Honesty is the best policy

[Day 67B]

Long post. All the personal messiness. Brace yourselves.

So I think I got carried away. I'm really ambitious. I want to be the absolute best that I can be and I work off the assumption that in the long run I am limitless. I allow myself to believe that because I think it's the only way you ever find out exactly where your limits are. If you pre-define your limits without really searching the space, you'll never figure it out for real. But the other half of that story is that it makes me prone to (a) thinking I'm way more capable than I actually am and (b) me beating myself up a lot when it turns out that that isn't true or (c) me not being willing to admit that (a) is true and beating myself up over some character flaw or another (usually it's related to lack of discipline and focus and an inability to actually work hard enough). I got carried away. Sometimes I want to be better so badly that it makes me a little bit blind.

Henry suggested this morning that I take my run this afternoon with my watch face blank. No pace/distance/cadence/whatever numbers, keep it on to track stats for afterwards but just run however I wanted to run. I had told him that I was upset that there was no joy in the lift this morning. I'm usually so happy in the gym. I usually love the crazy way it feels to use your body at the limits of what it is capable of doing. It's amazing. And today it just wasn't amazing. I hit the heaviest deadlift reps I've ever hit (and if anyone is going to tell me that 145 is no weight, they can stop and shove it because it is for me and I'm really proud of it) and there was just no excitement about it. I don't want that. I don't do this because there's any inherent value in how much weight I can pick up off the ground and then immediately drop. I do it because it feels satisfying. I do it because it makes me happy. And today I wasn't happy and that was upsetting. (And you see what not being happy does to me - it makes me walk out in the middle of a workout because I'm actually really terrible at trying to do things that make me unhappy.) So Henry told me to just ditch the numbers and goals and things for a day and try to enjoy some nice weather (the weather is beautiful today) and find what makes me happy.

I was skeptical. I wasn't gonna do it. But when it came time for me to run this afternoon, I took his advice. I ran however my body told me was best (which was funny because I think it's still really blown from yesterday - I felt like a baby deer learning how to walk, I just felt so unsteady and clumsy on my feet today) and just let myself enjoy the process. I forgave myself for being not as fast as I want to be and I got to think a lot about everything that's been going on. There was a lot to those thoughts. Summary first, then we'll talk.

