"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. 

Anticipation

[Day 3]

The first practice of the year in the fall was always a big highlight of the back to school season for me. I tended to take the entire summer off from swimming, unlike some of my teammates who did summer season in the US with club teams, so the first practice of the year for me was typically after a 2 or so month long hiatus from structured training. It was the kind of thing that was both super exciting (I always missed the water) and super intimidating (as it should be when you're totally out of shape). Normally I made a point of keeping up with my swimming over the winter (our biggest meet of the year typically happened in February which meant that there was no time for slacking off or breaks in the winter) so it was a strange experience to find myself taking a break from training this winter break and anticipating the January return. I guess the timing of the triathlon off-season is still foreign to me and that's something that will take some getting used to.

In any case, I've had some nerves about me all break about getting back into the swing of things both in terms of school and training. My biggest worry is always the mental side of things. Just like it takes my body a while to get physically back into shape, it also takes my brain a while to get mentally used to the schedule and workload again. That's always the part I like least, it makes me feel weaker than being physically weak does. But I know it's an inevitable part of the process, so I'm trying not to get too psyched out about it when I'm only a day into the real work.

I also know that getting back into a consistent training schedule is also a lot like endurance racing: The first portion is always unpredictable and largely does not indicate how the latter portions will play out. It's best not to overthink things in the early game because I won't get an accurate sense of the situation until after my body has settled down into a comfortable rhythm and pace anyways. I will probably be reminding myself of that fact a lot over the course of the next few days and weeks.

So for today, I stuck to a very easy and short indoor trainer ride. I'm avoiding the outdoors for now because I haven't ventured out onto the roads in a while so they freak me out a bit and because it's cold. I will...work towards overcoming both of those things in the coming months, but for now, I'll stick to the trainer rides. Here's the summary!

Today's Workout: Base trainer ride, 60 mins
Summary:

• WU: 10 mins easy 
• Pre-set: 5 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• Main Set: threshold intervals of 8/2, 6/2, 4/2, 2/2 @ 90-95 rpm, 1 gear off 70-80 rpm rests
• Drill set: 10 x :45/:15 single leg drill 
• WD: 7 mins easy
• Total: 12.64 mi, 1:00:36, 12.5 mph

Hit Rate: 1/1 (100%) - aw yeah, we're back in business.

Some notes/realizations:

• Jet lag sucks. I woke up at 1:30 am this morning after about 3 hours of sleep, suffice it to say that I feel terrible. The focused parts of the workout felt okay but as soon as I moved into warm down territory I was pretty certain I was going to die. Part of being exhausted for me always involves feeling nauseous, and I'm sure the cardio intensive activity is not helping with that at all. Ew.
• I can't actually watch football while training. I try. I had (still have) the Pats game on but other than vaguely following who had possession and the score (and somewhat watching during rest intervals), I really couldn't actually pay attention to football. Every time I tried, the cadence fell off, so I just focused on riding instead.
• I was actually aiming for 95+ rpm in the main set but my legs feel like they're really not used to turnover. That's something I will have to work on. Maybe some short sprint sets in the next few weeks to try and ease into longer segments at the higher cadence. 90 rpm is fairly comfortable for me but 95 always feels like a push.
• I suck at single leg stuff. I'm okay for like 15-20 seconds and then the top part of my pedal stroke falls apart. I also hate working on it because it's such a struggle but I think I'm going to make a point of putting this set into the end of every trainer workout because it's important that I nail this efficiency thing. As a swimmer, I am a big believer in maximizing efficiency whenever possible, so I just have to buckle down and learn how to pedal properly.

The game is at half time, I was told by Henry that I have to stay awake until the game ends, so I'll probably go take a quick shower and watch the Pats mount a comeback victory to clinch the top seed in the playoffs, then pass out for many hours and make dinner slash lunch for tomorrow at like 2 am when I wake up. xD 

The plan for tomorrow is a pretty standard gym workout followed by a short treadmill run and a small amount of core/mobility work. It'll be a long morning workout, but the only one of the day. I'm a little bit freaked out about getting back in the gym. I always am after I'm out for a while because I'm scared of hurting myself and honestly the gym still intimidates me after all these years. (Don't get me wrong, I love it, it's just scary to move really heavy things around sometimes.) I'm sure it'll be fine once I actually show up though, just gotta get back at it! Yay shower time!

Much love,

Jess

Tired legs and many musings

Yesterday's afternoon run was a long slow ordeal, and generally fairly low on the perceived effort scale, which gave me a lot of time to contemplate training and life in general. And then I had sort of a weird night following what was overall a very positive run. I will share my thoughts below, but first, the workout details:

Yesterday's PM Workout: Base run (6-8 mi)
Summary: 7.04 mi, 1:13:09, 10:24 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 9:27, 10:02, 10:30, 10:42, 10:36, 10:40, 10:49, 10:40.
Hit rate: 24/26 (92.3%)

In regards to the actual run, I was happy with the effort level I held even though the pace was slow. My legs felt like lead the first two miles and surprisingly they were the fastest, although that has a tendency of holding true any time I'm starting out on tired legs. I think it's just an attempt to compensate for how strange they feel before they get into it. The cadence got way low in the second half of the run so that's something I have to continue working on. I feel like I'm getting better at moderating effort on the hills, which I think is an important skill that I'm developing. I really need to take this route backwards at some point, just to see what it's like to run all those hills in the other direction.

