Sunday, June 16, 2013

Freaking Out and a Training Update

Empire Records is one of my adolescent self's favorite movies and over the last few weeks, I've been finding myself constantly making comparisons to Liv Tyler's character-- not the losing my virginity to Rex Manning part-- but the using every hour of every day to do something part... minus the speed. If I don't clear some space for myself, I'm going to FREAK OUT:
Oh man, that is some A+ acting... fer reals.

But seriously, I have been way too busy for the last two weeks. My expectation of what my summer was going to be compared to what it is is making me feel really overwhelmed. I just finished my eighth year of working in schools and teaching and I want to write down the lessons that took me six years to really learn so that I don't forget as I delve deeper into my summer work:
1. My family comes before my career.
2. My physical and mental health come before my career.
3. No teacher should strive to be a martyr.

Easy, right? 
Bwahahaha

Anyway, onto tri training and my week of workouts...
Going back to clean eating was fairly easy and it made me feel awesome. I slipped a little lot yesterday when we had people over, but it was to be expected and I'm not beating myself up over it. Plus, I rode 36 miles on my bike (more on that in a minute) so I didn't feel too bad about eating like crap. Back to it this week!

Training this week was a bit brutal on my body. I'm left with these questions:
When will the day come when I am no longer sore? 
What am I doing wrong? 
Is my body just not meant to be athletic? 
Should I stretch for longer than 15 minutes after my workouts? 

Kind of negative, I know, but GEEZ. I think I've been sore since January. 

The Plan
Monday: 23 swim
Tuesday: 46 bike
Wednesday: 31 swim, 62 bike
Thursday: 31 run
Friday: 39 swim
Saturday: 5K and 36 mile bike to South Haven
Sunday: Off! 

The Real Deal
Monday: 60 swim
Tuesday: 90 bike and yoga
Wednesday: 31 swim
Thursday: 60 bike, 35 run
Friday: Off (my low back was KILLING me from my run)
Saturday: No 5k due to the killer low back, 36 mile bike ride adventure to South Haven
Sunday: Off

Conclusions:
I need to run more and stretch for longer afterwards.
Yoga is key
The better I eat, the more energy I have

Now, I'd like to expand on what I meant when I called yesterday's bike ride a "36 mile bike ride adventure."
I wanted to ride to South Haven to celebrate being what we like to call "Dirty Thirty." Here is the conversation I had with the park volunteer before we set out on the bike trail that gets people from Kalamazoo to South Haven:
Volunteer: Where are you riding?
Me: To South Haven
Volunteer: Didn't you read the signs? There are about 100 trees down between here and there.
Me: Well, we're gonna try it anyway.
And try it we did. It was truly a Dirty Thirty celebration. 

The volunteer was wrong. There were 185 downed trees. And we traversed the wilderness to make it work. What is usually a two to two and a half hour ride became a four hour riding and hiking adventure:
I'm fairly certain this ride did not help my low back issues... however, it was so fun that I threw caution to the wind. 
Getting our bikes through became a crazy obstacle course.
At one point we hit the road because the trees were too much. I may have turned to drink.

Then we were back to the trees!

We lost our man Joe when the derailleur was ripped off of his bike (the Hubs picked him up), Alyssa and I probably have poison ivy, Miche became a professional weight lifter to get her bike over branches, and DWebb lost a spoke and got stabbed by a branch, but it was all in good fun. I have really good friends, and despite the crazy overwhelming busy schedule, I got to spend a lot of time with them yesterday. :)

This week's the training schedule looks like this:
Monday- 23 swim, 43 bike
Tuesday- 23 run
Wednesday- 2k Open Water Swim (ooooo, my first open water swim competition!!!!) I'm nervous!!!!
Thursday- 62 bike, 31 run
Friday- Off
Saturday-39 swim, 77 bike
Sunday- 31 run

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