Today's PM Workout: Easy base run, 7 mi
Summary: 7.02 mi, 1:09:48, 9:56 pace, 170 spm cadence
Pace splits by mile: 9:34, 9:56, 10:09, 10:08, 10:10, 10:00, 9:39
Hit Rate: 71/78 (91.0%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Title notes: What I mean by "honesty is the best policy" is that I need to listen to my body more, like I did today. One of the things I thought about on the run was the fact that these past two months have been the most consistent block of training that I've gotten in since junior year of college (when I strung together about 2 or 3 months of pretty great swim training that was sort of stalled by a lot of binge drinking). The last time I had been training this consistently was high school. The volume is new, my body is adapting to it, it goes through waves of feeling good and feeling bad and the process isn't linear. I haven't been wanting to listen to my body, but it's seen a few big workouts this past week (three 2+ hour workouts, two of which were bricks with fairly fast runs coming off the bike and one of which was the longest run I've taken all year) and it can't just keep pounding on like that forever. I am tired, it's forgivable, I need to listen and be willing to go slow on days like today so I can give myself opportunities to have more big days (and not just any big days but productive big days that realistically aid in building my fitness and aren't likely to get me overworked and injured).
• Outside of just having to listen to my body, I think I need to come back around to being comfortable with what training on accumulated fatigue means. We swam a lot in high school. You were always slow at practice. It was okay because we deloaded before the big meet and BAM magic speed came out of nowhere. That's how endurance training works. I have to get comfortable with not seeing the kind of numbers in runs and bikes that I expect to see race day. The fact of the matter is that I will likely not be seeing those kinds of numbers until race day, when I will likely very pleasantly surprise myself. 
• The caveat to the above thought: It doesn't matter if I don't pleasantly surprise myself. Races are fun because you never know what might come of them. You don't control conditions, you don't control the course, you control what you do to prepare and the rest is up to fate. You can be as fit as can be and some days the tide swings in your favour and some days it doesn't. That's okay. As much as I'm expecting the work to pay off with gains on race day, I can't demand that. It either will be or it won't be and I have to be accepting of that either way. 
• Another interesting thought to that end: Sometimes I find myself wanting to say things to the effect of "but I worked hard so I deserve this". I have to be better about not feeling entitled to progress just because I did something. Plenty of people do things. There's more to progressing than just working or just working harder and there are so many variables that you're never going to have it all figured out. Putting in the work is a requisite part of the process, but that in no way entitles you to progress. I believe that if you put in work consistently enough for a long enough time, progress will eventually come. But that doesn't mean I can demand progress just because I've been working. I have to be better about remembering that fact. 
• One of the things I think I've said on this blog before is that I need to start where I am, and not where I want to be. I've been jealous of how much success my friends have been having in training. I've been jealous of boys and their naturally high testosterone levels (and probably generally greater athleticism when compared to me outside of that) and girls with talent I could never even fathom. I want to be that good. I'm not. And you can't fake it. You can't just "try harder" and be there. I'm not on that level. I know that. I would like to work towards that. But I have to start where I am, not where I want to be. 
• Which brings me to another point: Patience. A lot of the things above relate to me being impatient. I've been working for a few months and I want to see that turn around in fitness and it hasn't been a crazy drastic thing like I want it to be. But if I look back a year in the past, there are definitely lots of bits of progress I can see. Sure, my run paces are pretty comparable and haven't budged much (if anything I might be a little slower on average right now) and my swimming is pretty much in the same place, but the average volume I'm sustaining week after week is way higher, the amount that I can comfortably do on the bike now has increased by a ton, and my comfort with longer workouts (runs, bricks, whatever) has increased too. It takes time to get better. And not just a month or two of time, years and years of time. When I was a freshman in high school, my swim season was cut short by an ACL injury and one of my coaches had told me to not worry about being set back by that time out of the water because swimming was a sport of "accumulation". (He had used the Chinese term "积累".) The whole idea is that I didn't get good at swimming in a few weeks. We built base and technical skill and speed and strength and power over years and years. I wasn't going to lose the years in a few weeks. I'd be rusty when I got back, but those years would still be there, I would just have to work on dusting them off to get back to where I wanted to be. But that's the thing, I had to put those years in first to get that base. I'm sure the same thing goes for what I'm doing here and now with triathlon. I'm only a year and a half into it, I have so much to learn and so much to improve on, and it's going to be a process of accumulating miles and experience so I have that foundation. The progress doesn't come overnight. I need to be more patient. 
• The other issue that came up in my conversations with Henry is that sometimes I have no confidence in the training I'm doing. Which is stupid. I know what I'm doing for the most part with the plan. The plan is the way it is for a reason. The funny thing is, that reason is probably why I worry about it. I didn't really build the plan to be the perfect triathlon training plan. I really built the plan to try and balance gaining fitness for racing with doing things that I enjoyed. Sometimes I enjoy being challenged so I throw in hard days. Sometimes I enjoy just going easy and slow so I throw those days in too. There's really not a fantastic reason for me to be lifting the way I do, and frankly there's not a ton of reason behind how I lift, but I do it because it's fun and I love it and it makes my life better. (And I'm pretty sure it makes me just more fit in general, and even if that doesn't directly make me a better triathlete, it probably doesn't hurt right? Outside of lost opportunity cost. Which I'll take in terms of the happiness I get out of it in return.) There's probably no reason at all for me to be going to sprint freestyle days, but those are some of my favourite workouts so I keep going to them. Conversely I should probably go to more distance free days, but I don't like them as much so I sprinkle a few in there but I don't demand that I do that every single week. I was cognizant of balancing the things that made me happy with the things that made me better when I planned it. And all of a sudden when I started feeling pressure to improve faster, I started second guessing the planning and the values that drove how I planned. I need to stop doing that. I made this thing so that I could be happy doing it. It won't make me the absolute fastest I can possibly be, but it'll help me improve while helping me stay in love with these things that I do genuinely love. I need to have more faith in that, not just in terms of trusting that the plan will get me to where I want to go but also in terms of really believing in the value of my own happiness as a key part of the equation. 
• Related to bullet point above: I'm trying a CrossFit class on Saturday! If you read this blog, you know I've been following the open and it's just been super inspiring watching people of so many different skill and ability levels tackle these crazy workouts. I love trying stuff. I love doing things with my body. I love learning new physical skills and I've always wanted to learn to do the Olympic lifts and be better at pull ups. But CrossFit has always felt like the wrong thing no matter how much I loved watching it. It's just such a crazy mix of high intensity and high volume work and I'm training for an endurance sport and if anything it'll just get me injured right? Well I've been actually thinking about that the past few days now that I've gotten myself into the messy situation of planning to actually trying it out because what if I like it? What then? I mean it's super easy if I don't like it, wipe my hands clean of that and move on, but it's been interesting to think about what might happen if I do like it. And on the run today, after all the thoughts above, one of the things I realized is this: It's like everything else, you figure out how to do the things you enjoy. You give them a chance, you work them into your schedule, you adapt, you accept that everything comes with a sacrifice. Training inevitably means my schoolwork quality suffers. Not to the point that I want to give up training altogether, but it's something I have to accept. Conversely, sometimes I have to focus on school and inevitably training suffers. But again, those are my priorities on those days and it's something I have to accept. If it turns out there's another thing in the world I want to give a spin and it'll encroach on all my sort of planned out triathlon specificity, well I guess we'll have to see if I like it enough to give up some of that. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I'm a little less nervous about Saturday knowing that I've thought about what it could mean for some of the other things going on in my life. 
• Last thing: Effort. I feel like I almost constantly find myself telling myself that I should be working harder or trying harder or whatever. But honestly, that's not what anything is about. There is a certain level of effort you should give to everything. And when you have it in you to give more, you should. But you can't be full throttle 24/7 because no one actually has that capacity, and me sitting around pretending that I do and beating myself up for it when it turns out that I can't actually do that helps literally no one. Not every day can be destructively awesome, it would kill you. Average days are good days too. I really have to try and believe the contents of this particular bullet point. This is a valuable and honest bullet point that I forget over and over and over again and it causes me a lot of misery sometimes. 