Now for some musings:

(1) Quality versus quantity. I had this entire conversation with myself about how maybe I was focusing too much on quantity and not enough on quality. At the end of the day though, I realized that my goal Olympic distance race is likely not going to be a super high quality race. It's going to be a finish as quickly as possible on as even an effort as possible (read: try not to blow up halfway, don't get too ambitious, just get to the end). And in that regard, it makes sense for my training to be similar. What's going to be hard about this race isn't quality so much as just going the distance, so it really is quantity that I'm struggling with and I have to get that quantity in before I can even worry about quality. I thought a little bit about how that relates to swimming and how the focus with young swimmers is always increasing volume while focusing on technique, not speed. So I think I'm going to try to take a similar approach with the training: Focus on volume and technique, not speed. We'll re-evaluate in 3 weeks at the halfway point and see if any changes need to be made to that focus overall.

(2) Optimizing training versus maximizing life in general. I had this entire realization that a lot of times I sit around trying to figure out how I can get the most out of training when I should really be trying to figure out how I can get the most out of life. Just like with the prioritization, there are going to be other things in life that bring me satisfaction and fulfillment that may take away minutes from my finish times. That's okay. Nothing rides on my finish times. What's most important is figuring out what is worth those minutes to me and what isn't so I can try and get the most out of life. I'm really going to work on balancing my goals with my other pursuits and my happiness and my love for everything that I do.

(3) Giving myself credit. I think this was something that I started thinking about on my run and not really sorting out until I had a bit of a sad streak late at night. I've realized that oftentimes I don't give myself permission to feel broken down. I never feel like I've worked hard enough to deserve feeling fatigued or sore or whatever, and so it makes me really upset when I'm beat down because I think I shouldn't be. It leads to a lot of guilt about wanting or taking rest (whether that's just lying down for a bit or napping or going to bed early) and a lot of guilt when I feel the need to complain about how beat down I feel. I think I really need to work on accepting that what I do is tough for me (may not be tough for other people or match up to their standards, but it's tough for me) and that I do my best and I'm allowed to be exhausted sometimes and I'm allowed to want rest. I need to give myself credit for the work that I do and stop feeling like I haven't earned my rest or recovery. In the long run, it will help with not only the mental side of things but also the actual quality of my recovery.

So those were the thoughts I had during/after my run. It's now early on Sunday morning and I'm planning on taking a brick in about a half hour. That will be my only workout for the day, which will be a nice break from the past two double days. I will report back on that one later.

Much love,
Jess

Building, building...

Building is really not the word you think of in terms of your training a few days out from a race but somehow that's what today's run was. It felt like a continuation of yesterday's run, I started out already feeling warmed up and just sort of built from there. It was a solid, consistent, and easy-moderate effort and I was very very satisfied with it.

Today's Workout: Base 6 mi. run.
Summary: 6.58 mi, 1:02:03, 9:25 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 9:42, 9:23, 9:39, 9:14, 9:25, 9:24, 9:02.
Hit rate: 17/19 (89.4%)

Also it's around 6 PM now as I'm writing this and the taper is really kicking in. I feel super super good (especially in contrast to how blown out I felt last week) and I have so much excess energy I just feel like I have to actually work out. Like do something to destroy myself physically. But I can't because I'm resting. It's so strange. And to think there's another two days of this. Not really sure how that's going to go. Must stretch tonight!

Much love,
Jess

Easy does it

Today's Workout: 4.5 mile base run, easy-moderate RPE (fasted)
Summary: 4.92 mi, 47:40 total time, 9:41 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 9:26, 9:50, 9:45, 9:48, 9:35.

I was honestly feeling real tired last night and was really planning on not running today. Even when I woke up in the morning, I figured I would probably spend my time doing yoga/stretching/bodyweight/core work instead today as a sort of cop-out make-up, but when I saw that it was overcast and cooler today than it was yesterday and it wasn't raining, I decided to just suck it up and take my run. I'm proud of that.

The goal was a 4.5 mile base run, just trying to get back into the swing of things and do better when it comes to the heat/humidity. It was cooler today, 75 F, but humid and slightly drizzly. The humidity is hard, but I guess it's preferable to the heat. One of the things I realized today was that I really need to set clearly defined goals before my workouts and focus only on those things. The goal of today's workout was just to build back into running since I was out of it for almost an entire week and I'm not used to the climate, so I really just wanted to take it easy on the way out, moderate on the way back, and hit at least 4.5 miles of distance. While I was running though, I got a little bit caught up in pacing and wanting to go faster, but that really wasn't the point. Today's run was not an achievement run, it was a run intended to prepare my body for more meaningful workouts down the line. I think I really have to set out these clear goals to focus on before I start my workouts and stick to them so I'm not tempted to go harder than I intend to and wreck the purpose of the run. Sure, some runs are going to be go out hard and try like heck to hang on workouts, but today was about just covering the distance and trying to get that RPE negative split.

Overall I'm happy with today. It was a tad on the slow side but honestly I'm okay with this pace for easing back into things and adapting to the heat/humidity. It was nice that I felt stronger coming back on the hill than I did yesterday because I saved enough in the tank. I went a little further than I planned, but that was mostly because the lights were all in my favour on the way in, so I ran a little bit closer to home before I stopped to walk/cool down. Actually, I just looked at the map and it turns out I had made it almost to the other side of the park, which was about twice as far as what I had thought I was doing, so the thought of circumnavigating the park is much less intimidating now. Also that stretch of road is much nicer and actually contained within the park than I thought it was going to be.

Runs do make me tired though. I'm going to caffeinate up a little bit with some tea before I get on with the rest of my day. As for tomorrow, I will either run a similar distance or maybe take the turn around the corner of the park and try to hit 5-5.5 miles. We'll see how I'm feeling and how much time I have. It'll be an easy-moderate base run regardless though. Glad the weather held up for the run today.

Much love,
Jess