"Will you destroy what destroys you?"

[Day 76B]

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

Notes/thoughts:

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

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

Much love,

Jess

"When it's dark you cannot be afraid"

[Day 76A]

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

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

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

Hit Rate: 80/88 (90.9%)

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

Much love,

Jess

"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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsi6kCSTIFU

[Day 33]

The thing I love most about the song up above is that it's a quiet resolution kind of song. The story isn't necessarily something that everyone can relate to but I'm sure the themes will resonate with everyone. I'm going to share a much longer quote than I usually do, but these words hit really close to home this morning so I want to share them.

I don't want to float through life, I wanna drown in it
Break myself down, turn around in it
Take it until I've had enough and then build it back up
From the top to the ground again
So go ahead and say what you need to say
Cause those words might have hurt me yesterday
And dig deep in the cuts of my chest
Just to find out that you'll never get the best of me
So dear tragedy, have a seat
I don't give a fuck what you do to me
Cause yeah this light's going to burn out
But I can't fall, never learned how

That's all the commentary from me today. Here's the summary:

Today's Workout: AM trainer ride, 90 mins, big gear endurance work
Summary:

• WU: 10 mins easy spin 
• Spin ups: 5 x 30 up/30 recovery 
• Main Set: all big gear (base +3, 60-65 rpm, +10 or more on pick up minutes), easy spin recoveries at base
• 20 mins as 9/1/9/1 (base/pick up) 
• 3 mins easy spin 
• 16 mins as 7/1/7/1 
• 3 mins easy spin 
• 12 mins as 5/1/5/1 
• 3 mins easy spin 
• 8 mins as 3/1/3/1 
• WD: 10 mins easy 
• Totals: 20.88 mi, 1:30:22, 13.9 mph

Hit Rate: 35/36 (97.2%)

Notes/thoughts:

• So much for swimming today eh? The forecast actually got worse as time passed, it went from just rain to thunderstorms and the decision was sort of made that being safe on the roads was more important than making practice. I figured I could just move up a trainer workout and re-work the next few days, so I ended up sleeping in a half hour and doing a trainer ride this morning. I was sort of ticked off though because it definitely wasn't raining when I did wake up. It did start raining by probably around 6:30 am but it wasn't that bad and I felt sorta crappy about making what might have been the wrong call.
• Adjustments for the next few days: I was originally planning a dryland session tomorrow and some rowing and then a short easy run in place of the trainer ride I pulled up to today, but I thought about it and decided that since I'm skipping all my morning classes tomorrow anyways, I might as well hit up rec swim. So that's what I'm gonna do. It'll give me a chance to swim a test set and actually see where I am fitness wise. 
• It's sort of a bummer that I'm skipping the gym because I have been really enjoying doing more strength work this past week or two because of the light running load, but I do realize that my priorities have to be swim/bike/run and that strength work is just icing on the cake. One strength session a week doesn't feel like enough, but I'm always gonna want to do more and I know my schedule just doesn't allow for that, so I have to respect the fact that I'm probably only going to be hitting the gym up once this week (and every week from now on lol). 
• Actually in reference to the workout today: The last time I did a variant of this workout, it was shortened (no first 20 minute block) and I did it at base +4 gearing (I think?), which was why it was super brutal. Honestly I was planning on going base +4 today but a whole combination of factors (excuses?) made me reconsider once I was on the bike. My legs were burning at way lower workloads than they usually are (they're just tired), my legs were also weird/stiff (probably because it was morning and they're cold in the morning), and I was fasted, so between all those things I just went for the lower gear. I think it also made sense today because the point of the workout was to get at endurance zone big gear riding (not threshold or higher riding) and I definitely hit the right effort zone at this gearing. I will try this again a gear up at some point in the upcoming weeks, but it'll be planned as one of the hard sessions of the week as opposed to one of the more filler-esque workouts like it really was today. 
• I got to take a nice shake out run/walk with Helena in the afternoon. She's starting her 5k training which is super exciting! I came home and stretched afterwards and am generally surprised that my legs really don't feel great today, but whatever. They're doing the best they can I guess. That accumulated fatigue though...

