Well that was mildly unpleasant...

[Day 64]

We did end up doing core stuff last night! Along with that timed 100 push ups challenge. And watching the 16.2 announcement, which was freaking insane. Made even more insane by the fact that one of the judges counted Dan Bailey's reps wrong and he's probably gonna have to do the workout again. Ouch.

Anyways, if you don't know what the 100 push up challenge is, it's basically a thing that Henry and I do because I enjoy winning at stuff where we take turns doing 100 push ups for time. Not continuously, because honestly I have a hard time linking together push ups past 20 reps. But you know, broken up however you want until you get to 100. Henry went first yesterday and set the bar really high and put the fear of god in me and I subsequently crushed it. 6:57, best time yet by a lot. I broke them up pretty similar to how I usually do but I was able to stay in the 5 rep range for longer and I think my reps were faster and my breaks were shorter. I was very very happy about that. Then we did some core stuff, and since we were sort of on a challenge streak, we started with some max reps stuff. Literally unbroken reps until I failed out of one, which was fun. (Yes, this is the kind of thing I find fun.) Unfortunately, fun doesn't always mean productive? I mean it was a great workout, but I also definitely didn't focus as much on form as I typically try to and blah blah blah. A good thing to do every once in a while, but probably not something I should get in a habit of. Also I need to plank, which we skipped yesterday because of the push ups. Here's the summary of that.

Yesterday's Core Work:

• 100 push ups for time: 6:57
• 128 sit ups (unbroken)
• 92 leg lifts (unbroken)
• 200 Russian twists, broken twice (at 96/179 if I remember correctly)
• 35-18-12 V sit ups (was aiming for 35-25, but the reps got ugly and I reset and tried to hit good ones)
• 10 x 10 second leg lift negatives

Then I swam this morning! Henry gave up some of his life yesterday to make sure he could be home and support me so I could make it out to the pool this morning, so when I woke up and felt pretty crappy and didn't wanna go, I sucked it up because of him and got my butt out the door. The workout in and of itself wasn't bad, but I felt pretty terrible. Even not hard things felt hard today, I just didn't have it. We got through though. The lane sort of opted out of deciding on pace times, we just swam. There are like 5 of us girls that are virtually the same speed so it does work out in the end, but it was kind of weird for me to be like, I don't know what the send off is gonna be but as long as I come in some reasonable amount of time after Emily it'll probably be fine (I went third in the lane). The ride back was terrible and very slow. I was very tired. Biking while tired is slightly dangerous. I kept feeling like I was veering and not very steady (probably because I was veering and not very steady...). Here's the summary:

Today's AM Workout: CSP Practice, IM day
Summary:

• WU: 
• 300 swim
• 300 drill
• 250 alt. 50 kick/50 drill (was supposed to be 300, but idk what my lane decided to do...)
• Pre-Set:
• 4 x 200 IM
• 1 - drill, 2 - swim, 3 - kick w/ board (no fins), 4 - swim 
• 5 x 100, odds IM descending 1-3-5, evens free
• Main Set: 3 x 
• 125 double up IM (first round 50 fly, second round 50 back, etc.)
• 50 weak stroke (breast)
• 100 free
• 50 strong stroke (back)
• 75 IM no free
• WD:
• 200 kick (free w/ board no fins)
• 100 swim
• Total Distance: 3650 SCY (3700 SCY as written)

Hit Rate: 68/75 (90.6%)

Had a pretty productive day, ended up taking a nap in the afternoon though because the exhaustion from the morning never really cleared up. Ran right after my nap, opted for a 12 miler instead of a building 10 miler today because I've done more speed work than I typically do this week and I knew I had no kick in my legs today (based on the swim/ride). So long and steady it was. 

