Rest day report!

[Day 9]

Today was a pretty uneventful off day. I got some good sleep last night, some good work done in the morning (including my planning for next week), some volunteer work in the afternoon, and watched slash am watching some football (during which I stretched and foam rolled because Henry told me to!). And I ate a lot of food, because that's my entire life now. Oh I treated myself to a cupcake! I feel like I haven't really treated myself to much of anything since the year started so yay treats!

Off days are kind of weird, I'm not gonna lie. You know that feeling you get when you think you've forgotten something but you can't remember what? That's what my body feels like. Like it was supposed to do something maybe but it's not sure and it's just confused. I wasn't physically restless today (the way I get on my taper off days) so I know the rest is probably doing me lots of good, but it's still weird.

I'd like to get some more work done in the evening but I'm super drowsy already so maybe I'll just sleep more. As of yet unclear. There's also a party happening tonight that I want to go to (it's an underwater 90s themed party, I would get to wear my wetsuit, which is sort of kick ass) but I love sleeping so much...What to do what to do.

I will report back on my decisions tomorrow. In the meantime, other than feeling really sleepy right now (food coma?), my brain/body feel pretty good, which bodes well for tomorrow's run. It'll probably be just another easy lap of the park (yay base runs!) but I gotta go figure out what time that's happening. See you on day 10! (Omg double digits.)

Much love,
Jess

Sleepless nights, getting angry, conviction, redemption

I guess I left off on Wednesday, with a back injury and some amount of frustration. I ended up spending some amount of time just playing around on the trainer that evening once I had my new pedals on, just clipping in and clipping out. It was really hard at first because the springs were really tight but I started to get the hang of it.

The next day was flat out awful. I woke up around 1:30 in the morning and tossed and turned in bed for about an hour and a half before I decided it was futile to try to get back to sleep so I got up and dealt with some errands. I went to swim practice, which was my first sprint day practice with CSP, and on one hand really didn't work that hard and on the other hand really really enjoyed it. Sprinting is more my speed in the pool, and we also did a lot of kick work and work with fins, which I appreciated. It was a freezing cold day though, which was sort of rough in that every time my arms cleared the surface they froze and every time we stopped to get instructions my face froze. (It was like 55F...the pool was much warmer.) My lane also apparently had a hard time listening to instructions because we definitely messed some stuff up. But oh well, it was a solid swim anyways.

Thursday's AM Workout: CSP practice, sprint day
Summary:

• WU:
• 1000 SKIPS (IM drill)
• 2 x 50 free DPS @ :55 (was written as 4 x 50)
• Main Set:
• 2 x (6 x 50 free) @ :55
• 1: easy
• 2-3: build
• 4-6: hard
• It was supposed to just be 6, 1 easy, 2 build, 3 hard, repeat. But we misunderstood the directions.
• MAX kick w/ fins @ 1:00 base (we actually ended up doing a mix of :45-1:00 base intervals…)
• 150 @ 2:30
• 2 x 100 @ 1:45
• 3 x 50 @ 1:00
• 3 x 100 free pull FAST (no paddles) @ 1:50 (idk if we really made these), focus on fastest possible turnover (I went RB5 on these)
• 6 x 100 free swim w/ fins MAX @ 2:00 (these weren't really max, I had a hard time sprinting with fins on…it was weird)
• WD: 6 x 50 alt. back/free by 50 @ :55 (lol this was too aggressive, some were on 1:00)
• Total Distance: 3400 LCM

Hit rate: 47/50 (94%)

It was a rough day simply because it was sort of endless (and started obscenely early). I pretty much had no spare seconds in the day. Right after I got home from school, I hopped on the trainer and did a big gear strength ride. 