Swim tomorrow will be the 5/4/3/2/1 x 100s set that Julia gave me way back when. I like to use this one to check in about where my aerobic free is, I feel like it's a good indicator of overall fitness. The goal will be 1:25s but honestly I haven't swum 100s on that pace time in a long time so there's a good chance it'll have to be 1:30s. I'm a little bit freaked out about even tackling the 1:25s, but I know I have to try, so I'm gonna give it all I have and see where it takes me. Time to study now!

Much love,

Jess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxjvTXo9WWM

[Day 28]

See that title up there? Yeah that one? New Sia. Check it out if you know what's good for your soul.

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

• WU: 250-200-150-100-50 swim @ 10SR 
• It was warm up, I showed up a few minutes late, so inevitably due to weird lane things I think I skipped a total of ~125 over the course of the warm up that I won't count in my total yardage for the day...
• Main Set:
• 8 x 75 free @ 1:15, 7 yd breakout/moderate/7 yd finish hard
• 8 x 125 free @ 2:00, 50 moderate/25 fast no breathing 3 strokes out of turn/50 moderate
• 5 x 100 kick w/ fins @ 1:30, 5 yds fast underwater off each wall/moderate (I did back)
• 4 x 75 free @ 1:15, 25 MAX/50 easy
• 400 free easy, focus on long strokes/reach/DPS
• 100 free MAX (I went 1:10 from a push)
• WD:
• 200 easy
• 4 x 75 free @ 1:15, RB 6/5/4 by 25
• Total Distance: 4025 SCY (4150 SCY as written)

Hit Rate: 29/30 (96.6%)

Notes/thoughts:

• This week has been nice because I've been feeling better just in general. I don't know if I've talked about this yet, but I go through cycles of being really overworked/exhausted and then adapting/adjusting. Right now I'm on one of those upswings where my body has sort of figured out how to recover on this kind of schedule so I'm just generally feeling good and energy levels are bouncing back and it's really nice. At some point we'll up the intensity of some of the workouts (e.g. runs will get longer as I figure out what my knee can handle, trainer rides are going to get longer and probably harder, etc.) and I'll get bounced back down to being tired a lot, but for now I'm enjoying just feeling good for the most part. (There are still times like this morning when I was really exhausted and just sort of wanted to stay in bed forever after breakfast, but I've bounced back pretty well since then and that bouncing back is really the big difference between the good weeks and the not so good weeks.)
• The fun thing about working hard once you've gotten into a bit better shape it that it feels completely different. It's just got a whole different texture to it. It feels like instead of trying really hard to not fall behind, you're working to get ahead, and those two things are so completely different even if you're doing the exact same work. I think that's one of those things that's really helped me with workouts this week. I've honestly not felt very motivated going into any workout, but once I've gotten going I feel like I've been really good at just digging in and loving the process because it feels like I'm taking steps forward. It's been good. (:
• The swim today was particularly reassuring. I feel like my swimming has been on the up and up in general. Possibly because of more consistency, possibly because of strength work, possibly because I'm still making adjustments to my stroke (or really just trying to bring it back to what it used to be) and things are coming together. I really like sprint workouts that are details focused, Thursdays are fun for me even though sometimes I wonder what the point really is when my race distances are like a mile. 
• Today was particularly awesome because we kept up with the fast lane and about halfway through the workout I realized that I have sort of an inferiority complex about that lane that was holding me back and did something to fix that. Even when we're on the same send offs, when I get dropped by the person who leaves the wall at the same time as me, I just let it go instead of fighting it. Today I got a little bit of confidence from a fluke 25 that I swam really fast because right before my push off, our coach was behind the block in my lane yelling coach things about swimming fast and my 12-year-old age grouper reflexes kicked in and I did as I was told. I hit that turn at the same time as the swimmer in the fast lane next to me (instead of 3/4 to a full body length behind him) and it just clicked that there was nothing stopping me but me. So when we did our max 100 and the swimmer in the fast lane started to pull ahead, I was complacent for about a stroke or two before I decided that I was going to race her and I was going to win. I don't think I won, we touched at almost the same time, but I was really proud of myself for going after it because that's something I wouldn't have done even a week ago. A 1:10 from a push isn't horrible, I'll take it given where I'm at right now. I would have probably liked to be under that, I don't really know by how much, but for now I'll be satisfied with that. 

