I rode really far.

[Day 58]

Like 20 miles further than I've ever ridden. It was fantastic. I feel like I should say more about it, but honestly I don't really want to. I'll bullet point some of the highlights at the end. I'm swamped with work this weekend so I've really been trying to focus on that instead the rest of the day.

Today's Workout: Long ride w/ Brian
Summary: 52.75 mi, 3:55:10, 13.5 mph
Speed splits by 5 mi: 13.8, 12.9, 13.7, 14.5, 12.2, 14.6, 13.5, 13.5, 14.8, 11.9, 13.4
Hit Rate: 63/69 (91.3%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Route was out to Confluence Tower and back via the Riverfront Trail (we started at the Forsyth entrance to Forest Park).
• My shoe clip things were super tight this morning, had a really hard time getting in and out. But they loosened up a bit by the end of the ride.
• Brian was a great baby-sitter. Took care of me after my one (and only) fall of the day. Also helped me with my clipping issues. Didn't mind me being slow. Was good.
• We went really slow. I probably could have taken it just a touch faster, but probably just a touch. Any faster than just a touch faster and I would have definitely crashed and burned and died. My brain was getting fuzzy on the way back as is. 
• Eating real food is pretty awesome. I think it would have to be going at about that effort, because if I were riding harder than that I'd have a hard time physically chewing and swallowing but also digesting. But for a long ride like this at the effort that we took it, being able to eat real food on the ride was fantastic. (Clif Bars were what I had, just btw.)
• So the full ride actually took us closer to 5 hours because of stopping time (lights, a tour of Confluence Tower, some random detours and reroutes). See the Garmin page for deets.
• It was nice to take it slow, I felt pretty good the whole time, but then somehow I got home and over the course of an hour crashed so hard. Legs are feeling it even though they felt pretty light and happy on the pedals most of the ride. 
• We road on the shoulder of the highway for like 4-5 miles worth of the out and of the back. I'm getting much more comfortable riding on the roads. I don't think I'd opt for the highway very often because every time I got near a pothole I couldn't help thinking that if I messed something up and fell into the road I would be dead (which was the truth) but I think I could get more used to riding around real traffic. 
• I gained so much confidence in my ability to go for this long today. Even if it was slow, it was something that I was really scared about and I think my body actually handled it really well, so I feel like I'm going to be able to tackle my usual 20-30 mile rides with way more confidence than I used to have. It's super fantastic.
• Also, this is important: I HAD SO MUCH FUN. It was nice to just use my bike to go explore and hang out with a friend and have funny random conversations and enjoy myself. It was a great great way to spend a morning. So glad I did that.

There ya have it! Day off tomorrow and we get back on that grind on Monday. (:

Much love,

Jess

PS - Here's a picture!

Kicked off the weekend with a 50 mile ride! Thanks for taking me out Brian! (: #cycling #didntgethitbyacar #littlevictories

A photo posted by Jessica Hao (@newxheights) on Feb 27, 2016 at 11:12am PST

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

"Carry on"

[Day 12A]

At some point during today's swim, I was thinking about "Carry On" by Fun. and how that was really the soundtrack to my morning. Last night was sort of rough for me. I just wasn't as productive as I wanted to be and I was sort of getting in my own way because I was frustrated and tired and the emotionality really killed all my chances at being meaningfully productive. Eventually I did settle down and get some stuff done, but it felt like too little too late. It was disappointing. I was disappointed with myself.

Anyways, sometimes those feelings carry over into the morning, sometimes they don't. Today was one of those days when they did. I had such good momentum this entire past week and it was sort of disappointing to wake up and really feel like I lost that. So while I was in the pool, I was thinking about this song and how there are sort of two ways that people deal with these days. To me it's either the mellow Fun. version of carrying on or the more aggressive Kansas version ("Carry On My Wayward Son") and I'm sure people go back and forth between them, but today I was the Fun. version. That's all I wanted to say. Even very early in the morning, apparently the only thing my brain can do is think in terms of songs.

Here's the workout!

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

• WU: 300 free, 4 x 50 free (I got in a bit late b/c the ride took long today b/c of the wind, missed the 200 swim and 100 swim sandwiched in the middle of warm up)
• Main Set:
• 4 x 100 free @ 1:30 descend 1-4
• 4 x 150 free @ 2:15 descend 1-4
• 8 x 75 kick
• As written was 50 choice/25 fly on back w/ fins, I don't know what the pace time was
• I did 4 choice w/ fins and then 50 choice/25 fly on back w/o fins on third person rest because my lane is strange (I led the kick today)
• 4 x 25 kick (no fins) FAST @ :30
• 4 x 200 @ 3:20 (I have no idea where this pace time came from)
• 1 - broken every 50 for less than 5 SR
• 2 - broken at the 100 for less than 10 SR
• 3 - broken at the 150 for less than 10 SR
• 4 - straight through fast
• 100 back easy
• 4 x 75 @ 1:15
• 1 - ALL FAST
• 2 - last 25 fast
• 3 - middle 25 fast
• 4 - first 25 fast
• WD: 200 easy
• Total Distance: 3600 SCY

Hit Rate: 11/11 (100%)

Notes/thoughts:

• So today's practice was an interesting adventure in our lane really not caring about assigned pace times? Or being weird and arbitrary with them? I don't really know. I just feel like we used the assigned pace time only like twice today...it was weird.
• It was less cold today than it was over the weekend, but it was really really windy, which was sort of obnoxious. That combined with a few minutes of dawdling before I left my place this morning put me in about 5 minutes late, which I feel awful about. Late is just something that I don't do, especially for practice, so -sigh-. Gotta be better about that. 
• I generally felt really slow and unmotivated today. I don't really know if I was ever even like...breathing hard today. I don't know. I knew it wasn't gonna be an aggressive push the pace day so I just tried to focus on technique. Still working out what the deal is with my freestyle recovery. It's changed a lot in the past few years and I'm still figuring out what the best version of it is. Also trying to work on that body position, which is not where it used to be and definitely needs some work.
• I was happy though, towards the end I realized this and it was nice. Even when I'm not doing great, I love being in the pool. It makes me happy. It's worth it.
• I was lucky enough to have a teammate volunteer to drive me home today. She even had a bike rack so things worked out perfectly. I might hit her up more often for rides. Biking out to practice probably wouldn't be bad with warmer weather, but it's cold right now and I definitely wouldn't say no to a car ride. I'll have to remember to get her a gift or something for helping me out. She also coaches Saturday practices and it sounds like they do some cool things at those. I might think about going on Saturdays to check it out. We'll see. She also says she's going Friday this week. I had been planning to swim on Thursday, but she can't make Thursdays so I might consider adjusting my schedule so I can swim Friday and get a ride to practice. Again, we'll see. 
• Quick update on the body: Definitely nowhere near as sore as I was last Tuesday. Tight mostly in the upper body (around my shoulders, through my back), but my legs feel good (which means upping the volume next week?), my wrists/elbows don't feel loose and weird like they did last week (lol have I even mentioned that yet? I kept feeling like they were going to pop out of their joints whenever I picked anything up), and my back is a bit sore/tight but in no amount of actual pain so I know I didn't hurt myself. All in all good progress, means I'll try and hit it a bit harder next week and see where all of that goes. 

It's gonna be a long day. I'll be back with an evening post because I've got a trainer ride planned for the evening. I'll probably do it right before dinner, after my respiratory physiology simulation lab ends at 5 pm. Yay...or something like that...

Much love,

Jess