It was actually pretty nasty in terms of how it felt. I was honestly aiming to be just under 10 minute mile pace, I figured something nice and leisurely would do for the longest run of the year to date, but it just didn't feel nice and leisurely. By about mile 8 or 9 I was struggling with the focus and the pace and my legs just felt shredded. I got through though and held on for the finish. It's weird because these long days used to really intimidate me, but now I almost feel like I can compare it to any other run when I just don't feel so hot. Sometimes I take easy 5 milers and they feel horrible. You know you're gonna get through it, it's just gonna feel horrible. I could tell myself the same thing about today's run, except it was 12 miles. I don't know where that confidence of "oh of course I can run 12 miles, there's no question about whether or not I'll finish, I just have to decide to do it and go out and do it" came from, but it's nice. Progress. Even if today's run in particular ended slowly and with me in a lot of pain, I can see the progress hidden in it.

Today's PM Workout: Long run (12 miles), easy pace

Summary: 12.65 mi, 2:03:19, 9:45 average pace, 176 spm (Nailed that! Didn't realize it til just now but I'm real happy about that)

Pace splits by mile: 9:48, 9:52, 9:43, 9:44, 9:30, 9:47, 9:38, 9:53, 9:44, 9:46, 9:47, 9:48, 9:45

Hit Rate: 69/76 (90.7%)

I've been a huge lump since I've gotten home though. Don't feel so hot, haven't really been able to stomach much real food so I had a smoothie and have been munching on random snacks that don't upset me (tomatoes eaten as if they were apples because tomatoes are amazing, hummus and pita chips, roasted potatoes, yeah I'm random). It's late so I'm gonna stretch now and probably hit the sack. The real planned day off is tomorrow. It's interesting, that'll be the third day off I've had in seven days, which is way more than is typical. The workouts this week have been longer and higher intensity though, so I feel pretty justified with the extra rest. xD Maybe I'm just making excuses. But right now my body definitely doesn't feel that way. It'll be nice to have the day off. TGIF!

Much love,

Jess

I am unstoppable (but also very tired)

[Day 61]

Double day report! So I was pretty ambitious with the gym plan as always. Didn't quite get all of it done, but had a solid 1.5 hr lift followed by some rowing so I'm not complaining at all. I was actually a little freaked out going into the workout because I knew it was gonna be a big day, but I really tried to be positive about it right from the get go (like literally from the moment my alarm went off) and I tried really hard to focus and talk myself up instead of down and it paid off so much. I felt like this was one of those days when taking myself seriously helped me instead of hurt me and I was able to accomplish so much by just telling myself that I could over and over again. I'm really proud of how this morning went down.

Today's AM Workout: Lift + rowing, 1.5 hrs + some
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 75#, 3 x 12 @ 105#
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, 3 x 8 @ 85#
• Deadlifts: 4 x 8 @ 135#
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12 @ 7 plates, alt. wide/narrow grip
• Giant set: 3 rounds at 55#
• 8 clean and presses
• 6/side (12 total) back loaded forward lunges
• 12 bent over BB rows
• 6/side (12 total) back loaded reverse lunges
• Tried to do these no rest within rounds, rest between rounds. I didn't ever put the bar down within an exercise but I did put the bar down between exercises to reset/reload.
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 65#
• Accessory work: 2 rounds of
• 12/side single leg bridges
• 12/side single leg Romanian deadlifts @ 25# (better on the R than on the L)
• 15 band squats
• Shoulder press: 3 x 12/7/5 @ 25#/side
• Rowing: 
• Set: 1000 m warm up, 1000 m hard, 500 m easy, 500 m hard, 500 m easy
• Numbers: 3521 m, 17:06 total time, 22 strokes/min average, 2:25.6 average per 500 m

Hit Rate: 65/71 (91.5%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Back squats: These were interesting...harder than I thought they would be. Or maybe just as hard as I should've been expecting. First round was rough, 6 straight and then 6 singles basically, I needed to stop at the top every time to breathe. On the second round I did a little bit better, found the pop in my legs towards the end when the reps were feeling a little desperate and all of a sudden everything got better. Felt like I was launching out of the bottom of my reps instead of squeezing them out, which was pretty cool. The third set was pretty bleh. Right knee spent almost all of the reps trying to cave inwards, so it was a good thing I did some stability work later in the day to try and get at that particular weakness. Next week I'm probably gonna go same weight same rep scheme, hopefully it'll feel a little more comfortable, I might throw in a drop set at the end if things are looking good. If that goes well, I'll try and push up to sets of 8 at 115#.
• Flat bench: felt strong, gonna try and work up to 12 rep sets.
• Deadlifts: THESE WERE SO SATISFYING. I was expecting them to be hard because they were hard last week (and I was only expecting to do 3 sets, not 4), but I think the pop I found with the squats really came out in the deadlifts too. I think getting my legs involved today was just easier than it typically is and I tried to focus more on driving the whole way into the lock out and they just came so easy. But then this happened...
  