Today is sort of busy but whatever, that's life, I'm getting to do everything I want to do with my life so I can't really complain. Double day tomorrow, another swim in the morning, a short 3 miler outside in the PM to continue with this knee trial thing. But seriously though. Go listen to Sia.

Much love,

Jess

"The tension is here..."

[Day 26]

"The tension is here between who you are and who you could be."

Google that if you don't know where it comes from, but I figure a lot of you will know what song that's from. Shuffle gifted me with this on the walk to school this morning. It was a nice morning pump up song. Thank you shuffle. (:

Today's Workout: Gym sesh! Upper body stuff.
Summary:

• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45#, 3 x 10 @ 75#, 15 @ 55 (bonus round! lol)
• The bonus round burned my shoulders sooooooo hard
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12 alternating wide/narrow @ 6 plates (need to go up in this next time...)
• Shoulder press: 3 drop sets with 25#/15#, rep counts of 8-8, 8-8, 5-8/5/2 (going for 15 lol)
• Effort on the last round of this wasn't where I wanted to be...Gotta stay in it more.
• Single arm DB row: 3 x 12 @ 40# 
• Opted for DBs instead of BB today because my back's not feeling super hot today.
• Wasn't getting full range of motion on a few reps on the left side, just something to think about more.
• Incline bench: 3 x 12 @ 55#
• Half of me wants to be like, this is literally no weight I don't know why this has been giving me so much trouble, but it had. I think this is the first time I've hit all 3 sets this year.
• Cable pulldowns: 3 x 15 @ 5 plates (up the weight next week)
• Superset: 3 x
• Bicep curls: 12 @ 15#/side
• Skull crushers: 12 @ 10#/side
• What is accessory/isolation work. Minimal rest between sets. Weight needs to be going up next time (lol if that ever happens again).
• Superset: 3 x 
• 12 lateral raises @ 10#/side
• 12 front raises w/ 25# plate

Hit Rate: 26/27 (96.2%)

I woke up with like a negative amount of motivation this morning, but I did get myself to the gym and do some number of the things, so I'll take it. Need to go heavier in a lot of things, need to not just quit on the terrible volume sets, pretty typical day outside of that. 

Body updates: My knee hurt when I woke up this morning so I axed the rowing I had planned for after the lift, hoping that just babying it today will help it feel better so I can try and run on it tomorrow. It's sort of discouraging that that's going on though. This is my problem with high effort trainer rides: Sometimes your form falls apart and it definitely shows in your body the next day (my knee, my back). My wrists were giving me the business yesterday and in the past week in general. They've just felt real loose and achy, so I was worried about how the lifting would treat them, but for the most part they felt fine during the workout and have continued to feel fine as the day goes on, so hopefully that's not an issue. If the joint issue thing continues to be a problem in the next few weeks I might seriously consider finding a joint supplement somewhere. I have terrible joints. They need all the help they can get.

That's all for today! Test run in the morning tomorrow (top out at 20 minutes easy on the treadmill) and a trainer ride in the PM on the books for tomorrow. Have a lovely Tuesday!

Much love,

Jess

Mixing it up with friends! (And the weekly recap!)

[Day 23]

I didn't go swimming in the morning. I woke up around 5 am and realized I didn't get nearly enough work done yesterday to be able to spend my extra time in the pool, so I used the time to get some work done instead (and was actually fairly productive, so it was time well spent). Just stuck to the original plan of hitting the gym w/ Fay and doing a leg day. I tried things out her way today, which was a lot more volume than I'm used to (even though she typically goes even more volume heavy than this - I now totally understand why Henry gets disgruntled about volume when he's working out with me). I had a ton of fun though, even though that first giant set was killer tough. It was nice just to like go to the gym and mix it up and do something new for a change. Everyone can use a change of pace every once in a while. (Isolation work? What even is isolation work?) We also met a dude at the gym who talked to me about music briefly and let me put on a playlist based around the latest Bring Me The Horizon album off of some cool app he had on his phone and I got to rock out while working out which was pretty awesome. (Also meeting new people was pretty cool. All in all, was a pretty cool morning.)