Soooooooo. Now that the full contents of my soul are laid out in a blog post, I think I can...heat up dinner and get some studying done now? Lol hope everyone had a good Monday. (:

Much love,

Jess

PS - Plan is AM swim for tomorrow, along with a tri team appeal for more Nationals/Wildflower funding in the evening. Fingers crossed that that goes well. Too bad the appeal meeting is late at night, will make getting up early to lift on Wednesday super rough. Original Wednesday morning plan had been to do some circuit work or something, but I'm gonna try and do a repeat of this morning's planned lift on Wednesday instead and hopefully actually get through the entire workout. There will also be a long trainer ride in the PM on Wednesday. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Just wish us luck for that appeal tomorrow!

I have a lot of feelings.

[Day 46]

Fun facts: I don't handle myself very well. It takes a lot for me to be satisfied with myself and okay days or even good days generally don't make that mark. I had a rough time this morning at the gym and I'm still figuring out where I am given that. I wasn't as mentally present as I like to be, but sometimes it's just hard to be fully mentally present at 5 am and I'm willing to cut myself some degree of slack for that. The problem though is that I think honestly I've been falling back on Henry a lot these past couple days, I've really let him take the mental burdens for me because it's so much easier than stepping up and taking responsibility for my own efforts. As much as I know that having him around makes me better in a lot of ways, I also know I'm doing myself a disservice if I let that become an excuse for me to be less tough on myself because I know he'll pick up the slack. I wasn't 100% there and 100% committed this morning and I don't like that.

