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

No room for noise

[Day 25B]

That was the hardest short trainer session I've done in a while...Wow. Just goes to show that I'm bad at pinning down what workouts will feel tough and what workouts will feel easy. Here's the rundown:

Today's PM Workout: PM trainer ride, 60 minutes
Summary:

• WU: 10 mins easy 
• Pre-set: 5 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• 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 attempting to hold cadence throughout 
• Cadence thing did not happen, it looked more like 95/90-95/86-92 as average ranges
• WD: 5 mins easy 
• Totals: 14.69 mi, 1:00:38, 14.5 mph average

Hit Rate: 25/26 (96.1%)

Honestly, it's just been a really long day and it's going to be a really busy week and I'm mildly stressed about everything there is for me to do. Today it's been pretty non-stop, I had practice, I had class from 8:30-5:00, I dealt with some secretorial-esque errands for about an hour after class and had to field a phone call from my mom so I wasn't even home until 6:15 pm and couldn't be on my trainer til 6:30 knowing that I had to eat dinner and take care of some emails before hitting the sack early so I can hit the gym early tomorrow. This was the kind of day where I would have been happy to just let workout number two slide and bump down that hit rate a bit because it was genuinely a little crazy. But I had so much good momentum from this morning and Henry had given me the best pep talk last night and I know that some days are going to be hard but they make you better in every sense of the word so I felt like I had to do it so I did. 

It was tough. I was not expecting it to be this tough but it really really was. Gonna keep this particular workout in my back pocket and try to hit it again in a few weeks and hopefully do better at holding the goal cadences. I definitely like almost called it quits about 3 times but I was listening to Swimcerely and gosh these women are just so extraordinarily inspirational. Let me explain.

I think one of the things that I struggle with a lot is the idea that someone out there is looking at what I'm trying to do with my life and going, "That's unsustainable. She's trying to do too much and she's just going to burn out and she can't be successful at all of these things that she wants to be successful at". And as much as I'm more than willing to take that challenge head on and prove people wrong, I also have to wonder if maybe there's some or even a lot of truth to those statements. (The best thing about this situation is how hypothetical "these people" are.) Anyways, my point is that Swimcerely really reminds me that there are people out there doing crazy hard things that commit to it and chase after it with everything they have just because they love it and it's what they want and it doesn't matter how plausible it is or isn't to other people. All of that is just noise, and in my case, a lot of the noise I hear is coming from nowhere but my own head. I just have to ignore that noise and do me. Follow your bliss right? And hey, it's not like I don't have a wonderful support network to get me where I want to go. I just have to be a little better at believing. 

Okay I've been really sappy today. Sorry I'm not usually this sappy, but it's honestly just how I feel. I think a little bit of this sappiness underlies everything about me, it's just hidden under a lot of other stuff usually. In any case, already past my bedtime so I'm gonna shower now and try and get lots of sleep. Happy Monday! (:

Much love,

Jess