Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Week 12: F-ing Stressful


Overall this week was really stressful.  I had a lot to do for school that I meant to do over the weekend, but didn’t because I was sick.  I was short on sleep because I was staying up late to work on everything.  Some mornings (Friday) this meant postponing a workout that otherwise would have been done.  On Thursday I felt like I needed to make a huge decision about school, but I didn’t have enough time to gather enough information to make that decision.  It was the first time I felt like Ironman could potentially compromise my future.  By Friday afternoon I was feeling more in control though and ready to tackle everything school, life and training could throw at me.  Let’s hope that feeling lasts after the caffeine and sugar wear off…

2/13/2012
Rest Day.  I’m catching up on all of the things I haven’t had the motivation to do over the last week, including emailing the professor I want to do my next rotation with.  Of course, since I put it off so long, he’s now full and I have to find someone else in the next eleven days.  This next rotation needs to be a good one, if my 2nd rotation doesn’t want to take me I’m not a huge fan of my other two options. I’m pissed at myself for putting this off so long.  And of course there’s still a long list of other things I need to deal with.

2/14/2012
So Sarah and I stayed up late last night delivering heart-shaped cookies that we’d baked to our friend’s labs.  It was pretty fun, but I probably shouldn’t have sampled so many cookies.  Quality control I guess?  I tried really hard to talk myself out of it but I got up at 5 to swim this morning.  It went better than I expected, I’m still feeling a little sick but I was able to breathe okay through the whole thing.  I used a pull buoy during my drills and once again noticed a difference in my stroke efficiency.

I did my 45 min run on the indoor track and felt okay, although I think the 5 minutes of Z4 (175-185 bpm) took a lot out of me because I broke out in chills and a cold sweat about half way through lifting weights.  So I went home and had soup right away.

2/15/2012
 Bike 45 transition to 15 run

2/16/2012
Swim (main set: 7x125 w/ 20 s rest, 7x75 w/ 15 s rest), strength training (3 reps of 10), 60 bike with 5 minutes Z4 (166-176 bpm). 

2/17/2012
1:12 run (was supposed to be 1:00 but I got a little ambitious) with 5 minutes Z4. I booked it up a hill for that part, or at least it felt like I was booking it, by the top it was more of a crawl.  But I felt really good when I turned on to a gentle downhill and ran pretty fast.  I was supposed to swim 3000 yards straight but I was really stressed out with school so it got rescheduled (thanks Nate for reminding me that it’s okay to do things like that sometimes).

2/18/2012
I meant to get up at 6 to do Friday’s swim workout, but I was up until 3 Friday night hanging out with by best friend Kia, who was visiting for the weekend.  By the time we made it to the pool at 8:45 all the lanes were full of aerobics and Master’s classes, so I just did my scheduled workout of 2:30 bike with transition to 0:15 run.  Starting to run after biking for 2:30 is WAY different than only biking for 45 minutes.  My toes were numb and there was a sharp pain in the top of my right knee for the first few minutes of my run.  I think the latter was from the end of Friday’s run; it was getting dark and cold towards the end, so I was striding out on a pretty extended downhill portion to get home faster.  

2/19/2012
I made today my rest day because the pool still would have been full, to give my knee more of a break, it was Kia’s last day in town and because I had a lot of school work. 

2/20/2012
I finally did my 3000 yard swim!  I was feeling pretty congested and had some trouble breathing for the first half, even though I was going really slowly.  I had built it up so much in my mind by this time that I allowed myself as many brief pauses at the edge as I needed to cough or adjust my swim cap or whatever.  Anything to get through it and convince myself it wasn’t a big deal.  I felt pretty good by the end and even did an extra 100 yards.  I’ll probably increase it by 100 every time I do this workout over the next ten weeks, then when I get to the 3500 yard swim in the next block, it won’t be intimidating. 

I also did Sunday’s workout in the evening (60 min run Z1-Z2 on the indoor track with Sarah and 30 min bike, ~100 rpm, Z1).  Then banana pancakes for dinner!

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