Can't stop won't stop

[Day 132]

There's a lot I feel like I have on my mind but not so much that I want to write down. Let's talk numbers, then feelings.

Today's Workout: PM run, intervals

• 15-20 mins easy WU
• 4 x 1/2 mi @ 10k pace (7:35-7:50) w/ 3 mins rest (jogged the first three, walked the last)
• 4 x 1/4 mi @ 5k pace (7:05-7:20) w/ 1:30 rest (walked these)
• 15-20 mins easy WD

Summary: 7.56 mi, 1:16:28, 10:07 average pace
Interval splits:

• 1/2 milers: 3:53.1 (7:46), 3:51.4 (7:43), 3:40.7 (7:41). 3:51.7 (7:44)
• 1/4 milers: 1:47.6 (7:10), 1:48.3 (7:13), 1:49.0 (7:16), 1:49.7 (7:19)

Hit rate: 6/6 (100%)

Notes/thoughts:

• My stomach was really bothering me today. About 10 minutes into my warmup, I had some pain and nausea started up and I just thought to myself, Jess you've gone to swim practice on so much worse and cranked it out, there's no reason you can't do this. So I did it. With some amount of compromise. I let myself walk half the rest intervals because I felt like I had to to keep the contents of my stomach in my tummy. I felt pretty horrible, would have much rather gotten to just concentrate on the running instead of concentrating on fighting the feeling in my stomach, but you know what, it's been a while I think since I've been really mentally challenged and I always welcome that. I think you need to be mentally challenged regularly to remind yourself that you can dig deep and overcome that so I'm glad I was forced to be tougher today than I am on any other regular day. 
• I was really surprised by how easy the 5k paced 400s came. 1/4 mile is an incredibly short distance apparently. Honestly the first four 1/2 milers didn't feel great compared to last week, but I got through them fine, and I was just worried about not having any kind of speed in my legs but I shot through that first 1/4 miler and I knew I was gonna be fine. I would like to not be walking recoveries in the future but it let me do the important work on pace and kept me from having to throw in the towel early so I'll take it for today. 
• There's something qualitatively different about running at 10k pace versus 5k. It's really interesting to be finding run speed gears because I'm starting to learn the difference with my body in terms of how to maximize efficiency at each pace. The swimmer part of my brain turns on and that's just what it does. It's really amazing to have been doing sports my whole life and still get to learn new things about my own movement and feel those patterns form and shape and adjust as I get better. That's one of my favourite things about exercise and it's really awesome that intervals really bring that out for me when it comes to running.
• I've genuinely just missed working hard and getting my ass kicked by workouts. I feel like I had a lot of intensity the past few months on the bike trainer because that's something I've been really focusing on and trying to improve on, but I haven't been very intense in the pool and I have never been very intense about running. It's just really satisfying to lay everything you have out on the line during a set and then spend the 15-20 minutes of warm down willing myself to not drop dead on the side of the road or in the park somewhere because I'm almost too tired to even want to go home. That's fun, I get a kick out of that. 
• I want to be really proud of what went on today. I don't feel it as powerfully as I know I should. These paces are cake to so many people but this is insanely fast for me and is a level of running that I didn't think I was capable of doing. So I want to be insanely proud and insanely happy with myself. Instead I feel sort of meh because I walked some of the recoveries and I feel like I should've jogged them but I didn't. I don't want that to drag me down but it does. I'm a little too ambitious for my own good sometimes. I'm bad at just being happy when I do a good job. It wasn't a perfect job, but it was a good job and I should be proud. I am trying to just repeat that to myself over and over again and perhaps it will eventually cement in my head as reality. Who knows.

Easy run on the schedule for tomorrow, 5 miles on the schedule, I'll play the turn around point by feel because I feel pretty wrecked from today and I do want to actually recover tomorrow so I can hit another insane tempo run on Friday. In other news, have a running agreement with Henry that I'm going to try and do 10 minutes of core work and 10 minutes of stretching every night, so I'm gonna finish the work I have to do tonight and then go do that. Working hard, staying hungry. Happy Hump Day! (:

Much love,

Jess

Oops, I did it again...