  ...Which was pretty traumatizing. Um I'm super embarrassing. Don't know what I'm gonna do with this particular tidbit of information now. :\
• Giant set: More cardiovascularly taxing than I was expecting. I have to be better about not breaking between movements. Also on round 2 when I was getting tired I definitely unloaded the bar sort of unsafely a few times and caught myself and focused more and was better about it on round 3, but just for future sets like this I need to remember to be safe when I'm putting weight down. Probably going to try and up some reps on this the next time I do it. I wanted to play it safe with the lunging because I don't normally lunge with this much weight and I wanted alignment and form to be good, but I think I can go for more. 
• Incline bench: Super proud of this! Feels like I'm getting stronger every day or something. Gonna work my way up to 3 x 12. (:
• Accessory work: Should have probably done three rounds, but my brain was really going at this point...Sometimes when I don't control my core correctly, there's some back pain with the bridges, which can get exaggerated by the Romanian deadlifts. Gotta focus on that more so it's all done perfectly. 
• Shoulder press: Sadface this was so bad lol. First round was pretty solid and then I just had no push. Could've probably squeezed out more reps but my brain and my arms were just totally gone by this point. 
• Rowing: Couldn't decide if I wanted to go steady state or a few efforts so I threw some short efforts in there. My butt and hamstrings were really feeling this. 
• All in all it was a great morning workout. Also apparently I had A LOT of comments to make about this.

Between workout one and workout two was a looooooong med school day. I was pretty exhausted honestly by the time I got home and I vegged out for a bit but eventually convinced myself to take this run. I decided that because I wasn't feeling too hot, instead of running by time goal, I would run by effort. The original plan was to go 2 mi easy, 4 mi hard at under 8:45 pace (I think ideally the goal would have been to average around 8:30), 1 mi easy. I ended up playing it by feel and the numbers will speak for themselves.

Today's PM Workout: Tempo run as 2 mi easy, 4 mi hard, 1 mi easy by effort (no watch checking today)

Summary: 7.02 mi, 1:04:53, 9:14 average pace.

Pace splits by mile: 9:46, 10:02, 8:46, 8:50, 8:43, 8:38, 9:56

Hit Rate: 66/72 (91.6%)

Notes/thoughts:

• I was really hoping for faster splits in the tempo effort but it was the right effort so what am I gonna do about that right? Keep working, get faster, you can't force that kind of thing. 
• It felt really surge-y today, which isn't how I like my running to feel. My best running days tend to come with this kind of momentum that doesn't necessarily make the effort easier but does make maintaining a nice consistent pace easier. Today though, it felt like every time I stopped actively monitoring my pace, it fell off and I'd have to catch up again, which sort of sucked honestly. It was a tough 4 miles and I knew I wasn't going as fast as I wanted because I could sort of feel that just in terms of my stride length and ground contact time, so it was hard to feel slow and know that this was probably the limit to what effort I had to give.
• I was pretty wrecked after this workout. I came home and had a post-workout snack and showered but then pretty much like couldn't convince myself to move for another hour or so and eventually managed to do enough to make/eat dinner but it was a rough evening all told. The soreness is starting to set in from the morning too, so I stretched but we'll see how that changes overnight into tomorrow.