I definitely also totally psyched myself out this morning. I had such a mind-blowingly great lift on Thursday and to me all of that was from the kick I got from getting to take that lift fed and in the evening when my body was warm and ready to go. It scared me so hard to be getting back into the gym this morning because I felt the weight of wanting to hit those numbers again but knowing that I was going back to being fasted and cold. I was telling Henry about this on the way out there, some people feel a lot of pressure going into races/events, but I typically don't. I mean don't get me wrong, I get nervous and I'm hungry to do well but I think everything that I can possibly control about the race is already out of my hands. I build those races in the months that lead up to it and the day of is just a matter of execution and the right kind of luck because there are always race circumstances that are out of your control. But I feel pressure every day that I'm training, every time I lace up to run and every time I clip in on the trainer and every time I dive in the pool and every time I get under a bar at the gym, I feel so much pressure because those moments are what are going to make or break my races and every single workout feels so valuable and so important and so heavy sometimes. It sucks to fall short in those contexts, it really does, and that's where I feel the nerves and the pressure the most.

One of the things I've noticed about my benching especially is that what's going through my head on my first rep normally has a way of determining how the rest of the set goes. I've been trying really hard to tell myself that it's easy weight on that first rep, I just repeat that to myself over and over no matter how that first rep actually feels because I know it makes a difference in how many I end up being able to hit. I think today I was expecting everything to be harder because of the whole being fasted/cold thing and I think it definitely played into me not performing quite like I wanted to be. I'm bad at the mental game and I hate that because it seems like such a simple thing to fix. Just don't think like this. It's frustrating today.

The other things worth noting today are that I had a pretty rough morning post-workout. I felt fine immediately afterwards but after about an hour and getting some food into my system, I felt genuinely awful. I ended up taking about an hour nap just in Henry's lap on the couch trying to get put back together and I've been doing much better since, especially after lunch. It was not the start to my day I wanted though. I also sort of felt shitty because Henry was obviously going about his life being a perfectly functional normal human being but I was such a mess. It was just one of those situations where I felt awful for not being able to pull it together and just suck it up and be normal because someone who literally did the exact same workout as I did this morning happened to be sitting next to me and was perfectly fine. That's the kind of thing that makes me feel weak in an extra special way. -Sigh-

I should also comment on the swim meet yesterday. It was meant to be a dual meet with the SLU club team, but they dropped out due to weather (it was snowing yesterday) so we ended up holding a time trial instead. My swims were super slow, but also I was getting like a couple minutes between each swim so what was I expecting really. Regardless, it was a blast. I love racing, like deep down at the core of who I am I love racing. It didn't matter that the context was a casual time trial, my body goes places it would never go in practice when I'm racing and I love that feeling so much. There was a distinct point in the third 50 of my 200 free when literally everything in my body hurt and I was just like, awwwwwwww yes this is what I live for and I dug a bit deeper. Which made me feel sort of like a total weirdo, but hey, it's what I love to do. So I'm going to summarize yesterday and today!

Yesterday's Workout: WUSTL Swim Club Time Trial
Summary:

• Meet Warm Up:
• 200 free, 200 kick
• 8 x 50 sprint down/easy back 
• 8 x 25 IMO
• 2 x 25 breakouts off the blocks
• Swims: we were hand timing, so I don't have exact numbers
• 200 free: 2:20 low
• 100 back: 1:17 high
• 100 IM: 1:16 high
• 50 back: 35 mid
• WU/WD yardage: 350
• Total Distance: 1850 SCY (I counted this as 30 mins on my Garmin)

Hit Rate: 49/52 (94.2%)

Today's Workout: AM Lift w/ Henry

Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 65#, working 5 x 8/8/8/6-2 @ 105#, 1 x 8 @ 95#
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, working 3 x 8/8/6-2 @ 85#
• Deadlifts: 3 x 8 @ 125#
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12/12/9-3/12 @ 7 plates alt. wide/narrow grip
• Legs giant set: 3 x 
• Goblet squats: 15 @ 45#
• Weighted split squats: 15/side @ 15# DBs/side (these got split pretty heavily, they were real rough)
• Reverse lunges: 15/side @ 15# DBs/side
• Superset: 3 x
• BB push press: 12 @ 45#
• BB row: 12 @ 45#
• Superset: 3 x 
• Bicep curls: 12/side @ 15# (I should like probably be doing more weight but I'm always afraid I'm going to destroy my wrists or something...)
• Skull crushers: 12 @ 15# (I think I normally do these a bit lighter but it was fun to try and get through these at this weight. It was hard, I didn't do a great job, had to break them up a lot and had Henry spot quite a few of them, but it was fun to try.)