[Day 45]

I missed another blog day (yesterday). Whoops. But honestly I have to prioritize my other half when he is here and I have some moments to spare in the evening to watch Grey's (and get emotionally destroyed) and terrible rom coms with him. Yesterday's workout was rough. I feel like strength was coming back to my legs but they were hurting and things were tough. It was nice to have the marathon Olympic trials on at the same time though, just a nice reminder that you have to be working hard to achieve your goals. Also Amy Cragg and Shalene Flanagan were an adorable inspiration towards the end of that race, it was really fantastic to watch and I'm really happy for both of them that they'll be going to Rio. Here's the rundown:

Yesterday's Workout: Trainer ride, 120 mins
Summary:

• WU: 10 mins easy 
• Pre-set: 5 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• Main set: 3 rounds of 
• 2 x 5/1 split as 2 @ base (95 rpm), 1 @ base + 10 rpm, 2 @ base, 1 recovery 
• 2 x 5/1 split as 2 @ climb (base +4 gearing), 1 @ climb + 1 gear (hold cadence), 2 @ climb, 1 recovery 
• 3 mins easy 
• Sprints: 2 x (6 x :45/:45 MAX sprints at base +1 over 100 rpm, 2 mins recovery) 
• WD: ~10 mins easy til you reach 2 hours 
• Totals: 27.57 mi, 2:00:47, 13.7 mph

Hit Rate: 48/51 (94.1%)

Notes/thoughts:

• I would not have gotten through this if it weren't for Henry. I would've either quit or down adjusted all the efforts. I think I would have been satisfied to aim for 90/100 rpm instead of 95/105 rpm, but Henry was really great about holding me accountable and even though I didn't hit every round consistently at that tempo, I was always still shooting for it because the expectation was clear and he wasn't about to let me take it easy on myself. Also the day was particularly tough because unlike the trainer rides that are rough on my cardiovascular system, yesterday was really rough on my legs. They just burned the whole time and I have a hard time just settling down into that kind of pain and doing what needs to be done anyways so to have someone telling me to stay in the effort and push and push and push really helped me keep my focus when I really wanted to do was stop. 
• One of the things I've noticed is that I tend to actually find the second 2 minutes at base after the hard effort a little bit easier than the first 2. That's only really true when I'm fatigued from a training week I find. Earlier in the week, getting up to speed isn't a problem for me and maintaining is hard, but I think something about my energy systems tends to shift by the latter parts of the week and I find it hard to ramp up but easier to hold on towards the end. Just an interesting thought/observation.
• Um all in all it was a slow average pace kind of day, which probably speaks to the efforts not being perfect. I wasn't hitting 95/105 rpms and 60/60 consistently and I was definitely falling below 100 rpm (sometimes way below 100 rpm) during the sprints (I was doing my best, my best was just not great yesterday).

Weekly recap!

• 2 runs, 2 swims, 3 trainer rides, 1 lift for a total of ~11 hours (8 sessions) this week. Big week in terms of the hours to sessions ratio, but that's just because the run mileage is coming back up.
• I only doubled twice this week, so honestly I didn't end the week feeling as terrible as I sometimes otherwise do. I was more sore from the lift this week than I had been getting from the gym in the past few weeks, so that was a surprise, but it didn't seem to put too many holds on the run and ride that followed. 
• I'm definitely feeling the accumulated fatigue, and it's just starting to cut in on the quality of some (not all) of my workouts. The biggest effect that I'm noticing though is that it's been taking me longer and longer in terms of warm up time to really loosen up. Like I tend not to feel good until about 30-40 minutes into any workout, which is halfway through on some days.

So officially speaking, the end of Block I is ending soon. With the adjustments that have been made, the last Block I workout will be a lift tomorrow morning. I was originally planning about a 4 day rebound period between Block I and II, but given how things have been going, I sort of re-arranged the plan and added about a two week "Transitional Block". The goal of this block will be to maintain intensity somewhat comparable to Block I in workouts while adding distance to the running and instead of taking a solid chunk for recovery, I'll take a few extra days off (3 days off and 1 recovery run are scheduled in) so the hope is that I will feel still feel rested at the end of this block. That shortens Block II to three weeks, but I'm chill with that, since the point of Block II will be to get more into tri specific work anyways (riding outside at more race simulating efforts, getting back into bricks and transition runs, etc.) and I need my run base back in a good place in order to do that. 