So I'm pretty tired now. It's a good thing I get to sleep in tomorrow. I'm so behind on work though, which is a bit rough. Feel like I want to sleep in but also feel like an early start could help me a lot with how behind I am. Conflicted. Will work it out somehow. Trainer brick in the books for tomorrow in the afternoon. Freaked out but also a little excited. As hard as those days are, I get a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction out of running off the bike. Hopefully my legs will recover a bit overnight and cooperate with me tomorrow. Happy Super Tuesday! (:

Much love,

Jess

Ah distance free day, we meet again...

[Day 60]

Today's Workout: AM CSP Practice, distance free day
Summary:

• WU: 
• 400 swim
• 2 rounds of
• 150 free
• 100 IM
• 50 build
• all on third person rest
• 6 x 50 kick w/ fins 
• 2 easy @ :55
• 2 moderate @ :50
• 2 fast @ :45
• Main Set: straight through within rounds, rest between rounds
• Round 1:
• 400 free @ 6:15
• 2 x 200 free @ 3:00
• 50 easy
• Round 2:
• 300 free @ 4:45
• 2 x 150 free @ 2:15
• 3 x 100 free @ 1:30
• 50 easy
• Round 3:
• 200 free @ 3:10
• 2 x 100 free @ 1:30
• 200 free @ 3:10
• 4 x 50 free @ :45
• WD: 100 easy
• Total Distance: 4000 SCY

Hit Rate: 64/70 (91.4%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Felt real tired today, wasn't too slow in reality given that, but it felt super sluggish. It was probably a lucky thing that the pace times were forgiving. It was one of those days where I couldn't keep the tired sounds inside of my mouth during practice. Sometimes I would touch the wall and the "bleeehhhhh" would just slip out of me. Same with riding home, there was one time when I crested over a hill and the "ugh" sound just sort of whooshed out of my mouth because I was winded. Honestly I was tired enough today that I wanted to get out about 800 into the warm up, but I just talked myself into taking it one repeat at a time. I told myself that I got credit for every lap I swam and that it was making me better, so I would try for another and another and another and eventually I got to the end of the workout.
• The sun coming up is so key to the ride home not feeling miserable.
• One definite thing I noticed today was the core weakness. My back was definitely more arched than it should've been because I had a hard time holding my body line in the water and it led to a bit of lower back soreness after practice. Nothing that lasted, but still. I haven't done core work in a while, I really need to get back on that.

Early gym sesh tomorrow morning and a run in the afternoon. Another long day of med school too. (Today was an 8:30 am to 6:00 pm day, a little bit rough.) Fingers crossed that I make it.

Much love,

Jess

Loving something so much it hurts to stomach

[Day 37]

Today's Workout: Cycling (outside) with Molly! (MCT trail system)

Summary: 18.28 mi, 1:16:55, 14.3 mph

Speed splits by mile: 13.7, 15.6, 13.4, 14.6

Hit Rate: 40/41 (97.5%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Riding outside is amazing. It was really cold when I first got up this morning and I was worried it was going to be freezing and awful, but it was a super sunny day and the temperature came up a bit and I layered up real good and it was actually a totally fine temperature to be riding at. I had sort of shied away from riding outside because of the weather (not that I don't ride to practice in this weather anyways, but that's in like sweatpants and a ski jacket so it's sort of a different deal) but now I feel like there really isn't any good reason to, so I might hit the outdoors more often. 
• This set of trails Molly found is great. No traffic, not very many riders out today, well-paved, nice environment, I was just really happy about it. It's a bit of a trek to get out there, but with a buddy it's totally worth it. Also her tri bike is sick. Way jealous, really hoping she has some great races on it this year. 
• I fell once, trying to make a turn I should have really just clipped out for because the road was narrow. Luckily I was totally covered so no road rash besides a scrape on my ankle that I managed to get through my sock somehow.
• Molly has a heart rate monitor, which I'm sort of jealous of. There are so many things that I need to prioritize about getting before I want to invest in a heart rate monitor though that I'm just sort of like, okay another thing that's cool but not actually that important. xD
• I definitely felt like it took more effort to ride that pace than it should have today. Probably just fatigue from the week, but the speed demon in me is a tad bit disappointed because the biking felt so controlled and I normally prefer it to feel less controlled. I feel like my brain interprets biking really similarly to skiing and I want biking to give me skiing levels of speed rush which is basically impossible unless I'm shooting down a hill at a likely unsafe speed. All that really means though is I have to get more bike fit, which is what I'm working on right now, so maybe in a month or two I will be going faster and therefore be feeling happier about it. 

