The home stretch

[Day 112]

I've been spending the week trying to keep my life together. Less training hours for sure but also a lot of school work and wedding related tasks has kept me really busy. Not an excuse to not have been here logging, but oh well. Let's get caught up.

4/16 Saturday: Rest day

4/17 Sunday: Open water swim practice with Brian C. in Rolla, MO
Summary: 2696 yards, 1:07:22, some laps of the lake punctuated by sitting around on rocks and chatting. I touched a fish with my hand for the first time. It was in a quarry generally used for scuba diving, which is pretty cool.
Lap paces: 1:38, 1:38, 1:32, 1:34, 1:38, 1:35 for the efforts
Hit Rate: 106/116 (91.3%)

4/18 Monday AM Workout: Spin biking at the gym (b/c my bike is gone...)
Summary: 23.60 mi (hahahahahahahahaha sure spin bike computer...), 1:00:36, 23.4 mph
Hit Rate: 107/117 (91.4%)

4/18 Monday PM Workout: Rec swim, punctuated by lots of conversation w/ Jeremy lol
Summary:

• WU: 600 as 150 swim/50 kick
• Main set: straight through unless indicated
• 4 x 50 free @ :50
• 3 x 200 free @ 2:50
• 100 easy
• (break)
• 4 x 50 free @ :50
• 3 x 150 free @ 2:10
• 50 easy 
• (break)
• 4 x 50 IMO @ :55
• 3 x 100 IM @ 1:40
• (break, that was supposed to be free but I decided I wanted to swim IM so I did)
• 8 x 75 free pull @ 1:15 (no paddles)
• WD: 200 choice easy
• Total Distance: 3500 SCY (~1:10)

Hit Rate: 108/118 (91.5%)

4/19 Tuesday: AM run

Summary: 5.02 mi, 44:09, 8:47 pace, 179 spm

Pace splits by mile: 8:43, 8:51, 8:53, 8:44, 8:45

Hit Rate: 109/119 (91.5%)

4/20 Wednesday: Tri team practice w/ Brian, showed up without a plan, sort of did whatever

Summary:

• WU: 4 x 200 as SKIP
• Main Set:
• 4 x 100 free @ 1:30
• 4 x 50 free kick w/ board @ 1:00
• 5 x 200 free
• 2 @ 3:05
• 2 @ 3:00
• 1 MAX
• WD: 200 easy
• Total Distance: 2600 SCY (~50 mins)

Hit Rate: 110/120 (91.6%)

The general trend the past couple of days has been feeling not super great on the workouts but churning out decent paces given what that felt like. The run on Tuesday felt particularly rough, maybe because I was hungry going into it, and although it wasn't a super quick run, it wasn't a super slow one either so it turned out fine. Same thing with the 200s at practice yesterday, didn't feel great, but for the effort that I was putting in I was really happy with what I was splitting. So...things are going okay I think?

Today is off (travel day!), tomorrow will be whatever on course training and shake out workouts we choose to do as a team, Saturday is race day! Wish me luck!

Much love,

Jess

A morning update

[Day 50A]

I slept in today. I was supposed to do my usual early morning swim with that ride out and back and I had everything prepared last night and even got around to checking my tire pressures (which I'm constantly forgetting to do), but my alarm went off this morning and it honestly just didn't feel like the right call. I want to go into this afternoon's trainer ride with a clear head because I've got a mental block that's keeping me from achieving what I want to achieve. There's been a lot of negativity that's been stirring around me and training recently and I need to push back against that. I knew I needed the extra rest to put myself in the best possible place to succeed, and if that means dropping a swim, then today it was the right decision to make. I feel like it honestly is very rarely the right decision to make, but today was a strange exception.

Hit Rate Update: 53/57 (92.9%). Am a little disappointed in that? Yes, but the progress I'm trying to make is more important than trying to make my "showing up" number look good. It's worth the hit.

So in any case, why am I writing this blog post? Because I need an accountability push. I've done what I can to set myself up to have a good ride this afternoon and I need to put that out there so I have no excuses when I actually get on the trainer today. Fresh start with lots of rest, no reason to do anything less than crush it.

Gonna go hit up the grocery store now and spend the rest of the day between now and the ride studying. And eating lunch at some point. And hitting up lab to check in on some server issues that I'm still having (ugh). TGIF! I'll be back to report on the ride later. (:

Much love,
Jess