"If you haven't felt like quitting..."

[Day 32]

"...your dreams aren't big enough."

This was a quote taken from a very touching email one of my professors sent our class today. I will not get into the rest of the contents but let's just say that it was a much needed message on a day like today and I can't help but feel like this is the world telling me to just put my head down and keep going.

I'm not gonna lie, it's been a rough way to start a week that I know is going to be really hard...Let's talk.

So there are two kinds of soul-crushing workouts (in my experience at least). The more common of the two (for me at least) are the ones where it's really hard but you get through and you come out on the other side physically and mentally stronger. They're the ones where I walk away and think, wow I did something I didn't think was possible today and it's going to make me so much better. And I have more confidence and it makes me really happy. Then there's the other kind of soul-crushing workout, where you walk away from it without too many positive takeaways. Sometimes it's because I don't make it through the workout (I have to make big adjustments or truncate it altogether) and it's disappointing and it makes me feel like I'll never get to where I want to be. (Although there are plenty of workouts where I do have to make adjustments and I think the more typical situation is not getting super discouraged, but rather it typically makes me more hungry to work harder and hit the workout right the next time.)

I guess yesterday was weird because it was the kind of soul-crushing workout where I did kill it (even though I did have to make some adjustments to the original set, I'm not super beat up about that, I will hit it again and it will be better next time) but I still walked away feeling super discouraged. I think all night and most of this morning, I've just been sinking in this sense that it's so so so hard and I don't know that I have what it takes to go through something like that again. I feel like a little kid but there's this voice in my head that just keeps saying "but it hurt so much..." and doesn't have much else to offer me than that. And I think the worst part for me is that I hate being like this. I know how much you have to put in to get better, I know that there's very little about this that's comfortable or nice and I need to be able to handle that reality if I want to improve but this little voice just comes back with "but it hurt so much". And it really did. It really did.

In any case, I find myself in sort of a strange situation because this isn't typically how I react to these things. The other part that comes with this that's hard for me is that it makes me really lose faith in myself and my ability to do what I need to do. I've just been leaning on things that Henry's been telling me, I've been leaning on him believing in me, because I'm not really sure how to do that for myself right now. I have a few more comments about Henry, but we'll save those for the end.

So I went to the gym this morning and had a sort of disappointing lift. I had a bit more planned than what I ended up doing because of a combination of not wanting to do things (e.g. what I knew was going to be a pretty painful legs giant set) and being slow (will talk more about this in a bit) and that sort of only adds to the cloud of dejection floating over me about training right now. It was one of those days where I spent every second of my breaks between sets convincing myself to not just walk out the door and go home. I just had to keep forcing myself to go back to the bar and once I was there and set up I knew I was gonna get through that set. Then rinse and repeat. It was hard, it slowed everything down, it wasn't any fun and I don't feel like I accomplished what I set out to accomplish. But it was the best I was going to get out of this day, so at the very least I can say that I showed up when I really didn't want to. Here's the recap:

Today's Workout: AM lift and short treadmill run
Summary:

• Lift:
• Back squats: WU 12 @ 65#, 2 x 8 @ 105#, 2 x 6 @ 105# (honestly I think the sets of 6 were more a confidence thing than a strength thing, was sort of scared to go for it so I didn't)
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45#, 4 x 10 @ 75# (need to go up)
• Deadlifts: 4 x 8 @ 115 (need to go up)
• Back giant set: 3 rounds of 
• Straight arm pulldowns: 12 @ 6 plates
• Lat pulldowns: 12 @ 6 plates (up?)
• Cable rows: 12 @ 6 plates (up?)
• Shoulder press: 3 x 8/8 (last set was 8/5-5) @ 25#/15#
• Easy treadmill run, 20 mins, 2% incline, 6.0-6.2 pace
• Treadmill numbers: 2.09 mi, 20:37
• Garmin numbers: 2.21 mi, 20:28, 9:16 average pace

Hit Rate: 34/35 (97.1%)

I think the day has been getting better since. Henry stayed with me in the morning and worked really hard to talk me out of how sad I feel about everything and despite it being a situation where I think once upon a time he would have asked me to just take a day off from responsibilities and just recharge, instead he asked me to dig deeper today and keep moving forward. I know that's hard for him, but to me it was this big piece of proof to me that he really did believe that I can keep going and I can get what it is that I'm after and I really needed that reassurance today. His willingness to keep pushing me makes me feel like I am capable of more, I just have to dig a little deeper and find it. I'm so glad that I have someone to be tough on me right now because the hardest moments like this are when the magic happens. We also had a fun little exchange where he was all surprised that today wasn't a double day (for reference the only planned doubles this week are Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday, and next Sunday again but I consider that next week since it's after my rest day) and that's also refreshing. I've definitely talked about this before, but normalizing the workload is super important to making it all not seem extremely daunting all the time. I think the other thing that's starting to happen today is that we talked (although not directly) about normalizing the emotional experience as well, just in terms of how this kind of day and these feelings are always going to be a part of the experience (not just for me but anyone else that does what I do). And what comes out of all of that is none of this is an excuse to do work any less hard and even though that's a tough pill to swallow sometimes, I'm glad I have someone to reinforce that and to support me and believe in me and help me work through it all. 