Weekly Recap:

• 3 rides (2 trainer, 1 outside), 3 swims, 4 runs (3 outdoors, 1 on a treadmill after lifting), 1 lift, 1 core specific session for a total of ~12:45.
• This was a big week, sort of artificially so because I included a half hour of core in the log and it was a 7 day week instead of a 6 day week because I swapped today's ride and tomorrow's rest day to accommodate other schedule things in my life. 
• I have been really tired. Like way more blown out at the end of each of my days (or even by mid-afternoon) than I was all of January. Makes sense because more volume. Surprisingly enough, I've been really impressed with the actual workout performance given that. In terms of late week workouts, runs have been really slow but the swims have been really solid and I'm super impressed with my body managing to hold that together despite feeling genuinely terrible. 
• It's been an emotional week. A lot of doubt, dissatisfaction, and self-pity at night but also a lot of big moments that have really re-affirmed to me why it is that I go through all of that. I love what I do. I could not not do what I do. It's really not a choice, it's just a part of who I am and who I will always be. So it's really hard, but I gotta buckle down and take that because this is what I want.
• I was just out at dinner and one of my friends said something really nice about how she was really impressed with how motivated I am and she probably doesn't realize this because I honestly had no idea how to properly respond to that comment but it meant so much to me. It always means so much to have someone say, hey I see you. I feel like this is a part of my life that is not actually seen by very many people because so much of it happens when I'm essentially alone, so to have someone acknowledge that meant a lot to me. It's just good to be seen. It makes me feel a lot less alone.

Next week is also gonna be a big week, followed by a short 4 day decompress before we get into what is officially speaking Block II. Honestly the plan is just to go really really hard and take all I can take and then let off for a bit and hopefully see the work pay off at the start of Block II. Much needed rest day coming up tomorrow. Happy Saturday! (:

Much love,

Jess

Mind body dualism

[Day 15]

I used to think that brain tired and body tired were different things but they're really not. I was surprisingly exhausted this morning. I went to bed later than I wanted last night because I had a bunch of things to get sorted out at home before I leave for the weekend and I'm a little bit stressed out just because going away on vacation and taking a break from my perfectly controlled schedule is anxiety inducing for me. It really showed at practice I think, the focus just wasn't there, which made my swimming not great. I can't really tell if the big factor is my brain being tired from stress/less sleep than I would have liked or if my body is actually tired from the week of training (it doesn't feel like it necessarily? Also I don't feel like I did that much this week? But sometimes judgments/perceptions about this kind of thing can be deceiving). In any case, it all goes into the same bucket of tiredness at the end of the day so my point is this: stuff is going on, I needed to focus more during practice and I didn't today, I swam okay but I could've done better and would like to do better in the future.

On the upside, we had a nice full lane of some of my favourite girls today, so that was nice and fun. (I'm probably not supposed to have favourite lane mates? But these guys are particularly great and we blend well pace wise as a group and it just makes me happy to swim with them.) Also one of my teammates (a much faster one who swims in the fast lane) gave me a ride to and from practice today which was so key. I got to sleep in by like 15 minutes, it started raining on the drive home so if I had biked I would've gotten stranded or very very wet and I didn't, which I was very grateful for, it was just generally fantastic to be able to hitch a ride to practice. Here are the deets!