Hit Rate: 50/53 (94.3%)

The only note I have to say about this is that I repeated the set I did with Fay that one time, but after having back squatted already and subbing normal squats in for goblet squats and I would like to say that this set will f*ck you up. I honestly didn't even push super hard today because my brain was just not in it, but I can almost guarantee you that if you do this right and really fight to get the reps in consecutively it's the kind of metabolic work that would make you vomit. I'm gonna keep working at this, I wanna be fit enough that this set at this weight gets easy.

Okay end long post/rant. Need to get back to studying for physio. Happy Monday! (:

Much love,

Jess

"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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxjvTXo9WWM

[Day 28]

See that title up there? Yeah that one? New Sia. Check it out if you know what's good for your soul.

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

• WU: 250-200-150-100-50 swim @ 10SR 
• It was warm up, I showed up a few minutes late, so inevitably due to weird lane things I think I skipped a total of ~125 over the course of the warm up that I won't count in my total yardage for the day...
• Main Set:
• 8 x 75 free @ 1:15, 7 yd breakout/moderate/7 yd finish hard
• 8 x 125 free @ 2:00, 50 moderate/25 fast no breathing 3 strokes out of turn/50 moderate
• 5 x 100 kick w/ fins @ 1:30, 5 yds fast underwater off each wall/moderate (I did back)
• 4 x 75 free @ 1:15, 25 MAX/50 easy
• 400 free easy, focus on long strokes/reach/DPS
• 100 free MAX (I went 1:10 from a push)
• WD:
• 200 easy
• 4 x 75 free @ 1:15, RB 6/5/4 by 25
• Total Distance: 4025 SCY (4150 SCY as written)

Hit Rate: 29/30 (96.6%)

Notes/thoughts:

• This week has been nice because I've been feeling better just in general. I don't know if I've talked about this yet, but I go through cycles of being really overworked/exhausted and then adapting/adjusting. Right now I'm on one of those upswings where my body has sort of figured out how to recover on this kind of schedule so I'm just generally feeling good and energy levels are bouncing back and it's really nice. At some point we'll up the intensity of some of the workouts (e.g. runs will get longer as I figure out what my knee can handle, trainer rides are going to get longer and probably harder, etc.) and I'll get bounced back down to being tired a lot, but for now I'm enjoying just feeling good for the most part. (There are still times like this morning when I was really exhausted and just sort of wanted to stay in bed forever after breakfast, but I've bounced back pretty well since then and that bouncing back is really the big difference between the good weeks and the not so good weeks.)
• The fun thing about working hard once you've gotten into a bit better shape it that it feels completely different. It's just got a whole different texture to it. It feels like instead of trying really hard to not fall behind, you're working to get ahead, and those two things are so completely different even if you're doing the exact same work. I think that's one of those things that's really helped me with workouts this week. I've honestly not felt very motivated going into any workout, but once I've gotten going I feel like I've been really good at just digging in and loving the process because it feels like I'm taking steps forward. It's been good. (:
• The swim today was particularly reassuring. I feel like my swimming has been on the up and up in general. Possibly because of more consistency, possibly because of strength work, possibly because I'm still making adjustments to my stroke (or really just trying to bring it back to what it used to be) and things are coming together. I really like sprint workouts that are details focused, Thursdays are fun for me even though sometimes I wonder what the point really is when my race distances are like a mile. 
• Today was particularly awesome because we kept up with the fast lane and about halfway through the workout I realized that I have sort of an inferiority complex about that lane that was holding me back and did something to fix that. Even when we're on the same send offs, when I get dropped by the person who leaves the wall at the same time as me, I just let it go instead of fighting it. Today I got a little bit of confidence from a fluke 25 that I swam really fast because right before my push off, our coach was behind the block in my lane yelling coach things about swimming fast and my 12-year-old age grouper reflexes kicked in and I did as I was told. I hit that turn at the same time as the swimmer in the fast lane next to me (instead of 3/4 to a full body length behind him) and it just clicked that there was nothing stopping me but me. So when we did our max 100 and the swimmer in the fast lane started to pull ahead, I was complacent for about a stroke or two before I decided that I was going to race her and I was going to win. I don't think I won, we touched at almost the same time, but I was really proud of myself for going after it because that's something I wouldn't have done even a week ago. A 1:10 from a push isn't horrible, I'll take it given where I'm at right now. I would have probably liked to be under that, I don't really know by how much, but for now I'll be satisfied with that. 