Today I'm swimming at a dual meet slash time trial with the swim club. The lineup is 200 free, 100 back, 100 IM and 50 back. I'm expecting to be pretty mediocre because I haven't been training for this and I'm coming off an 11 hour training week, but it'll be fun just to get in the pool and swim hard and race. Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Much love,

Jess

Finding the fire

[Day 25A]

I did not expect distance free day to be my breakthrough day. But it totally was. What is this madness. I've felt really restrained about my swimming recently. I want to say it was limited to the past month, but in reality I think it stretches all the way back to like September-ish of last year. I mean sure, I'm slower, which factors into it, but I think more than that what's been frustrating for me is that my heart hasn't really been in it. I've been doing this long enough that I know I'm at my best when I get in the pool and feel like swimming fast and pushing hard makes me come alive. But recently I've just done a lot of bare bones get through the distance kind of swimming and it's just felt like going through the motions inside of really diving deep and getting into it.

For some reason today was different. It was weird because I woke up pretty minimally motivated to go to practice. Distance days in short course sort of suck, that's just how it goes, and it was early and I was tired and the list of complaints I had really just goes on and on and on and on. I was pretty mellow during warm up and the pre-set, but pretty much as soon as we hit the push off for the first 500 of the main set, it was like a switch flipped and I just sort of attacked it.

I feel like a couple things went into that. The other lane was going on a set of initial intervals that I knew I would've been able to make a year ago (7:30 for the 500, 1:25 for the 100s) and I figured their intervals would get faster as the set went on (I was right, although I don't know the details) and those 100s would have been rough for me if I went for it on that pace, but I guess I was just sort of upset that I knew that I wasn't there right now. I knew I wouldn't have been able to hit those numbers if I was in that other lane and it pissed me off a little bit. I also started like 10 seconds back from when I was supposed to go because we were figuring out lane order, so I had to chase our lead swimmer down, which probably also helped. But the net result was that I went a faster pace than I expected myself to swim (I mean all told it was still pretty slow, I would've wanted/expected to be under 7:00 for the 500s and not once was I under 7:00 today) and it made me feel like I had found myself again. And I was so excited to just do what I do best and I was a little bit cranky about the slightly slow pace times but I tried to see it as an opportunity to just swim faster and beat the pace times by a lot. (Pace time pressure normally helps me, I normally need hard to make pace times to motivate me. Today though, I really really tried to see the pace times as just an indicator of when I had to leave for the next one and not a measure of how fast I was supposed to be going so I tried to clear them by more than the usual 5 or 10 seconds.)

Anyways, in the end I just had a great time pushing the pace, which is how I've always felt about swimming but had sort of lost recently. It was just such a relief to love the feeling of moving through the water a little bit faster than my body really wanted to instead of feeling like it was something I was supposed to be doing that I didn't want to be doing because it hurt. I had such a great time. I feel like today I found the part of me that fell in love with this sport as a kid and never looked back. It all just makes me so happy. I don't know how you can beat that sort of thing in terms of a way to start the day. In any case, here it is:

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

• WU: 500 swim
• Pre-set: 2 x
• 100 kick
• 4 x 50 free @ :50
• 100 IM
• 4 x 25 free @ :25
• Main Set:
• 500 free @ 8:00 (~7:10)
• 5 x 100 free @ 1:35
• 500 free @ 7:30 (~7:10-7:15)
• 10 x 50 free
• 1-3 @ :55
• 4-5 @ :45
• 6-8 @ :55
• 9-10 @ :45
• 500 free AFAP (~7:02)
• WD: 100 easy
• Total distance: 4100 SCY

Hit Rate: 24/25 (96%)

The real question now is, is the magic going to stay? And the answer is probably not. There are always better days and worse days. But I think this is the kind of day that's good to look back on when there are worse days because you always have to get through a number of those to get to a great one like today. I'm excited. I want to feel like this every time I hit the water ever again for the rest of my life. I can't expect or guarantee that, but I'm gonna stick with it and hopefully the universe will bless me with some more in the upcoming days/weeks/months.

Trainer ride in the books for after class today, short 60 minute spin with what will hopefully be some good high intensity work. It's gonna be a late day, thus the short ride, but I'm doing my best to get what needs to be done done within the constraints of my schedule. Okay time to go to more class!

Much love,
Jess