Today's Workout: AM Gym Sesh w/ Fay! (Yay workout buddies!)
Summary:

• Giant set: 3 x 
• 15 back squats @ 75#
• 15/side split squats @ 30# (DB)
• 15/side reverse lunges @ 30# (DB)
• Leg extensions: 3 x 12/12 drop sets of 90/50#
• Seated hamstring curls: 3 x 15 @ 70#
• Leg press: 3 x 15 @ 130/150/150#
• Not super strict about rests/pauses/etc.

Hit Rate: 23/24 (95.8%)

I have no important notes or thoughts lol. I think I was having too much fun maybe. xD I just kept wanting to like jump up and grab pull up bars and just hang off of things and do handstands. It was silly. It wasn't like my legs weren't hurting or I wasn't actually working or whatever, I just had a lot of energy and was having a really good time. (Maybe it was because it was a 9 am workout so I got to eat breakfast a couple hours before and energy stores were looking good? Hmmmmm...I wonder. But also maybe because friends make everything happier? Hmmmmmmmm...more wondering.) Things feel good now, legs are a bit tired but definitely doing okay. Will try to maybe do some core work tonight and will definitely be stretching. 

The week in review!

• 1 run, 2 lifts, 2 dryland sessions (circuit + rowing, just rowing), 2 trainer rides, and 1 swim for a total of ~9:15 (8 sessions total)
• It's been a weird week. I guess that's what happens when you get injured. I sort of thought I would end up upping the swims and bikes more to compensate for running less but I guess I just went the "go to the gym more" route. Which is fun, and this wasn't yet a serious week, so I have no qualms about it being just fun.
• Next week gets more serious though, that's sort of what I consider my first week into a real block of training. The block will be focused on quality riding and swimming but the first week will really just be an ease into it kind of week. I'm going to take tomorrow (Sunday) off and the Saturday at the end of the week off to get back on my Saturdays off schedule, so it'll only be a five day training week (yaaaaas) but I'm still going to try and get 8 workouts in so we'll see how that goes. The breakdown as of right now is 3 swims (praying for not super freezing weather so I can bike out to practices), 2 trainer rides, 1 gym sesh, and hopefully 2 short runs to get back to running (first one on Wednesday, fingers crossed that the IT band holds out!). I think the overall breakdown of number of workouts will be comparable in the next few weeks as they had been in the past two weeks, I'll just shift my focus a little bit to cater more to the "important" days (and of course many of those workouts will be seeing increases in length...yay...).

In completely unrelated news, I bought myself two massive tubs of ice cream after the health screening today, so I should have enough ice cream to last me the remainder of my lifetime. Awwwwwww yeah.

More med school learnings time now!

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

"Carry on"

[Day 12A]

At some point during today's swim, I was thinking about "Carry On" by Fun. and how that was really the soundtrack to my morning. Last night was sort of rough for me. I just wasn't as productive as I wanted to be and I was sort of getting in my own way because I was frustrated and tired and the emotionality really killed all my chances at being meaningfully productive. Eventually I did settle down and get some stuff done, but it felt like too little too late. It was disappointing. I was disappointed with myself.

Anyways, sometimes those feelings carry over into the morning, sometimes they don't. Today was one of those days when they did. I had such good momentum this entire past week and it was sort of disappointing to wake up and really feel like I lost that. So while I was in the pool, I was thinking about this song and how there are sort of two ways that people deal with these days. To me it's either the mellow Fun. version of carrying on or the more aggressive Kansas version ("Carry On My Wayward Son") and I'm sure people go back and forth between them, but today I was the Fun. version. That's all I wanted to say. Even very early in the morning, apparently the only thing my brain can do is think in terms of songs.

Here's the workout!