Thursday's PM Workout: Trainer ride, strength work (big gears)

Summary: 

• WU: 8 mins easy, 2 mins @ base of a hill
• Main Set: 
• 5 x 8 mins threshold effort 60 rpm big gear, 2 mins easy spinning recovery
• 5 x 40 secs MAX/20 secs easy, big gear sprint pick ups (stay at threshold gear or drop by 1)
• WD: 5 mins base of a hill, 5 mins easy
• Total Time: 75 mins
• Note: Was originally written as 8 x MAX/easy efforts but I was dying and also running low on time (busiest day ever!) The threshold efforts were actually really hard, just hurt the whole way, so I'm really amazed that I made them all at the specified intensity. Just gotta believe.
• Summary: 18.43 mi, 1:15:37, 14.6 mph.
• Splits: 14.1, 15.3, 15.2, 13.7

Hit rate: 48/51 (94.1%)

The entire set hurt but I got through it and was really proud of the effort. I pretty much immediately showered and went to an evening info session and training session for some stuff at school, so the busy day continued. I actually spent the entire day from lunch onwards just being angry. I got angry at the littlest things but I almost encouraged myself to be angry because the anger kept me awake and focused and hungry to tear shit up and get shit done. So despite the exhaustion and how hectic the day was, I managed to do everything I had to do. It was really emotionally and physically wearing, but it got done. I'm not sure this is how I want all of my days go (because this is probably not a healthy way to tackle life), but if I have to get through one of these days every once in a while in order to stay on track, I will take it. 

The next morning was real rough. I went to bed feeling real rough and woke up exhausted and unmotivated and pretty physically wrecked. I was going to do an interval workout for running but decided to just take a base run instead. It was funny because I kept planning on going easy but at the beginning and at the end there were other women in my vicinity and I always wanted to get in front of them and drop them so there were some pushes during the run. I guess you can't curb the competitiveness even when you're cranky and exhausted.

Friday's Workout: AM base run

Summary: 7.05 mi, 1:05:32, 9:18 pace.

Pace splits by mile: 9:38, 9:03, 9:07, 9:31, 9:11, 9:35, 9:04, 7:43.

Hit rate: 49/52 (94.2%)

The weather was nice and cool and it was overcast which made for a great day. I would have really loved to take better advantage of that kind of weather and actually cranked out some speed or something, but I'll take just getting through what I had to do.

Friday afternoon through Saturday evening were all spent at the Diversity Retreat. Not too much happened by way of things that could count as actually physical or active, but it also wasn't an inactive day, so I was satisfied with that much. My back was giving me a lot of trouble on Saturday though because of all the standing, which was pretty rough. I was planning on taking a short ride with some friends on Saturday night, just to practice clipping in and out and what not, but the rain spoiled our plans. I was sort of upset about taking an unplanned day off and really upset about being busy and having no time to do the things I wanted to do and that really threw me off. There was a bit of an emotional evening, a lot of being angry and frustrated and sad. But bad days are a part of everything right? Just gotta push through.

Saturday: Day off, missed a planned ride.

Hit rate: 49/53 (92.4%)

Despite how rough things have been recently though, I feel like I've found a whole new sense of conviction for what I'm doing. Not just in terms of training, but also in terms of school and life in general. I want to take good care of myself, I believe that's important, I really value that, so I want to put effort into things like planning and keeping my home clean and making sure I'm eating well. I am so invested in what I'm learning in school, in the future I'm working towards, and I don't need it to be easier, I'm willing to fight through this and be the best that I can be. The same goes for the training. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and everyone would be successful. For the first time in a long time I feel like I really understand why I'm here and I'm really honestly in love with everything I'm doing and I'm willing to throw myself whole-heartedly into these things even if they lead to difficult days that leave me tired and cranky. I have an honest belief that what I'm pushing through is valuable. It's nice to feel fulfilled by all of this work finally, instead of feeling like I had my hands tied all the time and just had to do things because I was expected to do things. 

This morning, I woke up and took the longest brick I've ever taken in my life. It actually felt much better than I was expecting it to. I think a key contributor to that was the fact that I took two Shot Bloks beforehand, had Gatorade Endurance in one of my water bottles, and took a Clif Shot about 1:15 into the ride. I've never taken a gel mid-workout before, but I swear this one saved me. I'm probably going to need to buy more fuel to use on these longer rides/runs. 

