The fourth month has not been kind to the blogging

[Day 102]

Sorry. I'm trying. I swear.

Friday's PM Workout: Base run w/ Henry riding on a bike next to me offering words of encouragement the whole time
Summary: 8.67 mi, 1:18:45, 9:05 pace, 176 spm
Pace splits by mile: 8:59, 9:08, 9:07, 9:03, 9:03, 8:56, 9:10, 9:12, 9:09
Notes: Definitely felt like I was fading towards the end and it was a relatively flat run since I took the bike path instead of the footpath, but I'm still happy with the pace and effort overall.
Hit Rate: 98/108 (90.7%)

Saturday's Workout: Easy run, paced Helena through the Go! St. Louis 5k!
Summary: 3.15 mi, 31:20, 9:57 pace
Notes: Was definitely hoping to get to a point pace wise where she could finish strong but we underestimated the terrain and she wasn't really prepared for that so things started out a tad too fast and fell off a bit as time went on. I'm still super proud of her though, she took something crazy like 8 minutes off her last 5k! Hoping she keeps running and we can do this again with more races in the future.

Sunday's Workout: Trainer brick, 2 hours on the trainer (mix of speedwork/sprints and hill work) and 4 mi FAST off the bike
Summary:

• Trainer set:
• WU: 10 mins easy
• Pre-set: 8 x :30/:30 spin ups, 2 mins easy
• Main Set: 
• 8 x (3 mins on, 2 mins recovery) at 95 rpm, starting at base (big ring in front, 2nd biggest ring in back to start), going up one gear each minute
• 4 x 5 segments at base +3/+4/+5/+4/+3, alternating 2 min segments and 1 min segments by set (total climb times are 10/5/10/5), 2 mins easy spinning recoveries between 
• 8 x :45/:45 sprints @ base +1 
• 10 mins steady state (prep for transition) 
• Total time: 120 mins
• Summary: 29.13 mi, 2:00:37, 14.5 mph
• Trainer speed splits: 13.4, 15.3, 14.6, 14.9, 14.8, 14.1
• Transition: 1:03.3
• Run summary: 4.49 mi, 38:45, 8:38 pace, 181 spm
• Run splits by mile: 8:32, 8:44, 8:42, 8:35, 8:36

Notes: I was challenged by Henry to do the run under 9:00 pace average (for a reward of ice cream, which I didn't actually take in the end lol) and I would have never gone for it if he hadn't made that challenge, but I did and it went spectacularly well. Things oscillated between feeling tough and feeling remarkably easy but basically as long as I kept my cadence up I felt pretty strong. I pushed up the hills and found it pretty easy to recover after them and I was holding pace well in the flats which I struggle with sometimes so all in all I was very very very happy with how things went. I wasn't going to be this aggressive with my run at the race but people tell me the Clemson course is flat so I think I'm going to shoot for under 9:00 pace on my 10k and if it falls apart in the last 2 miles, then so be it. But given how that run went, I think I definitely have it in me and it would be shame not to give it a try so that's the game plan for now.

Hit Rate: 99/109 (90.8%)

Today's Workout: Gym sesh, last lift before racing! (~1:15)

Summary:

• Back squats: WU 8 @ 95# (was rotating with a friend, this was the weight she was doing so I just went with it), 5 x 8/6/8/8/8 @ 115/115/105/105/105 (disappointed that I had to drop down, but it was the right call, 115s were a real struggle)
• Deadlifts: 4 x 8/8/6/6 @ 155# (probably could have gone for 8s on the later sets but prioritized protecting my back, don't want to take any injury risks this close to competing, felt strong even though it was right after squatting, the big deadlift plates definitely help since the bar starts pretty far off the ground)
• Pulldowns: 4 x 10/10/10/7-3 @ 7+ plates (didn't go for sets of 12 because honestly I just didn't feel like it...)
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, 3 x 10/8/7 @ 85# (these continue to disappoint...just gotta keep doing the thing)
• Leg stability set: 2 x
• Single leg glut bridges: 10/side (body weight)
• Single leg Romanian deadlifts: 10/side @ 25# (one DB)
• Band squats: 20
• Shoulder press: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 25#/side (still not understanding how I can do 8-12 drop sets at 25#/15# but somehow I still can't hit full sets of 12 with just the 25s...)
• Single arm DB row: 3 x 12/side @ 40# (go. up. in. weight. And need more grip strength looool.)
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 65#
• Fly pulls w/ resistance cords: 4 x 30