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

• WU: 300 free, 4 x 50 free (I got in a bit late b/c the ride took long today b/c of the wind, missed the 200 swim and 100 swim sandwiched in the middle of warm up)
• Main Set:
• 4 x 100 free @ 1:30 descend 1-4
• 4 x 150 free @ 2:15 descend 1-4
• 8 x 75 kick
• As written was 50 choice/25 fly on back w/ fins, I don't know what the pace time was
• I did 4 choice w/ fins and then 50 choice/25 fly on back w/o fins on third person rest because my lane is strange (I led the kick today)
• 4 x 25 kick (no fins) FAST @ :30
• 4 x 200 @ 3:20 (I have no idea where this pace time came from)
• 1 - broken every 50 for less than 5 SR
• 2 - broken at the 100 for less than 10 SR
• 3 - broken at the 150 for less than 10 SR
• 4 - straight through fast
• 100 back easy
• 4 x 75 @ 1:15
• 1 - ALL FAST
• 2 - last 25 fast
• 3 - middle 25 fast
• 4 - first 25 fast
• WD: 200 easy
• Total Distance: 3600 SCY

Hit Rate: 11/11 (100%)

Notes/thoughts:

• So today's practice was an interesting adventure in our lane really not caring about assigned pace times? Or being weird and arbitrary with them? I don't really know. I just feel like we used the assigned pace time only like twice today...it was weird.
• It was less cold today than it was over the weekend, but it was really really windy, which was sort of obnoxious. That combined with a few minutes of dawdling before I left my place this morning put me in about 5 minutes late, which I feel awful about. Late is just something that I don't do, especially for practice, so -sigh-. Gotta be better about that. 
• I generally felt really slow and unmotivated today. I don't really know if I was ever even like...breathing hard today. I don't know. I knew it wasn't gonna be an aggressive push the pace day so I just tried to focus on technique. Still working out what the deal is with my freestyle recovery. It's changed a lot in the past few years and I'm still figuring out what the best version of it is. Also trying to work on that body position, which is not where it used to be and definitely needs some work.
• I was happy though, towards the end I realized this and it was nice. Even when I'm not doing great, I love being in the pool. It makes me happy. It's worth it.
• I was lucky enough to have a teammate volunteer to drive me home today. She even had a bike rack so things worked out perfectly. I might hit her up more often for rides. Biking out to practice probably wouldn't be bad with warmer weather, but it's cold right now and I definitely wouldn't say no to a car ride. I'll have to remember to get her a gift or something for helping me out. She also coaches Saturday practices and it sounds like they do some cool things at those. I might think about going on Saturdays to check it out. We'll see. She also says she's going Friday this week. I had been planning to swim on Thursday, but she can't make Thursdays so I might consider adjusting my schedule so I can swim Friday and get a ride to practice. Again, we'll see. 
• Quick update on the body: Definitely nowhere near as sore as I was last Tuesday. Tight mostly in the upper body (around my shoulders, through my back), but my legs feel good (which means upping the volume next week?), my wrists/elbows don't feel loose and weird like they did last week (lol have I even mentioned that yet? I kept feeling like they were going to pop out of their joints whenever I picked anything up), and my back is a bit sore/tight but in no amount of actual pain so I know I didn't hurt myself. All in all good progress, means I'll try and hit it a bit harder next week and see where all of that goes. 

It's gonna be a long day. I'll be back with an evening post because I've got a trainer ride planned for the evening. I'll probably do it right before dinner, after my respiratory physiology simulation lab ends at 5 pm. Yay...or something like that...

Much love,

Jess

"Your fight to overcome defeat has set the skies alight for me"

[Day 11]

Go look up the song, it's awesome, came on at a pretty pivotal moment in my very boring treadmill run today and pretty much saved it. When I took yoga lessons back at Gratitude in Princeton, one of the things my favourite instructor would have us do was dedicate our practice to someone at the beginning of each class. That was my favourite part, giving the practice up as an offering to someone important to me. Henry (who probably makes up my blog's entire audience) has been through a lot this past year to try and help me live my dreams and I won't get into the details of it but that line and this person are a huge inspiration to me. I can overcome some boredom and tired lungs for that.

Today's Workout: AM lift + easy steady state treadmill run
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 65 lbs, 3 x 8 @ 95 lbs
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45 lbs, went for 3 x 10 @ 75 lbs but set 3 ended up being a 4/3 split to failure so I dropped down and just did another 10 @ 65 lbs. (Yes, I dropped the bar on myself twice. In one set. I'm impressed too.)
• Deadlifts: 3 x 8 @ 115 lbs
• Pulldowns: alternating wide/narrow grip @ 6 plates, 4 x 12/12/12/8-4
• Giant set: 3 x
• Box jumps: 12
• Push presses: 12 @ 45 lbs
• Bent over BB rows: 12 @ 45 lbs
• Treadmill run: 
• Treadmill numbers: 2.71 mi, 26:39
• Garmin numbers: 2.64 mi, 25:08, 9:30 pace
• Superset: 4 x 
• Resistance band fly pulls: 25
• Band squats: 20 (bodyweight)

Hit Rate: 10/10 (100%) <- okay this is blowing my mind, I'm usually down a workout and clawing my way back by like day 4, how are we off to such a good start this cycle?

