A few weeks out

Learning a few lessons from the body and in life I suppose over the last few months. Training is in full gear as of this last week after a 3-4 week disruption through March. It's funny how this is the first year I've really put limits on hours per week getting back up to speed and I feel it has really paid off. Most noticeably, no injuries!

I've learned you have to wait for things or situations to come to you and hope that they do, but be able to move on if they don't. Whether it's endurance, a job, a new bike or something else that's out there for you. On the bike or in a run the last few weeks I've had to stop thinking about where I need to be and just focus on where I'm at and not to rush the process. Training is harder than it needs to be sometimes simply because the long hours give you much too much time to think...

Track and longer bike rides have filled the schedule lately. Core workouts have filled the swim days while I'm in between pools right now. Track is coming along really good, I started off a notch slower and think it's really paid off doing so. Last year and the year before I think I would of already had a few pulls in some not so fun places. I've kept top speed at and around 6:45-7:00 as compared to last years 6:05-6:20 which really was fun, but produced on going injuries throughout the season.

The group I've been running w/ at track has been really fun to work w/ as well. I'm very humbled to be running w/ them, which is a great thing. Well it's windy and a touch nasty out, but I have to go hit some hill repeats over in the Blue Ridge area to start cycle hill training in earnest: Strenuous Hill Interval Training - S.H.I.T is on the menu for the legs and lungs this morning. I love it when people comment that I'm light so I don't have to really work on hill work. It must be that and not the miles and hours of vertical work I put in on the bike every year. My thought to that is gravity is one ones friend, deal with it...

Inspiration...

Spin class today was just kicking my ass, about 20 minutes in I realized I was in trouble, crap.

Mostly (completely) it was my own fault, I stayed up watching Madmen until 1 AM the night before. Ugh… At least I knew what the problem was. I lowered down and looked over and saw this older guy just dying on the hill workout, but holding his own. He looked over at me and said, “stay in there”. Here I was ready to call it a day and this guy, who looked like I felt, tries to throw a line out to me.

From there I focused on pace and got back into the rhythm of the class and had a good, not great, but good workout. I’d never met the guy before, but thanked him after the class. I felt at that point I was falling and no one would notice if I just slowed, got off and left. Bagging a much needed and important part of the days workout.

The plan was:

Spin class -1 hour – treat like a Time Trial
Hill Work – 30 minutes
Run – 30 minutes

Just that half second of “stay in there” was enough to finish the rest of a pretty good workout. From there I went on and did the hill workout that I had planned. I do it on a stairmastertypetorturemachine, it mimics the movement of hill climbing on the bike pretty well. After 30 strong minutes on that thing I put in a solid 30 minute run.

Note to self: if you want to push 90%-95% at the end of a long workout to replicate a strong kick at the end of a race put in a little Rage against the machine on the shuffle.

As this season starts up and training really moves into the next phase I have to start and look into motivation and am currently looking for another Tri Team to join. After last weeks long bike and run, and I know it just goes with the territory, but I was so bored. Not so much from the ride, just from the fact that last week I was solo, the one before that, this weekend solo, next week will probably be solo as well. So I’m looking around for a new team. Also, teams are great for pulling that extra bit of training or extra bit of inspiration during a race.

And you never know where or when you’ll need “some” words or a look to give you that push that gets you through the weak miles or minutes of a workout.