Rest day report!

[Day 9]

Today was a pretty uneventful off day. I got some good sleep last night, some good work done in the morning (including my planning for next week), some volunteer work in the afternoon, and watched slash am watching some football (during which I stretched and foam rolled because Henry told me to!). And I ate a lot of food, because that's my entire life now. Oh I treated myself to a cupcake! I feel like I haven't really treated myself to much of anything since the year started so yay treats!

Off days are kind of weird, I'm not gonna lie. You know that feeling you get when you think you've forgotten something but you can't remember what? That's what my body feels like. Like it was supposed to do something maybe but it's not sure and it's just confused. I wasn't physically restless today (the way I get on my taper off days) so I know the rest is probably doing me lots of good, but it's still weird.

I'd like to get some more work done in the evening but I'm super drowsy already so maybe I'll just sleep more. As of yet unclear. There's also a party happening tonight that I want to go to (it's an underwater 90s themed party, I would get to wear my wetsuit, which is sort of kick ass) but I love sleeping so much...What to do what to do.

I will report back on my decisions tomorrow. In the meantime, other than feeling really sleepy right now (food coma?), my brain/body feel pretty good, which bodes well for tomorrow's run. It'll probably be just another easy lap of the park (yay base runs!) but I gotta go figure out what time that's happening. See you on day 10! (Omg double digits.)

Much love,
Jess

Double double toil and trouble (and weekly recap!)

[Day 8]

Two double days in a row is usually real rough but we made it work!

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

• WU: 3 x 300 
• 1 - swim (free) 
• 2 - 50 kick/25 swim (free) 
• 3 - 50 drill IMO/25 swim (free) 
• Main Set: straight through unless break indicated 
• 100 IM fast (1:30) 
• (break) 
• 4 x 50 fly @ 1:00 
• 3 x 50 free @ :50 
• 4 x 50 back @ 1:00 
• 2 x 50 free @ :45 
• 4 x 50 breast @ 1:00 
• 1 x 50 free @ :40 
• (break) 
• 100 IM fast @ 1:40 (1:30) 
• 200 IM fast (3:10) 
• (break) 
• 4 x 50 kick @ 1:05 (back) 
• 50 fly @ 1:00 
• 3 x 50 kick @ 1:05 (back) 
• 50 back 
• 2 x 50 kick @ 1:05 (back) 
• 50 breast 
• (break) 
• 300 IM @ 10 SR 
• 200 IM @ 10 SR 
• 100 IM @ 10 SR 
• WD: 50 easy (lol "warmdown") 
• Total Distance: 3450 SCY

Hit Rate: 7/7 (100%)

Thoughts about the swim:

• I'm starting to mind the bike out and back a lot less. It's hard because I'm tired on the way out and on the way back and none of it feels good per se, but it's nice to be able to do the biking at a relaxed pace and just try to focus on not being stressed out. It's therapeutic transit time I guess.
• I felt sort of bad today because there were two slower swimmers in my lane who were struggling with the pace times and I hate to do that to people, but I don't set the pace times, even when I do lead the lane (which is what happened today)...this is why I prefer lanes and workouts based on base times better since everyone has a better sense of where they stand in a workout, but I guess there's not much to do about that. 
• That having been said, the pace times were mostly pretty forgiving to me. I feel like I probably should have done other strokes during the kick or at least worked on something (like improving my underwaters, which suck) but I just wanted to enjoy getting back into the pool and I didn't want to try that hard this morning honestly. My body's starting to feel much better, I probably should have worked harder, but I just wanted to be in the pool and swim and enjoy swimming. So I did that. I'll probably continue to allow myself to slack off in the interest of having fun for the next couple of weeks since they're just base weeks anyways. Will worry about putting in the actual hard work later on. 
• The biggest places where my core weakness shows through is (a) during fly and (b) when I try to swim freestyle with faster turnover and I wobble in the water. I really need to do more core work. But I hate it so much. God help me.
• My shoulders are also super weak right now. On the 300 IM, by the 75 I felt like such an age grouper, it took soooooo much effort just to get my arms to clear the water. I either have to swim more or lift more or both because that problem also really needs to be remedied. 

Today's PM Workout: Base run w/ Tsehay

Summary: 6.79 mi, 1:05:28, 9:38 pace.