Notes/thoughts:

• Squatting: Um was planning on going 3 x 12 @ 85 lbs with a double drop at the end (which is my usual set but on more weight) and then changed my mind and went for less volume because I woke up with my back a little wonky (probs from just poor riding position on some of the harder efforts last night, really gotta work on that) and I wanted to save my back because I wanted to up the deadlift weight today so...that was a thing. A 3 x 8 is normally pretty comfortable, I'm still learning to keep my back safe on those last reps, but nothing felt too off which was nice. My legs also just feel way better today in general in comparison to last week, so that was nice.
• Apparently I can't go an entire gym day without dropping something on myself? Today was weird though because honestly both times it felt so out of nowhere. And once that bar is sitting on my chest it's staying there. I know some people can take a moment and pick it back up, I can't. And 75 lbs is just at the point where I really don't enjoy rolling the bar off of me, so uh, that sort of sucked.
• Deadlifting: 115 lbs was the weight I hurt myself at, except I was doing 12 reps and like really not thinking about putting the bar down in a reasonable manner, which was really my problem. I can usually lift safe, but I drop into that natural curve in my back if I don't focus on it on the way down and that's not good. So opting for fewer reps, working on being gentle with the bar on the way down, probably gonna hold it at this weight until 3 x 10 is comfortable and then try to go up to the big plates and play around with set and rep counts. Honestly don't know that I'll make enough progress in the next three months for that to be a real thing, but we'll see. A girl can dream right?
• Bent over BB rows: went conservative with the weight today because of that whole back thing (first time I've done this in a while without it causing me any pain). I should really like use more weight on these? But at the same time they don't have marked barbells at my gym and I don't know how much weight the little ones are (I lifted with the Olympic bars today) so I don't really know how to set them up and I feel bad occupying two Olympic bars (not that there are enough people at the gym at the hour that I go for it to matter, but still) so idk. We'll see...
• There were a lot of people on the treadmills when I went over for my short run so I had to use one of the small ones today. It's actually a pretty comfortable treadmill, I didn't mind it so much for an easy run, although the display is low which would be annoying for interval work. The run was boring but fine. Interestingly enough, my Garmin numbers line up much better with this treadmill than with the big one. The pace felt harder than what I'm used to for the 6.0-6.5 mph range as well which makes me wonder if the two types of treadmills are calibrated differently. Unclear. All it makes me think though is I have to be consistent about using one or the other for pace based workouts otherwise things could get real wonky. 
• Biggest factor in the run not sucking today though was the fact that my legs weren't blown. By this point in the day last Monday I was really hurting and I felt pretty good today, which made a pretty huge difference.
• Benedict (a high school teammate of mine) would be proud of me and my resistance band life. I was doing them today and reminiscing about him trying to talk me into doing resistance band work with him because my fly sucked and I honestly just needed to be stronger and me vehemently resisting every time. I may not be doing sets of 100 the way we did in club swim dryland in college, but at least I'm doing them now?

I feel so good! I mean the arms are starting to settle in, I am starting to feel that, but honestly I was wrecked after last Monday and I feel pretty good today so that bodes well. Fingers crossed that the feeling good continues into tomorrow, because that'll set me up for a pretty kick ass week. (I'm also skiing over the upcoming long weekend, so keeping my legs in a good place is going to be super key for that.) The plan tomorrow is a swim in the morning and a trainer ride in the evening. It's a little unfortunate that I'm front-loading the riding this week and back-loading the running but you gotta do what you gotta do to make the schedule work right? Hopefully the temperature comes up by tomorrow morning because riding out to and back from the pool in -8 C won't be very nice (especially once my hair is wet)...Alright time for some immunology! (And a haircut? I need to go get a haircut...)

Much love,

Jess