Training has been satisfying this week! While I haven't really done what's written on The Schedule, I think I've done a good job making sure I hit the three disciplines evenly throughout the week. I also managed to squeeze in two short brick/transition workouts, which is a new challenge for me.
Last weekend, I traveled to Iowa to visit family and totally over-indulged in festival food (pork Ts! hot mini donuts! hot dogs!) and car food (candy! corn nuts! pop!), and was feeling pretty barfy by Sunday afternoon when we got home. I flopped on the couch and prepared to laze the rest of Sunday away when a nagging thought wormed its way inside my head: "You really should get out and do something. It's been four days since you exercised and you overate to the extreme this weekend. You know you'll feel better if you sweat some of the junk out." As much as I tried to rationalize my way out of a workout, guilt won out and I decided to squeeze in an hour workout somehow.
It had been about a week since I took the bike out of the garage, so I settled on a short bike ride after a swim. It was sort of a pain logistically--I'm still too scared of traffic to ride on the roads, so I had to load my bike in the hubby's truck (first removing his ladder and stuff from the back), find an extra key for the lock, stop by the gas station to air up my bike tires and THEN drive to the pool. Still, the effort was worth it. I knocked out a quick 500m at the pool and loaded back up in the truck to drive to the levy for my bike ride. I'd lucked out with a gorgeous, not-TOO-hot day and biked about 6 miles to round out the workout. Not too shabby for an unplanned workout.
Monday I realized it had been a while since I'd done any running, but the thought of hitting any of my typical 'hood routes was too boring to bear and I didn't have much time to commit to driving elsewhere to run. Also, I'd read two issues of Runner's World nearly back-to-back and was under the influence some subliminal messaging, leading me to the brilliant idea of running to the local track to do some speedwork. 2.5 heinous miles later, I remember why I hated jr high track so much. Sprints are SO not my bag, baby. Yeah, yeah, I know they serve purpose and you don't get better at them if you never do them, but holy cow. Those are NOT fun. But I cranked them out nonetheless.
Tuesday I managed another brick, this time of the bike/run variety. Only about 5 miles on the bike, and I barely managed a 1 mile run after. It was my first bike/run brick and it was quite a wake-up call. I knew my legs would feel wobbly, but I wasn't prepared for exactly how wobbly they'd feel. It took me half the run to get my land legs under me. The second half of the run wasn't pretty physically, but I had the pleasure of running into a friend who was riding his bike the same direction I was running. We chatted while I ran and he biked (slowly) and before I knew it we were back to my truck! It was nice having someone show up unexpectedly, just when I needed the distraction the most. Serendipity FTW!
Wednesday I opted to rest, and by "rest" I mean "took my 4yo to the pool so she could jump in and have me catch her 5,000 times which I'm sure counts as some exercise, right?"
Thursday was strictly swim, and it was awesome! This week's schedule called for 1050m, so I figured I'd aim for a min of 1000, hope to hit 1050, and if I get anything beyond that, BONUS. I was also running short on time (what else is new?), so I was trying to crank this out in 30 minutes. I wasn't sure if it was possible, but I was going to try. I hit 250m at 7:30 min, and I thought it was going to be doable. I've been trying to work on my stroke lately, going for less random, crazy, crashing about and more deliberate, long, smooth pulls. Moving from what I think of as a sprint stroke to a distance stroke (I have no clue if there's even such a thing, that's just how I categorize them in my mind), makes it feel as if I'm going much slower than usual, but I wonder if I'm getting more power and that makes up for the lack of turnover? I don't know. Things I think about when my head's in the water. Anyway, the short of it is, I ended up finishing 1000m with about 1:30 to spare, so I decided to see if I could bust out an additional 75m in that time. I made it in a final time of 30:14! Not too shabby. It was an exhilarating swim on an scorchingly hot day.
So, not too bad of a week! The tri is 6 weeks from Sunday, which is darn close. I'm doing my best to be ready in time!
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