Jenny's Winter "Find What Drives You" Mentor Group - Open (Page 13)

The Camp Fire Chicken Run went very well.  I won my first Masters Male plaque they gave to the first place adult.  It's a little bitter sweat because I chased a 10 year old girl the whole course and she ran off and left me at the end, lol.  The course started at a school very close to my house.  Although my Garmin only recorded had 88ft gain it is a tough course.

21' 57" time; 3.08 miles; 07:05 min/mile pace

Personally, been MIA from training this last week.  I hit mid-week last week and foudn i just had nothing left... mentally and physically just exhausted.  Recovery from hard workouts is not going well and had trouble getting past 30 mins on my last 'long bike' workout on Wednesday... ended up missing my long run of the week, as well as Saturday's swim and short bike.  I kind of decided by Friday morning that i just had to put the training plan on hold for a few days and listen to all the signs my body was giving me that it needs a bit of a break.  I didn't want to, as it was just a couple of days away from finishing my second-last volume build part of my current tri plan, but then i remembered by #1 goal for this season is to finish healthy and not injured... so I decided that a DFL finish in next month's season opener was less punishing than a DNS due to injury... besides, someone's gotta make everyone else look good!  I'm still really tired, but I think the 5 days off will help me re-group this week... so this brings up a question for our mentors...

I missed pretty much the entire week in a serious volume-building week and rested instead.  This week, should I go back and re-do the volume building workouts, or just keep on schedule and keep with this week's workouts that are the 'recovery week' workouts at the end of the month.  For reference, I'm at Month 3-Week 4 of the "Sprint 2x Balance-16 week" program.  My first race is in one month (May 26)  AND IT'S STILL SNOWING HERE.

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I would say stay on schedule.  It sounds like a recovery week would be good for you instead of trying to play catch up to a full load.  Maybe toss in an extra run or a little extra time if you feel up to it but I wouldn't push it.  After all, this recovery starts your last build month before your tapper, correct?

Edit: Blah, snow!

And here i thought my 4:00 hundreds were great!  I knew they were slow, but not that slow!  I've always been a slow swimmer. ):  My pace has been holding steady as i've added on the yards though.

Last week it was snowing pretty good here and i still couldn't afford the gym.  The last two weeks i was feeling under the weather and i'm not 100% sure why.  It could just be allergies, but i found out about a week ago that one of my students has mono so i've been wondering if i've been fighting that off but i think i was just being a hypochondriac.  So i had one week where i only worked out two days and then last week i worked out as normal the last half of the week.  And i just realized that i thought i had an extra week of training because i had been looking at my training log the wrong way (counting the last full week as race week, not good).  Looking back at my log it's hard for me to get to the gym or on the pavement more than four days a week.  But i only have a month left so try to apply myself again.  I'm only really worried about the bike as that seems to be harder than i remembered.  I do great on the Spinner at the gym, but my bike only seems to go 1/3 to 1/2 of that speed.  Anyways, between financial problems paying for pool/gym, weather (can't remember the last time we had this much snow in April), and allergies i am feeling like a failure and doubt i'll be able to compete in as many races this season as i had hoped.  Very disappointing.

I understand.  It's hard to keep going sometimes, especially when it feels like everything in the world is coming at you.  Hang in there!  Just don't become complacent and allow "real life" to steal your goals/dreams.  

I hope y'all understand I'm preaching to myself on these boards than anyone particular?  If I don't constantly remind myself what I should be doing, I'll never get to where I want to be!  Next thing you know I'm sitting on the couch eating ice cream watching a movie.  Or one of my daughters home made cupcakes, blast her!!!

It's funny how we're all dealing with some form of weather issues! I'm pretty sure I experienced all of the seasons on just yesterday! We like to say down here, if you don't like the weather at the moment, wait a few hours, it's bound to change!  I'm back in the pool and really focusing on getting a better body/head position so that I don't have so much drag.  Also focusing on 'rolling' and being a more efficient kicker. 

Sorry for your loss Monty.  I had to attend a family funeral last weekend and I contemplated packing my bike and going for a ride on the quiet country roads, but like you, it was just one day so I used it as family time.

Is Jenny still around? Haven't heard much from here lately, guess she's getting the studio up and running!

Thanks Angie.  The funeral went very well.  Granddad was 96 years old!  I can't imagine!!!

Jenny's probably busy hammering some poor soul in her new spin class, lol.

Starting my tapper this week for the first, and maybe only, tri of 2013.  I still want to do well but my motivation to "slam it" just isn't there.  We've started our spring maintenance outage at the power plant which means I'm not having a day off for the next 2-3 weeks except for my one vacation day - a sprint triathlon.  It's hard to work outside for 12 hours and rush home for a two hour bike/run brick workout.  And what an amazing family I have to let me do something so stupid, lol.

Just had to get my whine out of the way.  Have a good week!

Monty, that was a pretty justified whine, for sure.  Hang in there!!

Hope everyone is doing well. It's FINALLY spring here!  Flowers blooming, temps in the mid teens this week (60's) and NO SNOW.  You have no idea how happy I am.  And AND... I may actually have a lead on an affordable bike that's small enough for me!  Found an old Miele in great shape for about $225.  If I can make arrangements to check it out, and it looks decent, should have it by the end of the week, and then I can finally get on the roads, with 3 weeks to spare!  Fingers crossed that it works out.  Nerves are just starting to creep in... training is going well... i've missed only a handful of workouts in the last 3 months, but i'm really just nervous about freezing in the water as this spring has been so cold.  But i'm trying to remember that this is not my 'A' race for the year, so just enjoy the experience and learn as much as i can going forward.

My question for this week is this:  for the last two swims, my goggles are suddenly fogging up like its going out of style.  any suggestions as to why this is suddenly happening??

Good luck on the bike!!  /em crossing fingers.  And, it sounds like your training is coming along great.  

There's a anti fog coating inside most goggles that will ware out in no time, it seems.  Do you use any anti fog spray?  I use Quick Spit.  I'm sure you can buy it anywhere you find swim stuff.  One squirt in each side, rub it in, quick rinse, and go.  I've done 60 minute workouts without removing my goggles.  Of course the rings around my eyes didn't go away for a few hours but what the heck!

Oh, take a bottle of water with you into transition and Quick Spit your goggles before the race.

Another tip, some reports say that more people get motion sickness when swimming in cold water.  Pills and ears plugs have been said to help.

"There was a UFC fighter there"... whooo!  GO!  Nice job Jayare  :D  that's so awesome!!!  The swimming comes... when I got back into the pool in Feb, same story.  I found for the first little bit, my body did the whole "omg, i'm in the water and that means I must be dying' routine, but after a few sessions, it realized that all was well and was able to get to 100m sets without stopping in a couple of weeks.  Fast forward 2 months, and i've finally hit that stride that lets me get into a cruising gear and just go without needing to stop and rest, so keep at it.  For me, a big part of that was pacing slow enough in the first couple of lengths, and if i did that, i found that cruising gear much quicker.  Awesome you found at tri group!  I'm sure you'll get lots off of them

Nice ride, Erica!  Thanks for the bike porn, lol.

Keep up the good work guys!