Today's Workout: Long ride brick

Summary:

• Bike summary: 29.43 mi, 1:50:17, 16.0 mph.
• Bike splits: 15.1, 16.2, 16.5, 15.8, 16.3, 16.2
• Transition: 2:24.3
• Run summary: 5.14 mi, 47:58, 9:20 pace.
• Run splits: 9:01, 9:40, 9:39, 9:16, 9:09, 8:46

Hit rate: 50/54 (92.5%)

I went the Clayton-N Geyer-W Adams-N Ballas route today, which was longer and had more elevation gain overall than the Midland-Ashby route. I also ran a little further than I usually do and I took my out and back on the slightly hillier side of the park to try and get my legs acclimated to hill work post-ride. All in all my body took it way better than I thought I would. The bike started off feeling pretty rough but I held on surprisingly well. I think the bike shoes definitely do help, especially on the climbs (which I am still steadily improving at!). I'm still worried about the big climbs during Club Nationals but I figure I can drop down into my smaller front ring and just grind slowly slowly if I have to. 

For next week's big Sunday brick, I'm either going to take a 24-mile or 30-mile ride and try to follow it up with a full lap of Forest Park. I don't care so much about time or speed, I just want to know I can get that full run in coming off the bike. One big long confidence booster before I have to pull things back and get ready to race. Gotta do the rest of my crazy life now, will hopefully be back with better frequency in this upcoming week than I've managed to do this past week.

Much love,

Jess

Start of Tri Specific Training!

I will consider the Thursday that just passed (7/30) as the first official day of triathlon specific training. As of today, I am six weeks out from USAT Club Nationals (where I will be racing the sprint distance) and and seven weeks out from the Cyman Triathlon (where I will be racing the Olympic distance and hopefully using that finish to qualify for Collegiate Club Nationals in the spring). The plan is a six week build split into two three week blocks with 2.5 weeks of going pretty hard and a couple days in a row of rest. I opted to set myself up like this because the typical 3-4 weeks hard and 1 week recovery doesn't work as well for me (I'm bad at both the longer period of continuous work and the longer period of recovery) and also because the 3 week splits just work better with the schedule. (I couldn't start real prep earlier than this do to travel/moving in/etc.) The activity split in my mind is pretty even and I'm more than willing to be flexible with the plan I have made for myself moving forward, just sort of depending on where I'm at and what else is going on in my life and how I'm feeling. A lot of variables go into optimizing training and I think what I've learned this summer is that flexibility, a willingness to listen to my body, and a respect for the other obligations in my life are going to be very important to me being successful in the upcoming weeks.

That having been said, I've missed some blogging, so this post will be long because I'm going to recap all of it here. Let's go!

Thursday's Workout: Bike trainer session
Summary:

• WU: 10 mins, mix of seated spins and jogs, just getting used to the trainer and getting blood to the legs
• Main Set: split as 95% steady state seated/105% +1 gear and max cadence/recovery spin in minutes
• 1/1/1
• 3/1/2
• 5/1/3
• 7/1/4
• 9/1/5
• Gears: B3/B4/recovery
• WD: 5 mins easy spin
• Total time: 60 minutes

Hit rate: 20/22 (90.9%)

My bike trainer showed up, so I figured I would put it to good use. Didn't have my speed/cadence sensor yet, so I really just played it by feel. I think I was definitely too slow on the cadence and could have maybe been better off working in lower gears at higher cadences, but that was hard to figure out without the sensors since I don't have an intuition for it yet. The sensors have come in since, so the next trainer session I do, I will be able to put these observations to the test.

The trainer session was a great reminder that riding can be a lot a lot a lot of pain. Sometimes I want to say swimming pain is comparable, but when the burning really fires up in your legs there's really nothing that actually compares. Trainer sessions are so mental in that realm. That's something I'm really going to have to settle down and focus on in order to become a stronger cyclist. 

