miles probably) since I won't be exercising again until Friday at the earliest probably. I'll be back tomorrow!

Much love,
Jess