Notes: I felt pretty weak today, which was sort of disappointing, but I also made a point of trying not to take myself too seriously. The point of today was just to remind my body to try and hold onto as much muscle as possible between now and when I race so the strength doesn't just fall right off my body, the details of how much weight I'm moving right now aren't super important. The other half of that story is the fact that I'm as strong as I've ever been in my life which means inevitably I'm going to get to a point where it gets harder to keep going up in weight without some changes to how much time I'm spending working on strength. I'll save the attempts at serious progress making for when I'm not so focused on triathlons, for now just holding close to this set point is fine by me. I also went to the gym in the middle of the day, which I never do, and I had an interesting revelation about how vulnerable I feel when I'm training and how it freaks me out to show that kind of vulnerability around others. The other thing that I realized though is that I need to be willing to take ownership of what I'm there for and what I'm doing. Sometimes I worry about what other people think about the random girl in the boy space at the gym but at the end of the day, I know exactly why I'm there and what I'm out to get and it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about it. (And you know, I don't subscribe to the patriarchy and all and I need to stop talking like I do.)

Hit Rate: 100/110 (90.9%)

I was really tired after this but it seems like a good amount of coffee is bringing me back to life. Much school work to be done now. Tomorrow will be a swim in the morning and if there's good weather, a chill ride in the afternoon, either in Forest Park or maybe elsewhere if I'm feeling adventurous. We'll see. But it'll be chill. Because we're starting to err into taper territory...not officially yet (I've been hesitant about declaring a day as official start of taper) but I do want to get some decent recovery in so that'll be the point of the ride. Happy Monday!

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

The short and the long

[Day 31]

Today was a weird day. Lots of ups and downs. Objectively speaking a pretty good day as far as everything goes, but somehow I'm still sort of disappointed. I don't really know how or why. Maybe I'm just tired. Here's the story.

So I think I woke up a little bit off. I didn't get the best sleep last night because I was out with friends and had some wine and did things like eat way too many cookies, all just generally stuff I try to avoid. Sometimes I'm really jealous that other people get to do these things, but it also doesn't feel quite right when I'm doing them either, so I dunno. It didn't feel like my best moment. I had a lot of fun and I know that's valuable, but I really struggle with not seeing that as some kind of failure on my part. I need to be a little less uptight about everything. It's hard though to stick to this kind of routine unless you're willing to be really harsh with yourself and that isn't something I can turn selectively on and off to allow for some laid back social time. Still figuring it out.

In any case, I got to run in the morning with one of my teammates which was a huge blessing. We went short and easy, another step on the ease back into running with my knee. The knee largely felt good, a little bit of aching somewhere in mile 3 but nothing bad and it resolved before we finished so I was okay with that. We had a great conversation during the run, just sort of got caught up since it'd been a while since we saw each other, and we had smoothies afterwards and stretched and it was super nice. I think that really brightened up my whole day. We're also making plans to ride outside next weekend if the weather is nice, so I'm excited about that too.

Today's AM Workout: Easy run, 4ish miles
Summary: 4.20 mi, 40:33, 9:39 pace
Pace splits by mile: 9:55, 9:45, 9:35, 9:21, 9:35

Hit Rate: 32/33 (96.9%)

Only other note/thought I have about the run is that the cadence issues I was having before seem to be a non-issue right now. 171 average today, I'm chill with that.