On a more technical note, the upper body involvement in biking always surprises me. It's just like everything else, your upper body is so important to keeping everything stable and energy directed the right way that you can't just assume it's not involved because it's not the key force driver. Will have to focus on simple things like my body position and keeping my shoulders relaxed as the efforts get harder, etc. I also really have to work on smoothness with my pedal stroke. I know that's hard when I'm in toe-clips instead of real cycling shoes, but there's definitely still room for improvement even given that so I'm really going to make an effort to work on that pedaling efficiency. 

Friday AM Workout: CSP swim practice, IM day

Summary: 

• WU: 400 free
• Pre-set:
• 4 x 150 kick/drill/swim by 50 IMO
• 10 x 50 swim @ 1:10/1:15
• 4 free, 3 breast, 2 back, 1 fly
• Main Set: 4 x
• 200 IM @ 3:40
• 150 free @ 2:30
• 100 IM @ 2:00
• No time for real warm down lol...
• Total Distance: 3300 LCM, 75 mins

Hit rate: 21/23 (91.3%)

Lindsey coached yesterday (don't quote me on the spelling of her name) and she was really sweet. Workouts are given orally, which hasn't happened to me since my high school days so my listening comprehension and memorization skills were pretty poor and needed some work. I swam in the faster half of the pool, but we were the awkward lane that was fast enough to be given the faster workout but not fast enough to finish it with time to actually warm down. The people in my lane were pretty cool though, mostly young'uns like myself. There were some hardcore triathletes around throughout the pool, one woman in my lane was going for a ride after practice, turns out there are pretty inspirational people to be found throughout this city.

As for the actual swim itself, the set doesn't look that bad but it was brutal. The combination of me having been out of the pool for a while and the pool being set in long course was just rough, especially on the fly. My quads were cramping up towards the end (probably from the trainer session the day prior) and I was not having a good time. I also have no idea if my lane was actually hitting the intervals. We wanted to make sure everyone was getting some amount of rest so the send offs got sort of arbitrary and I don't like the clocks at this pool very much, they aren't very clear and I just couldn't get a sense for whether or not we were making the intervals just barely or missing them by a lot. It was confusing and weird. But the workout was quality nonetheless so that was appreciated.

The other nice thing about swimming long course is that it forces you to be really cognizant of your technique. You can't hide it with the "oh but it only happened once this length" excuse and if your technique falls apart when you get tired, it shows at the end of the length and you really have to work on holding it together. I like that the setting of the pool is forcing the issue.

The other nice thing is I think practice really gets back at that whole issue of being surrounded by excellence. It's easy to want to complain about getting up at 4:15 AM so you can commute to a 5:15 AM swim practice, but when you are surrounded by others that are doing the same thing and some athletes who are taking bike rides or runs right afterwards, it seems like what you're doing is so small in comparison. Just being around other people who are committed to the same insanity that you are makes what you're doing seem normal instead of commendable or downright strange. And on top of that, when you really really want to quit on repeat 2 of 4, you can't, because everyone else is struggling through the same thing too. I love that. I can't wait to go back next week. Although freestyle is so not my jam.

Friday PM Workout: Outdoor base ride

Summary: 18.13 mi, 1:10:31, 15.4 mph, 577 ft gain

Speed splits by 5k: 14.8, 15.6, 16.0, 15.4

Hit rate: 22/24 (91.7%)

Took 3 laps of Forest Park, really struggled with that incline up on Skinker, but it's good that I'm getting practice with it. Cadence was sort of low on average (74 rpm; I don't look at that on my outdoor rides, trying to get a natural feel for it) so I'll have to work on that. I was going to go for a fourth lap but I decided that I didn't want to blow myself out in case the group ride today required me to be more on top of my game than I was feeling. My legs were pretty shot. It was nice to get outside and be forced to take some quick turns and avoid human beings and get the feel for some climbing and fast descending. The next time I take this ride I might try and do it the other way around to get some of that steeper climbing in and cruise down the Skinker hill and see which I prefer. In general I think the alternating will make me a better cyclist so it's worth doing. 