Today's Workout: AM CSP practice, IM day
Summary:

• WU: 500 free swim
• Main Set:
• 4 x 150 @ 2:40 as 100 free/50 kick IMO 
• 4 x 125 @ 2:10 as 75 free/50 drill IMO
• 4 x 100 @ 1:40 as 50 free/50 swim IMO
• 4 x 75 @ 1:20 as 25 free/50 swim IMO
• 300 kick w/ fins
• 200 swim w/ paddles and fins
• 3 x 100 IM @ 1:45
• 200 IM @ 3:30
• 100 IM @ 1:45
• 300 pull w/ paddles
• WD: 100 easy
• Total Distance: 3800 SCY

Hit Rate: 15/16 (93.7%)

Notes/thoughts:

• I need to start compiling a list of things about my swimming I need to work on, because it's a massive list and I should probably take time to go to the pool by myself at some point (semi-regularly hopefully?) and just try and hammer down on some of these details things. The big one today was when we swam with paddles (first time I've done that in a while), I was like, wow everything about my wrist entry is terrible. And my pull trajectory isn't great power-wise either. Many things to work on and try to translate into my actual freestyle. Also my fly kick and timing is so bad. I can sort of compensate for it nowadays because my pull is stronger, but that's no way to go about swimming that stroke. Need to be better about working on these things during practice, but I also really do need a dedicated drill/technique day or something, because I know that makes a huge difference. 

Honestly that one bullet point above is all the thought I am able to generate today. Brain so tired. Gonna get the house all ready to go and then head out to school now. Boston-bound in the PM! (:

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

Some days the the sun's hard to face

[Day 5]

Props if you know the song reference. I'm exhausted, I technically have comments on today but honestly the best that I can do today is just tell you what I did. So here it is.

Today's AM Workout: CSP practice, mid-distance free day (bike commute, 45-60 mins)
Summary:

• WU: 200, 300, 300 swim (as written was 3 x 300, but we had counting issues) 
• Pre-set: 8 x 50 free @ :50 relaxed 
• Main Set: 
• 4 x 100 free @ 1:35 as 25 moderate/50 strong/25 recovery 
• 4 x 200 free @ 3:10 as 25 moderate/50 strong/25 recovery 
• 3 x 100 kick w/ fins choice @ 1:30 as all easy except 3rd 25 fast 
• 50 easy 
• 400, 350, 400 free as 1st one fast, 2nd one moderate, 3rd one recovery (as written as 3 x 400 but again, we had some counting issues) 
• WD: Basically the last 400 of the main set… 
• Total Distance: 3900 SCY

Hit Rate: 3/3 (100%)

Today's PM Workout: Easy run (w/ Tsehay)

Summary: 4.01 mi, 37:56, 9:27 pace

Pace splits by mile: 9:17, 9:41, 9:26, 9:26

Hit Rate: 4/4 (100%)

Brief list of things I have to say: 

• I'm really sore today.
• The set intervals being easy during morning practice was super key.
• I left my old goggles in China (I think...?) so I got to break open new goggles, which was pretty fantastic.
• My hair froze on my bike ride back. Getting in the hot shower and thawing that out afterwards was nice. 
• Things jetlag are good for: I got to eat breakfast before morning practice. 
• I need warmer socks for that commuting ride. 
• I'm really proud of myself for going running despite feeling pretty horrible. I'm also pretty happy with the pace given how horrible I felt. Running with a buddy makes everything better.
• The cadence on the run was too low (166 spm average), probably because I'm sore which makes the turnover poor, but bringing up that cadence is something I'll have to keep in mind this month as I'm running. 
• I swam, biked, and ran today, which is sort of cool (even though the bike was a commute and not actual training).

I had a lift planned for tomorrow which probably won't be happening. My body needs time to recover, the jetlag means my sleep has been horrible and I need to rest or I'll just be breaking myself down. I'll probably do some yoga/stretching/mobility work and a full core workout in the morning instead. Okay, back to studying physiology now. 

Much love,

Jess

Just do it!

I think I have a mental road block against running race pace during regular workouts. Sure, I can do it during strict intervals like mile repeats, and I know there was at least one tempo run in the summer where I did a good job running race pace, but otherwise I just have this huge sense that I can't run race pace during training...I think it's really just mental and not physical. Everything seems totally impossible to me until I've actually done it, then it seems easy. So I've decided that one of the things I'm really going to try to work on is pushing back against this sense that I can't be fast day to day. Of course, I need to balance the fast days with the easier days, but the idea is that I'm trying to teach myself that these mental limits I put on myself don't actually exist. Today was the first step towards breaking those barriers that I've set for myself.