Outside of that, I registered for Swim the Suck today! (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) There are literally not enough exclamation marks in the universe. I'm really glad I got in.

I spent so much of the morning being distressed about needing to go to practice tomorrow and having to bike in what will likely be rain but Henry was adamant that I should go (and I agree with him, I should go) so I was/am planning on going but I wasn't happy about it. Well now that I know I'm racing an open water 10 miler in October, I feel a little bit more urgency about hitting up the pool as many times as possible. It makes me feel a tad bit better about how tired/wet/cold/annoyed I will be about having to ride out to and back from Clayton in the rain tomorrow. And I think this is one of those things that may just be a temporary incentive right now, but it's coming at a pretty important time.

So at this point I think I have to go back to that quote. "If you haven't felt like quitting, your dreams aren't big enough." Things are sorta rough right now but I have amazing support to lean on and I just need to put my head down and keep at it. Thankful in spite of it all today. We'll get through. (:

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. 

Some days are just tough

And you have to fight through them. It's odd for me to have two tough days in a row. Things typically bounce back the day after a hard day, but I guess not this time. After not feeling great yesterday and truncating a workout, I got to masters practice this morning and spent most of the workout wanting to cry. Honestly I woke up feeling fine and figured I would have an average swim if not the best swim in the world, but there were a bunch of factors at play and it didn't turn out too great.

For one it was a great turnout today, which is awesome on one hand, but also crowds the pool and pushes some faster swimmers into the lane that I typically swim in. Not only am I currently slower than I had been most of the current year but my lane was also faster than it typically is, which made me feel pretty horrible for being the last one into the wall by a significant amount every time. I know that really no one cares or judges and I'm probably not holding the workout up by that much, but it just doesn't feel great. My discomfort with being last by a significant margin surprises me a little bit though. I've been in this position a lot in my life. I know that you have to have a certain degree of comfort with being in this position in order to progress. You don't get faster leading a lane that doesn't challenge you. Playing catch up is always how I've always improved. So it's strange that I don't like doing it right now. It's probably because I don't feel like I'm where I should be. If I felt like my swimming was the best that it could be right now, I would accept being slow, but I know I can do so much better and underperforming alongside being the slowest in our workout group is just rough.

As far as being slow right now goes, a lot of it comes down to not having the same kind of upper body and core strength as I used to. I let some of that go for the run training and due to the back injury which has kept me out of the gym, and the swimming has definitely slipped because of it. I also just don't have the same kind of sprint power I used to or the technical skill in terms of stroke efficiency/turns/etc. Part of that is probably because long course didn't lend itself to really pushing myself and part of it is wrapped up in the fact that I just haven't been swimming as much and everything down to my lung capacity is feeling it. All in all, my swimming just hasn't felt great.

Finally, there was the whole issue of expectations. It was sprint day, I guess I was just expecting nice easy short sets and there ended up being an early set of 5 x 200s with pickups in the middle on a 1:30 base (which would have been a piece of cake 4 or 5 months ago but is quite the struggle now) that just knocked all the confidence out of my person. I felt especially terrible when some of the other swimmers in my lane chose to put paddles on and basically left me in the dust despite the fact that I was still making the intervals. It was rough. There was literally nothing I wanted more than to just get out and go home in the middle of that set. But I got through it (because really what other choice did I have?) and things got a little bit easier from there on out. One of my lane mates who I swim with pretty frequently at masters practice could definitely tell that I was out of it and feeling discouraged today so he made a big point of turning back and saying encouraging things like "time for the fast one!" or "almost finished!" in a very peppy manner every once in a while between intervals. That really helped keep me going. It made me feel like someone was rooting for me and that meant a lot.

In any case, here's the summary!

Today's Workout: AM CSP practice, sprint free day
Summary:

• WU: 450 swim (should have been 600, I got in a tad late)
• Main Set:
• 5 x 100 free @ 1:30, moderate w/ head down sprint last 12.5
• 5 x 200 free @ 3:00, moderate w/ head down sprints at the end of each 100 (I didn't do the pick ups, I was just trying to make the interval)
• 4 x 50 free MAX @ 1:00
• 200 easy
• 4 x 100 kick w/ fins @ 1:30, focus on the jump off the walls
• 10 x 50 free @ 1:00
• 1, 4, 7, 10 MAX
• The rest moderate focusing on where you would breathe in a sprint 50 (breath control)
• 100 easy
• WD: 4 x 75 @ 1:15, moderate, first 25 breath control
• Total Distance: 3650 SCY

Hit Rate: 9/10 (90%)

Tomorrow is the day off! We made it! Weekend plans are yet to be confirmed because the weather is being questionable. I'll keep you posted. Time for Pats vs. Dolphins! Let's go Patriots! (:

Much love,

Jess