Today's AM Workout: Short-mid ride w/ 8 AM Big Shark group (including my commute out)

Summary: 23.34 mi, 1:56:56, 12.0 mph, 879 ft gain

Speed splits by 5k: 10.6, 11.0, 14.0, 12.0, 13.5.

Hit rate: 23/25 (92%)

This morning I took my first ever group ride! There were only 4 of us, it was really chill, probably too chill, but the route was nice (and bonus very few cars in the morning) and the company was nice and I'll probably try this route out again tomorrow as the lead in to my brick. Not too much to say I guess other than that riding on the roads was less scary than I thought it would be (mostly because there are so few cars out on the road on a Saturday morning) and spending two hours out riding really digs into your appetite even if you don't go very far or very fast. At some point I would love to go out and try the faster 7:30 group ride but they are faster and that intimidates me so I don't know that I'll be taking that on until I have a little more confidence in my riding abilities. 

One nice thing to note was that I was pretty solid on the uphills (learning to control the effort, realizing that I can climb slowly and keep effort in check and it's really key to longevity in the ride) and there was a ton of coasting down hills which was really nice and a lot of fun. I think the biggest take away from this morning was that riding can be a lot of fun and I need to try and find that and enjoy it whenever possible so that saddle time isn't just torturous all of the time. Also I needed the recovery session for my legs and that was pretty key.

In other news, Henry made me stretch last night and this morning after my ride, and that's definitely been doing me some good. I haven't had the will power to bring myself to do any core work yet, but baby steps I guess. As long as I'm hitting my sessions and stretching and recovering properly after them, I will accept my present shortcomings. We'll work towards putting the rest of the pieces in place as things continue on. I've also taken short 1.5 hr naps both yesterday and today to help keep me rested. Won't be able to do that once school starts next week so that'll be an adjustment. I assume caffeine will have it's role to play when the time comes.

As for the rest of today, I plan on taking a base run sometime in the afternoon (while Henry goes to the gym!) but it should be a fairly easy-moderate effort and I'm just gonna focus on coping in the heat. Things are off to a great start, I'm really excited about where this is headed! Yay!

Much love,

Jess

THE. LAST. DAY.

This was a note I wrote from me to Henry (nominally, seeing as I didn't actually show him this note) whilst eating lunch at Adventure Bay with Coen today.

I think I really have to keep this here as a reminder to myself of the fact that I love going out and pushing myself and doing my best and sometimes exhaustion and stress and pressure get in the way of that and makes me lose sight of this. I need to try to hold onto this mentality when I'm in the midst of working hard because at the end of the day, it's important that these pursuits add to my life instead of take away from it.

Today was an easy easy warm up before the main event tomorrow:

Today's Workout: Easy 3-5 mi. run.
Summary: 3.17 mi, 29:27, 9:17 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 9:25, 9:18, 9:13, 8:55.
Hit rate: 18/20 (90%)

I was happy with the pace even though it felt a little more strenuous than I think it realistically should have. I'm fairly happy with what food intake looked like today given that I had to eat out for a lot of the day just because of the way timing/life worked out (noodles for dinner = big plus) and I've been loading up on potassium Vitamin Water (fruit punch) the past few days and am having a Nuun right now. Tomorrow morning I'll have another Vitamin Water and pocket some Nuun in case I decide I want it. The plan will be an early breakfast at Timmy's (bagel carbs!) and either one or two gels in the lead up to the run (TBD depending on what my fluid intake looks like and how I feel). I'm really pumped!

In other news, it's been really interesting to think about how I've been feeling about racing in the lead up to this race. Here are the three big things:

(1) I'm really inexperienced at running races still. With swimming, I know my pre-race routine down to the dot in terms of how early I like to wake up, what I like to eat, what I do for general warm up and pre-race warm down and cool down, how to rest between events, and exactly how my events should feel as I'm swimming them. I have so much experience that I can turn my brain off the entire day basically and autopilot will take care of it. I don't have that with running yet, so I'm still learning and it feels like there's a lot of uncertainty and nerves. That'll get worked out with experience though, so I just have to keep racing until the routines become familiar.