Today's Workout: AM long run
Summary:

• The set was a 2 mile warm up at 9:30-10:00, 3 x (1.5 mi @ 8:00-8:30, 1.0 mi recovery @ 9:30-10:00), variable distance warm down for a total of 10 miles.
• Total: 10.13 mi, 1:32:56, 9:11 pace
• Splits by interval:
• WU: 9:43
• Repeat 1: 8:28/9:40
• Repeat 2: 8:20/9:57
• Repeat 3: 8:24/9:52
• WD: 9:52

Hit Rate: 11/12 (91.6%)

I was really happy with how I did, especially because I chose not to try and go around more difficult terrain or adjust pace based on terrain. In the end I figured it would all balance out and it did and I'm really proud of the effort. It was hard, but actually not as hard as I thought it was going to be. I definitely felt like I couldn't push my legs to do much more by the last repeat, but I got there, and that's what's important. 

I had been really scared of this workout at the beginning of the day. Even during the warm up and during the first recovery interval, I had been thinking to myself that there was no way I could pull this off. But I did, so I guess it just goes to show that having a "just do it!" attitude really does work. And now I know that I'm capable of running a workout like this, which is really amazing to me! Another random amazing thing is how casual a 10 mile workout feels nowadays. I remember when I used to get really worked up for every 10 miler I ran but it's becoming more and more of just a comfortable workout distance for me. 12 mi is still intimidating, but 10 I can do. That is also something I'm really proud of.

I was surprisingly blown out after this workout though. I felt like a zombie most of the day, just tired to the core. I took a nap in the afternoon which helped a bit but honestly I don't feel like I really rebounded from it until after dinner. I'm feeling much better now, but there's only a tiny bit of time left in my day before I need to hit the sack. Planning an early morning so I can get a good quality lift in before the day starts. Got to try to get some studying done now. 

Much love,

Jess

First thing's first!

Started the day with a swim today. 4:30 am alarms are never easy, but I think it's generally better to start my days with a workout rather than spend the entire day anticipating it. The thing about genuinely loving and caring about everything that you do on a daily basis is that it's draining. The things we learn sitting down in a lecture hall are draining, the things we learn standing at a dissection table or at the bedside are draining, the extracurricular things I do that I care about and love are draining, and genuinely being about everything that you're doing does not make it any less draining, so given the choice between the 5:15 am workout with a 4:30 am alarm and the 5:00 pm workout after a full day of school/work, I'd probably prefer the 4:30 am alarm just because it's so hard to have anything left to give at 5:00 pm.

That having been said, I have "I've been up and at it for 12 hours already now" problems. It's 4:30 pm, I should really have spent the past half hour of somewhat free time either working or cleaning my apartment and I did neither, I just sort of sat on my computer and browsed Facebook. I get that everyone needs breaks throughout the day but honestly I feel terrible when I'm this busy and I take breaks. I don't have time to take breaks. I really just have to get through what I have to do.

The weekend's also shaping up to be a stressful one. Weekends are full of errands for me (grocery shopping, lots of preparatory cooking for the week, cleaning, etc.), as well as long workouts, sometimes volunteer work, and time I have to carve out to spend with Henry and hopefully get some amount of academic work done, so it's a lot and they're honestly not very relaxing. You know you're probably in a bad spot when it's the end of the workday on Friday and you're dreading the upcoming 72 hours. (And I cap it at 72 because I can't think about the upcoming week after that yet.) Just want to rest. But no rest for the weary...Anyways, the point: I'm glad I swam this morning, because if I had a workout scheduled for now (which I don't because I have a PT appointment in less than 30 mins and an event I have to attend from 6-8 pm after that), it would so not be happening.