Today is sort of busy but whatever, that's life, I'm getting to do everything I want to do with my life so I can't really complain. Double day tomorrow, another swim in the morning, a short 3 miler outside in the PM to continue with this knee trial thing. But seriously though. Go listen to Sia.

Much love,

Jess

Race Report: Hot Chocolate 15k (St. Louis)

The journey to the start line of this race was tumultous to say the least. Some burnout and an injury (plantar fasciitis) meant that I hadn't been consistently training for about an entire month prior to the race and the lack of fitness was finely evidenced by my finish time. Despite that, however, I'm glad I decided to run the race. It was one of the toughest things that I've done in a while (it turns out being in shape makes races feel considerably less difficult) and I always think it's good to be tested mentally. Not to mention I did really enjoy myself and the break from a long weekend of studying for finals.

It wasn't too early of a morning, a 7:30 am gun time meant I could get up around 5:45 and be comfortable early to the race still. The weather was warm over the weekend which was nice, I wasn't worried about what I should be wearing, shorts and a t-shirt would do the trick. Since I wasn't taking the race very seriously, I also didn't take things like nutrition very seriously. I ate half a Clif Bar and drank some Nuun (had some Nuun the night before as well to get those electrolytes in, I usually prefer the potassium loaded kind of Vitamin Water but I hadn't prepped any in advance so I settled for Nuun) at home, then headed out. I got there with plenty of time to spare to use the restrooms and get my bag checked. I also had 3 Shot Bloks about a half hour before the race, instead of the typical gel and half a bottle of water or Vitamin Water 15 minutes out. Again, wasn't taking it very seriously.

I was lucky enough to be in a preferred corral, so I was able to start with the first wave which opened up very quickly and allowed me to be actually running right from the get go. I hung around the 9:00 minute mile pace pacer for the first 5 or so miles. She was running with another woman and I sort of hovered around them and listened to their conversations. Turns out she got into running also from a competitive swimming to triathlon transition (and she's now an Ironman!) and she recently had a child and has just been getting back into training seriously. She was a pretty sweet person, it was nice to run near those ladies for the first half of the race. I did, however, get dropped soon after that.

The goal going into the race was to try and hit around 9:00 pace and keep it comfortable in the first half and then depending on how I felt, either try to negative split the second half or just try and hold onto the pace for the finish. (Just note that my average pace for the half marathon a month prior was around 8:22, so this was quite a bit slower of a day.) I did well to stay on that pace the first 5 miles and honestly felt really good for about 4.5 of them, then things started falling apart. Those initial splits (according to my Garmin, which did blip in and out a bit on some miles downtown because of the buildings) were 8:53, 8:40, 8:41, 8:59, 8:55. Oh also I should note that it started raining about 5-10 minutes before the start and continued to lightly rain during the remainder of the race. It also got real windy during some segments which was rough. I found myself trying to tuck in behind small groups to get out of the wind, to mixed effectiveness.