(2) Related to me being inexperienced is that I somehow have this sense that I need to rely on things like diligently watching my pace in order to run the best possible race. But in swimming I've never really thought about my splits while racing. The focus is always on just racing my best possible race. Because unless I execute close to perfectly, I don't have a chance at PBs. I think I need to develop this mentality with running and triathlon races as well. It's not about splits or whatever, it's about executing on controllables like technique and moderating effort and rest/preparation, etc. If a PB falls out of that, great. If it doesn't, then it wasn't going to just because I was looking at my watch the entire time. PB races depend on the best possible execution, and there is much more to that than what my splits are going to look like tomorrow. I'm going to try my best to just focus on executing and not worry too much about what time drops out of that execution.

(3) It's nice to know that this race is just a stepping stone in the grand scheme of my training. I guess everything that I do between now and what will hopefully be USAT Collegiate Club Nationals in the spring is really just a stepping stone. The races in September will carry some real weight though, whereas this one really is almost just a hard tune-up training session. The September races are the first real tests of how well I can handle the Olympic distance. This race is almost like just a high intensity long run that's meant to help me develop my running in the lead up to the later triathlons. The result in and of itself doesn't matter to me as much as it usually would because either I will PB and be ecstatic or I won't and it will still have been a really meaningful part of my training and building up towards being able to run the best 10k I can at the end of what I know will be a tough event for me distance-wise. It's exciting to run a race with a more casual mentality.

Another quick note: I didn't sleep as well as I would have liked last night, but I did take a nap in the middle of the day today and plan on going to bed in about 15 minutes so I should have lots of ZZZs in the bag for tomorrow. Going to go lay everything out and stretch briefly and brush my teeth and get all set up and ready to go. Wish me luck! (Also: YAY 90% HIT RATE!)

Much love,
Jess

Some extra sleep, best I could've done

I am simultaneously disappointed with today's run and not. I ended up having a bit of a late night yesterday, wanted to Skype Henry once he back to Boston with Florida and he wasn't home til around 10:30 or 11 PM so I wasn't in bed until 11:30. Decided that I would sleep in but actually ended up waking up around 6:45 AM and deciding it might be worth it to take the run early anyways. But it was raining. So I went back to sleep. Ended up taking my run mid-morning after my doctor's appointment (immunization booster). The weather was nice, cool and overcast. I didn't quite get through the workout the way I wanted to, but I am fairly satisfied with the effort. Will give you the summary then explain.

Today's Workout: As planned was a 10 miler split as 3 miles easy (9:30-9:45 pace), 3 miles moderate (9:00-9:15 pace), 3 miles fast (sub-9:00 pace, goal = 8:45 pace), 1 mile easy cool down. In actuality, the 3 miles fast became 2 miles fast because I died once I hit 8 miles and decided to just take the cool down and a shorter route back home.
Summary: 9.02 mi, 1:24:52, 9:25 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 9:42, 9:31, 9:39, 9:13, 9:10, 9:13, 8:53, 8:59, 10:23, 9:05 (0.02 miles, doesn't really count).
Hit rate: 12/14 (85.7%)

So even though I dropped a mile of the fast bit, I am pretty happy with the pace progression overall. Exactly a week ago I ran a slightly shorter version of the same course on a day without any wind (the wind was a little rough going south towards Roselawn) and the splits today were consistently a tad faster than last week and I would definitely say I'm in more of an accumulated fatigue situation, so I'm happy with it. It was a tough effort overall and during the moderate miles I was really concerned about having nothing left to give in the faster miles, but the two miles following that were pretty solid. Of course I want more, seeing as ideally I'll be under 9 min mile pace the entirety of the race next week, but I don't think I could've asked more of myself than what I was able to give today. Not hitting the fast mile goals and not getting that third mile in are a disappointment, but it doesn't lessen the quality of the remainder of the run. I'll mark it off as a success and move on.

Much love,
Jess