Pace splits by mile: 9:11, 9:31, 9:40, 9:41, 9:43, 9:51, 9:55

Hit Rate: 8/8 (100%)

Thoughts about the run:

• Another swim/bike/run day! (If you count the biking commute to and from practice.)
• Friends are lifesavers. Tsehay and I just talked the entire time while we ran and every once in a while it would register in my mind that I felt awful but I had someone beside me so I just kept going and it was done before I knew it! I felt kind of bad because she was about a step ahead of me the entire time and I'm pretty sure I was holding her back, but I honestly couldn't have run any faster...I did tell her to go ahead up the last hill and she charged away from me which was kind of fun to watch from behind. 
• The weather was great today. In the sense that it wasn't too cold. It was really overcast and I was worried the sky would open up and rain us out but that didn't happen which I'm very happy with. The sun even made an appearance for our last mile!
• My turnover is still terrible. 166 spm again, really need to focus on bringing that up.
• Today has been weird in that my legs hurt markedly less but they feel really exhausted. It's funny how soreness and energy/strength don't always go hand in hand. 
• I MADE IT! Week 1 is done! Rest day tomorrow yay (:

Reflections on Week 1:

• 2 swims, 2 trainer rides, 3 runs, 1 lift with a short extra run for ~9-9.5 total hours.
• Things could honestly not have gone any better. There was the unexpected soreness and the hiccup on Wednesday but honestly that's all so minor in the grand scheme of things. If the next two weeks of base focused work go as well as this week, I'll be in a great place to start ramping things up and start going longer/faster/whatever it may be.
• The major takeaways from this week: sleep is super key (earlier jetlagged days were mentally rougher than they needed to be, sleeping well makes everything better), I need to do more core work and strength work (but that has to come slowly, as evidenced by my body's really negative reaction to Monday's gym sesh), and batch cooking a ton of food on Monday really came through in the clutch for me.
• It's always funny seeing my body realize that we're getting back into training again. I'm normal appetite wise for the first couple of days and then all of a sudden it's like, I NEED CALORIES NOW. GIVE ME ALL THE CALORIES. Basically I'm hungry constantly. -sigh-
• As for next week, I technically have a plan laid out already but I'll revisit it today or tomorrow and make adjustments as necessary and put it all in my schedule (and I'll also work my studying and meal prep time into that schedule). 
• Not too much else to say, other than what a great way to kick off 2016! Really hoping to keep up this great momentum going into next week! (:

Much love,

Jess

This seems familiar...

[Day 7B]

...It's almost like I've already been here before today. Oh wait. I have. Good to be back. (:

This afternoon was somewhat interesting. I had the afternoon mostly free from obligations save a 1 pm meeting with my PI, so it was nice to get to decide what I wanted to do with my time. I got laundry done, studied some immunology, and took a trainer ride. Now I'm eating dinner (love it when I still have curry from Monday on Thursday, with even enough for lunch tomorrow!) whilst Skyping Henry (or really watching him make dinner over Skype) and writing this post!

I will admit, I was a bit stressed out this afternoon. I felt like I had a lot of studying to do for school and I wasn't going to have enough time to do that and errands and working out and feeding myself and everything else that's going on. I was freaking up pretty much up until the moment that I got on the trainer and got started. I put on an Endurance Planet podcast (I'm currently listening to the Badwater series they just got started on, it's a really great podcast, highly recommend) and settled into my ride and surprisingly enough the workout really calmed me down.

I decided not to push the resistance today (I never really track resistance on my trainer rides anyways because I'm not always consistent with how I tighten the flywheel on the back) and just focused on getting to a comfortably quick spot while hitting the right turnover with good form. The workout was pretty similar to what I did last Sunday, just a tad longer and in a reverse pyramid structure. I want to work on being able to conquer the longer parts of my sets towards the end of the workout. It's easy to work your way down but it's hard to work your way back up just in terms of the mental side of things, so I wanted to mix it up and try and get comfortable knowing I was starting and ending on my longest interval (which, granted, at 7 minutes was not very long).

It all felt surprisingly good. I've been having on and off mild knee pain from slightly over-extending my knee on Tuesday (when I'm really sore my legs tend to wobble when I walk and sometimes I can get strange kinks in my joints because of it) and I was especially worried about the double today, but it felt good on the bike and it feels good now, so hopefully that will continue to hold out. Not too much to comment on other than that. Here was the workout!

Today's PM Workout: 75 min base trainer ride
Summary:

• WU: 10 mins easy 
• Pre-set: 5 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• Main Set: threshold intervals of 7/2, 5/2, 3/2, 3/2, 5/2, 7/2 
• Drill set: 10 x :45/:15 single leg drill 
• WD: 8 mins easy 
• Total: 16.26 mi, 1:15:07, 13.0 mph average

Hit Rate: 6/6 (100%)

Tomorrow is another double! Morning swim practice (yay IM day!), afternoon run with a friend (5-7 miles? Probably easy? TBD?). And then Saturday is my off day! And the start of playoff football! All good stuff. Gonna eat and shower and get some work done before that early early bedtime. (:

Much love,
Jess

Reach for the moon

[Day 7A]

Remember those elementary school posters that read, "Reach for the moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars"? I hated those things (not to mention that's just like scientifically wrong), but I do feel like it properly captures how workout intensity tends to go with me. I get really overzealous when I'm planning and think I'm gonna be really fit and do really well and whatever, then I get on the treadmill and I struggle bus through the entire warm up and am pretty convinced that I'm going to die and I'm like, whoops, I got ambitious. But I always tell myself that I have to try, and I can make adjustments if I honestly fail, so I gave it my best and ended up only having to down adjust one part of the planned run (the second mile repeat was supposed to be at 7.5 mph, but that wasn't happening today). Aiming high meant that my workout was pretty quality anyways, even after I had to adjust some stuff.