After mile 5, things just sort of started coming apart. The lack of fitness was really starting to show and I started feeling really exhausted and running real slow. Towards the end, the route is the same one that the finish of the Rock 'n' Roll half uses, and I remember feeling terrible towards the end of that race as well but I was able to maintain form and pace then whereas this time it was all I could do to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. There were many times around mile 7 when I thought maybe I just wouldn't be able to do it. At this point, my pace had dropped off by so much that a huge stream of people were just flying by me which was really demoralizing. All I could do was tell myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I just had to make it to the finish. It didn't have to be fast, but I wasn't going to let the distance beat me. So I slogged up and down the small hills in the last few miles and eventually made it to the finish. I was pretty disappointed by how the second half of the race went, but I didn't quit on it and I made it to the end, which was what counted. The pace splits were 9:23, 9:28, 9:57, 10:10, 10:32 (for the last ~0.3 mi).

All in all, this was where my performance landed me:

Some thoughts about the race:

• I'm glad that I didn't hurt my foot any worse. It got slightly aggravated towards the end of the race (uphills and downhills especially seem to be what's hard on my feet) but actually bounced back fairly quickly after the race. I'm a week out now and my foot feels perfectly normal again which is a huge blessing. 
• I'm really glad I decided to just go for it. I feel like it's important to race just for the sake of racing sometimes, without pressure for a PR or whatever. I've always been a big believer that frequent low-pressure racing is important to success because it normalizes the race environment and helps manage achievement-related expectations. I think this day really proved that point and will be a helpful experience for when I find myself in slightly higher stakes situations.
• It was really cool to see first hand the huge difference that the training makes. I had run a race at what felt like a very high effort that during a regular portion of my training block would be shorter and around the same pace as my typical weekly long run. In-season fitness is an amazing thing. My half marathon just a month prior was more than 3.5 miles longer than this race and it was faster by almost 1:00 per mile. The training makes a huge difference.
• At the same time, it was cool to see how for my baseline fitness has come since I started running. Turns out I'm capable of more at my baseline untrained level than I thought was possible. When I first started running, 3 miles at an easy effort was hard when I was untrained. Given that, I'm very impressed by the fact that I was able to run 15k continuously. Even with the pace drop off, I was able to average a somewhat decent speed (by my standards) so I'll take it.
• It's a great thing to do something that is mentally difficult. There's more than just good training behind successful races, you also have to have the mental coping skills to back up that fitness in a racing environment. I feel like that's a skill that I lack sometimes and have really needed to work on, both in a day-to-day training sort of way and in a racing environment sort of way. Being challenged physically is one thing, but being challenged mentally and having to rise above the sense of disappointment and discouragement I felt from being much slower than I knew I could be and struggling more than I thought I should be was really valuable. Proving to myself that I can get through those thoughts and be better than that kind of negativity was really special and I know that experience will make me better in the long run. 

Comments on race environment and management:

• The race is spectacularly organized. It was smaller than Rock 'n' Roll but was very friendly, very orderly, and very professional. 
• The swag is great, as is the hot chocolate and free post-race snacks.
• Having a chocolate bar shaped medal is pretty cool. 
• If you're considering registering for this race as a winter training carrot, definitely do it, it's a great experience.
• There were a lot of small children running (both the 5k and the 10k!) which I thought was amazing. Run as a family! It's good for everyone!

I also want to share what the training has looked like between Rock 'n' Roll and this race. I had about one good week of resting and recovery, three weeks of decent (not fantastic) training, and then about four weeks off for various reasons. I'm going to start sharing these for the rest of the races I prepare for as well, just because it'll be interesting to go back and see how performance lines up with training. Usually I expect this will go along well with my "hit rate" measure, which I stopped keeping track of for this cycle because it was clearly not going to be a serious training cycle, but I will pick back up with in the new year.

That's all I've got for now! I haven't actually done any form of physical activity since that race. I've intended to, but finals week was happening and now I'm trying to reassemble my life so I can go home for winter break with my apartment not in an abysmal condition. I'm also trying to get some other things in my life (e.g. I'm playing around with a new plan for tackling studying next semester) sorted out right now so that I can hit the ground running in 2016. I'm a big believer that you need to manipulate your environment in such a way that it maximizes your likelihood of succeeding, so I'm figuring out what adjustments I need to make in order to optimize the world around me so I can just do my thing when I get back.

It's been a great year! Happy holidays to everyone! (:

Much love,
Jess