And there goes the dropped ball, but it's okay

[Day 139]

I go to med school. Sometimes I think I can suck it up and be exhausted and get on fine doing what I do but that's just not true. Opted to nap in the pm today because I was entirely non-functional. Chose to focus the rest of my time on school work rather than on squeezing in a workout. It was the right call. It's nice to not be training super seriously for something and have the ability to just axe workouts when I have to prioritize other stuff. I spent a lot of the past few months feeling torn between all of these different things that I wanted to accomplish. It's nice to have a single clear priority that I can put above other things and not constantly feel so conflicted about. Gonna try and run in the AM tomorrow if I can. No promises lol.

I'm tempted to drop the hit rate count because I know it's not gonna look good, but I'm also really curious about what the hit rate will turn out to be if I continue tracking it and choose to just live my life instead of constantly trying to work my life around training. I think it'll be an informative number honestly so I'm going to keep tracking it, even though I think there's a chance it might make me feel a little bad. The knowledge is worth that risk. Besides, I finished that last training block on a stellar 91.6% while still managing to do med school, so I'm allowed to drop the ball however much I want now. xD

Hit Rate: 11/13 (84.6%)

Send me good vibes for a good studying day tomorrow, I'm really needing it for the upcoming exam week. (:

Much love,
Jess

PS - Still going strong on that daily core/stretching! So proud! (:

School comes first

[Day 54A]

Trying to convince myself to write blog posts on busy rest days is one of those things that works literally zero percent of the time. Third missed day now I guess? I'm not great at this resolution thing evidently...but you know what, I sort of see it like how I see training. It's not about being perfect, it's about being as consistent as possible.

That being said, I'm not at practice right now. I'm at home, doing some final review for genetics before I tackle a take home quiz this morning. I didn't have enough time to finish it yesterday (full morning of lectures and full afternoon of clinic hours mean that all my studying was relegated to the morning and the evening and it just wasn't enough time) so I'm here trying to get it done now (it's due at noon). School is the priority.

I've also been thinking a bit about next year and am realizing that I want to focus on being the best med student that I can be during second year, so I'm probably going to step down training intensity dramatically in the fall after my fall races and really just focus on doing well in my classes and doing well on Step 1. That's a ways off, but I think it'll take me some time to get used to the idea of letting one thing go to focus on the other, so I'm glad I'm making my own expectations for myself clear ahead of time.

The rest day was good, I haven't been sleeping well recently which is a bummer (though strictly speaking I have been hitting enough hours), but other than that things are going well. Afternoon run today if the rest of the day goes according to plan.

Hit Rate: 57/62 (91.9%)

Hit rate feels like it's getting precarious. Am gonna have to make a really serious effort to not be skipping more workouts from here on out. Might be tough though with exams coming up in a few weeks. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck!

Much love,
Jess

First brick of the season!

Okay it was more of a long transition run than a full brick, but you know, I ran off the bike so it counts.

Today's Workout: Race distance-ish bike + 20-30 min transition run
Summary:

• Bike: Midland-Ashby route, 23.50 mi, 1:32:07, 15.3 mph, 879 ft gain.
• Bike speed splits: 13.4, 15.1, 16.2, 16.1, 16.6
• Transition: 2:09.6, hilariously I fell off my bike trying to dismount while clicking my watch buttons, will have to not do that next time.
• Run: 14 minute turn around, 2.87 mi, 26:47, 9:20 pace.
• Run pace splits: 8:48, 9:27, 9:50.

Hit rate: 25/27 (92.6%)

I want it noted that the bike cadence was much better than yesterday, and most of the average speed being higher was a result of me bombing down the hills every opportunity I got. I tried to focus on being smooth on the uphills, to varying degrees of success (I even spent a little bit of time climbing out of the saddle!). The run cadence was also surprisingly good given that I was coming off the bike. Too excited off the start though and was really feeling the pace taper out as time went on. I'll have to work on extending the length of these transition runs and that might become problematic as the runs get longer. I knew it was going to be short though so I just went fast and tried to hold on. It's good practice I guess. 

I had a blast training today. The roads were clear, there were a ton of other friendly cyclists on the roads, I hung onto the end of a group of old guys on the way in from Clayton who were real funny and shot past me once I got on the bike path in Forest Park and that was really motivating and fun. The transition into the run really breaks up the monotony of a long workout and I really enjoyed that little challenge. All in all it was just getting to do things that are a lot of fun and I had a blast.

Two key nutrition things today: I got up way early and made/ate breakfast about 1-2 hours before I headed out which I think was really important to how sustained I felt energy level wise. Also had a full bottle of water with Nuun that I drank while out on the bike, so that also kept me going once I was off the bike. I'm running out of Nuun though so I'll have to load up on that soon.

The plan is going to be a little more flexible these next two weeks because of a sort of unclear orientation schedule at school. I'm for sure going to be taking morning swims Monday and Tuesday and will hopefully be able to fit in an evening long run tomorrow and a bike trainer session on Tuesday. I may or may not decide to drop the evening sessions depending on how busy I am and how my body is feeling though. I've been putting in good work, I'm willing to be flexible about it. We'll see what happens. Wish me luck with the first day of orientation tomorrow!

Much love,

Jess