The same sort of goes for core work. I had more planned than what I ended up doing, but had I not planned on doing more, I probably would have done nothing and just went home. I was real tired but I felt bad cutting out that big a chunk of the planned workout, so I got some easy core/PT work in too (and stretched a lot, because my legs are still hurting me). Anyways, here's the morning report!

Today's AM Workout: Treadmill run + post-run PT/core/stretching
Summary:

• Run:
• WU: 1.5 mi @ 6.0 mph
• Main Set: 3 x 1 mi @ 7.0 mph, .25 mi @ 6.0 mph (recovery) 
• WD: .75 mi @ 6.0 mph
• Treadmill numbers: 6.10 mi, 56:44 
• Garmin numbers: 5.77 mi, 56:24, 9:46 pace.
• Post-run core/stability: stretching b/w every set 
• Cobra into extended plank, 5 x 10 second holds 
• PT leg lifts (R/L/B) x 10 
• Cobra into extended plank, 5 x 10 second holds 
• PT leg lifts (R/L) x 10 
• Cobra into extended plank, 5 x 10 second holds

Hit Rate: 5/5 (100%)

One of the things I was thinking about while walking out and walking back from my workout was that days like yesterday are hard because I always feel like I need validation that I'm doing enough or I'm doing the right thing. It was easy when I had coaches to fall back on, because you just trusted that whatever they planned for you was right and if they made adjustments, there must have been good reasons. I had lots of faith, I just went with the flow, and whatever happened happened. Now things are harder because I have to make my own decisions and they never seem like clear cut decisions to me and the athlete side of me thinks, well more is always better than less, right? Right? So if I'm not doing more I feel like I'm not doing the right thing, when objectively speaking, that's just false. 

And then I realized that I'm sort of like that about schoolwork too. My mom used to swing by and check in on me when I was working and if it seemed like I was banging my head against a wall about a certain thing for too long, she kicked me out of the house or made me hang out with my brother or something. Because she could see that doing more wasn't the answer, a little break would do me good. I'm much better about identifying that kind of thing with school than with training. With school I think I've always felt like there's a big difference between doing a lot of work and learning a lot of things. Endurance training is such a volume driven ordeal though that I have to associate some degree of volume/physical pain with progress, which makes it harder for me to step back when I should be stepping back. 

But then I was thinking about how a lot of people give advice about this kind of thing and they all say that we have to have self-awareness and be self-sufficient in identifying what we really need. That seems to me like such a massive hassle though. Like I have enough responsibilities as is, I don't want to take on the mental burden of being a self-awareness guru as well. I'm a big believer that you have to set your environment up in such a way that it maximizes your likelihood of success. A big part of that in my life is surrounding myself with the right people. When I was younger, it was coaches and my mom that kept me on track and reined me in when necessary. Nowadays, a large percentage of the time it's Henry that keeps me on track (and reins me in as well). I would like that to not solely be his responsibility though. I wish I had better environmental cues to help me figure out what the right thing to do is, outside of just someone straight up telling me. I'm gonna spend some time trying to figure out what those cues could be. I'll report back if I have any breakthroughs. 

Okay those are my morning musings. I just had a breakfast sandwich (bagel thin, egg, turkey), a post-workout smoothie, and an avocado for breakfast and I will likely need a pretty hefty snack for morning classes today. Gotta shower and change now and get some review done before 8:30 am genetics lecture. I have an afternoon trainer ride planned, another pretty boring base ride, and I will hopefully not be too jetlagged and still have the ability to report back after that instead of promptly passing out (went to be at 7 pm last night but was honestly totally blown by 6 pm). We'll see though. Have a great day! (:

Much love,

Jess

I really wish I worked harder.

[Day 6]

I'm having a rough day (following a rough night that I won't get into the details of) and it's not even 9 am. I want to be going at full throttle at all times and I have some semblance of an understanding that this isn't actually possible, but the reality of my life is that days like today happen where I know (on some level) that the right play is to give myself a day and focus on recovery. The problem is that I always feel terrible about these days, especially if they're changes to what had been a more rigorous plan. Adjusting harder days to easy days makes me feel terrible, even when I know it's the right thing to do. I always feel like I'm just choosing to be weak. Like if I pushed harder I could just get through this and it would be fine. I wish I was strong enough to just choose to do more. But I guess some days you're just supposed to do less. I dunno.