Today was the first time I'd gone back to masters swim in a while. The commute is long, a half hour on my bike out and a half hour back, going at a leisurely pace on my hybrid. It means I tack about an hour of activity onto a 1:15 swim and on the way back, my legs burn real easy if I don't make a conscious effort to go real slow and just spin in low gears. Today was IM day, which I generally enjoy, although the soreness from yesterday's gym session made certain parts of the workout a little rough. I'm generally disappointed with how slow my swimming is right now, but seeing as I haven't been seriously training the swimming recently, it's to be expected. I've got a lot of work to do in the pool, but for now I'll save that for January and those mid-winter months when I'll probably be spending a lot of time focusing on my swimming while working on base building for the bike and maintenance for the running in the lead up to prep for USAT Collegiate Nationals. I treat my pool time now as just a necessary part of staying well-rounded while I do my little run-focused block. Here are the details!

Today's Workout: AM CSP Practice, IM day
Summary:

• WU: 500 swim
• Pre-set:
• 4 x 125 IMO, 50 kk/50 dr/25 sw @ 3PR
• 3 x 100 pull w/ paddles @ 1:35
• 4 x 75 IM no free @ 3PR
• 6 x 75 kick choice w/ fins @ 1:15, 50 mod/25 fast
• Main Set: 3 x
• 50 stroke IMO by round @ 1:00
• 200 IM @ 3:30
• 50 stroke IMO by round @ :55 (1:00 for breast)
• 100 free @ 1:35
• Extra 30SR per round
• WD:
• 50 easy
• 4 x 75 free/stroke/free @ 3PR
• Total Distance: 3600 SCY, 75 mins

Hit Rate: 4/4 (100%)

Tomorrow morning will start w/ an easy 7 miler I'm planning on running with one of my friends. She's a lot faster than me so hopefully I'll be able to reign her in and keep the pace where I want to keep it. That's important to me right now since I've been aching from last weekend still and a lot of it is in my joints so I want to prioritize being safe while I'm easy back into the serious running. Time for PT! Send me good vibes to get me through the rest of this long long day...

Much love,

Jess

Slowly slowly...

Today's workout: Recovery run.
Summary: 5.43 mi, 55:07/55:21 total time, 10:10/10:12 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 9:37, 9:53, 10:30, 10:39, 10:38, 9:32.

So today was supposed to be an easy recovery run after yesterday's session (which was pretty brutal). Normally I would've probably done 3.5-4.0 mi and called it a day, but seeing as the earliest I'll probably be working out again is Friday, I decided to put in a little bit of extra distance. It was by far one of the most uncomfortable easy runs I've ever done. There was just no kick in the stride at all, I was trying to hit that 9:45-10:00 forever pace and it just wasn't there. Turned into a real "just put one foot in front of the other" day by the end.

Already though I feel like the having to think about my workouts in order to blog about them thing is giving me a little bit of insight. Easy days are so unsatisfying. Even when they are genuinely easy. It's even worse when they're not. I understand that today my run was pretty terrible because my run yesterday was really hard and my body needs some time to recover. But even then, days like today are real morale killers. Completing a hard workout makes you feel unstoppable and gives you all this great momentum moving forwards. Completing an easy workout is not that satisfying and really not motivating when it comes to continuing to train. So I think a big thing I will have to work on in order to really stay consistent with the training is to re-organize how I interpret easy days. I have to not let them zap all my motivation from me and I have to not let poor performances on dedicated easy days make me feel as if I cannot rip out a great workout the day after. I was slow today. I will not be slow tomorrow. (Well, I'm not working out tomorrow. But if I were, I would have to make a point of reminding myself that yesterday was a more accurate reflection of my fitness levels than today and therefore I can conquer whatever the next hard workout has to throw at me.)

In any case, other than that I spent the day consuming more leftovers (fried chicken, lobster, plain egg noodles, steamed broccoli, some eggs in the morning) and packing and taking care of other errands. It's been exhausting, I'm blown out, but unfortunately I'm going to have a bit of a late night because I have to go get Henry from the airport at around 10 PM. I'll have lots of car time to rest up in these next few days though, so it should be okay. Although travel is exhausting in its own ways.

I haven't really been tracking sleep while I was here in Boston, but I'll probably start doing so again once I'm in St. Louis. I'll be sure to note any interesting trends if I find any. That's it for today!

Much love,
Jess