The PM workout was rough. It was planned that way so I knew what I was signing up for. Everything about it was tough though, I think just from a mental standpoint, I had a really hard time knowing that the intervals were long and I was going to be upping the speed in x number of minutes and there were no real recoveries in the long main set and it made it hard for me to just focus on what I was doing in that moment because the weight of the whole rest of the set was hanging over my head. I'm also just genuinely not good at dealing with pain. Like when things get difficult aerobically, I feel like I have some capacity to deal with that, but when my legs are collecting lactate it's so tough for me to stay on track and that's something I'm really working to try and be better at. You'd think that as a backstroker burn in the legs would be right up my alley, but outside of that one specific context I actually really struggle with this. Anyways, here are the deets:

Today's PM Workout: Trainer ride, 120 mins, endurance work + some sprints to finish

Summary:

• WU: 10 mins easy 
• Pre-set: 5 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• Main Set: 5 rounds, the goal was to get them all done at base +1 gearing but it ended up being 3 rounds at base +1 and 2 rounds at base (would rather have hit the right cadences than try to be a hero)
• 5 mins low 80s rpm 
• 5 mins high 80s rpm 
• 5 mins 95 rpm 
• (no real rests) 
• 4 mins easy 
• Sprints: 2 x (6 x :45/:45 MAX sprints at base +1 over 100 rpm, 2 mins recovery) 
• WD: 5-6 mins easy
• Totals: 29.07 mi, 2:00:39, 14.5 mph average

Hit Rate: 33/34 (97%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Henry was pretty key to this entire thing even happening. Got a lot of support, was not allowed to quit before I finished, nagged me about staying in the right position, I need this in my life for every trainer ride lol.
• My butt really hurt today. More so than is typical...not sure if it was just because I was on the trainer for longer or what, but that sort of sucks. Need a new saddle, but don't really want to invest in one and also really don't have the time to go figure that stuff out. Maybe over the summer or something...
• Didn't quite hit the entire thing at the resistance I wanted, so it'll be another set to back pocket and try again later on in the process. 

I'm really tired. Lift in the books for tomorrow morning with a short 20 minute easy run tagged onto the end. Again, hoping the knee will hold out after strength work, will see how they respond to running while tired. Enjoy what's left of the weekend! (:

Much love,

Jess

"I know 'cause my feet have the scars to show"

[Day 20B]

It's bedtime so we're gonna keep this brief.

Today's PM Workout: Trainer ride, more base work, a few sprints at the end
Summary:

• WU: 10 mins 
• Pre-set: 5 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• Main set: 
• 7 x (4 on/1:30 off) @ 95 rpm, 85 rpm, 75 rpm, 65 rpm, 75 rpm, 85 rpm, 95 rpm (started at threshold 95 rpm gear, called that base for the day, and added one gear for each drop in rpms)
• Extra 1:30 recovery 
• 2 x (5 x :45/:45 MAX sprints at base +1 over 100 rpm, 2 mins recovery) 
• WD: 7:30 mins easy 
• Totals: 19.07 mi, 1:20:26, 14.2 mph average

Hit Rate: 19/20 (95%)

Today was one of those days where I wanted to cry like 2 minutes into the warm up. Not even about the workout or whatever, I think it's just life things getting me down, but it was mentally rough. I had to turn off the podcast I had planned on listening to and just like be present with myself and focus and talk myself through it. Sometimes when I have days like this, I tell myself to just do 15 minutes and if I still feel horrible by then, I'll call it a day then and there. Things didn't get better by the 15 minute mark today but I felt really obligated to stick it out. I kept thinking about how in high school it didn't matter what else was going on in my life, I showed up to practice and stuck it out because that was what I was supposed to do. It's the kind of thing that taught me that I was deeper and stronger than I thought I was and that I could get through this kind of thing. I had done it before, so I knew I could do it today. (Hence the title quote.) I just felt like I'd be selling myself short if I just gave up to a bad mood so I kept with it and actually got in a real good quality workout.

I have an obscenely early morning tomorrow, even by my standards, so I'm gonna just leave it at that for tonight's update. (:

Much love,

Jess

PS - No knee pain with the cycling. I just rolled out and I can definitely feel the tightness in my right IT band versus my left and the twinge in the spot where I have pain when I press on it, so that's still there, but the cycling doesn't seem to aggravate it so I'm going to take that as a victory. The short 20 minute test treadmill run is still on for tomorrow. 

"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