Anyways, all I did was some stretching/yoga and core work this morning. The core work was 2 rounds of 50 leg lifts (broken as 35/15 and 30/20), 50 wrist to knee sit ups, and 100 Russian twists. It wasn't much, but it was really all I was motivated to do. (This is the other problem with spontaneous changes to the plan: I end up not really doing much of anything because I didn't have a prepared workout laid out for me in advance.) I know I need to do less straight ab stuff and more functional core things but it's all stuff I really hate (read: planks) and I'm super unmotivated about all the maintenance work. I know it's important, I just have to get better about actually putting it into my schedule so I can't just continually blow it off like I tend to. I wrote some plank/core work into my post-run tomorrow, so hopefully I will actually do that.

All in all, I was on my yoga mat for like an hour, but realistically I was only doing things for maybe half of that. (I was also distracted by life drama, what can I say.) I'm going to try and fit some more stretching in in the evening as well because that actually made my body feel tons better. I'm not going to add or take away anything from the hit rate, I think taking it easy today was the right call to make, even if I'm not entirely happy about that. We'll get back at it tomorrow (planned double, treadmill run in the morning and trainer ride in the afternoon).

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

Check your ego at the door

[Day 4]

Aw yeah getting back in the gym. Feeling super weak, even by my standards (not that I was ever strong to start with). Definitely just sort of gave up on my last real lifting exercise because my arms were failing me and I can only drop weight on myself so many times while my fellow early morning gym-goers look on before I tell myself that it's probably just time to move on with my life. xD Anyways, here's the update:

Today's Workout: Gym + short treadmill run
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 65 lbs, 5 x 8 @ 85 lbs
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45 lbs, 3 x 10/8/6 @ 75 lbs + drop set of 10 @ 55 lbs (last set)
• Deadlifts: 3 x 8 @ 95 lbs
• Pulldowns: alt. wide/narrow grip, 4 x 12 @ 6 plates
• Giant set: 3 rounds, full rest between rounds
• 12 box jumps
• 12 single arm DB shoulder press (seated today because my legs were blown) @ 15 lbs
• 12 single arm DB rows @ 35 lbs
• Incline bench: 1 complete set of 10 at 55 lbs, 1 broken set of 10 because I dropped the bar twice, then I decided to just call that a day.
• Treadmill run: easy 20 minute run (6.0-6.5 speed)
• Treadmill stats: 2.15 mi, 21:20
• Garmin stats: 2.03 mi, 21:08, 10:23 pace
• Core/mobility superset: 3 rounds
• 12/side of cable low to high core pulls @ 2 plates
• 20 bodyweight band squats
• Total Time: ~ 1:45

Hit Rate: 2/2 (100%)

Notes/thoughts:

• My legs were getting wrecked by the squats. They just wanted to keep seizing between sets so I had to stretch a lot. Protecting my back during that lift actually loads my legs a lot more, which I guess is the idea, but it's sad that it makes me functionally weaker. Probably going to up reps before I try to up weight, I want to make sure that I'm lifting right and I won't throw out my back again.
• Deadlifting today was the first time I'd done that since I injured myself way back in May or whenever it was. I went real light, not very many reps or sets, just want to get back into the swing of it and make sure I'm teaching myself how to protect my back through the lift. We'll see how my back feels the rest of the day and tomorrow, but as of right now, it's perfectly normal so hopefully things stay that way.
• I was pretty much ready to go home by the time I was doing pulldowns. Maybe it was because my forearms were feeling really destroyed and that always makes me just grouchy, but I'm amazed I then got through the rest of the workout somehow. There were a couple roadblocks today, including how I felt during the pulldowns and dropping weight on myself during incline bench, and yet somehow I stuck it out and finished which really amazes me. It was like one of the bad long runs, I just kept telling myself to do one more set or to run for one more song and eventually I was at the end. Good job Jess. (:
• Running after lifting sucks. As does lifting after running. Which I guess is why it's important to do both things separately and together. Separately so neither thing gets compromised, together to get better at running on tired legs and maintaining strength even when you're aerobically drained. 
• I'm really not happy with where I'm at in terms of fitness (probably because it's day 2 of real training) but I was very happy with the effort today. I could have probably totally justified doing less and just going home early, but I didn't, and I'm glad I got through it. 

In other news, my sleep schedule is so wonky. I slept from 3 pm to 9:30 pm yesterday, ended up doing some work with emails and then tried to go back to sleep but couldn't because I was hungry, so I got up and made myself noodles and went back to sleep for a few hours at around 12:30 am. I'm really not sure how this day is going to play out but uh...wish me luck...

Food/shower/school time! (:

Much love,
Jess