Not too consistent...

I wish that I could say the rest of the week's training went as well as the first part but I can’t. I got a few solid hours of training in, but nothing like I had hoped or planned. My brick workout (2.5hr bike then 1hr run) on Thursday turned into just a 2 hr bike. I had to be at work early on Friday so swimming was scrapped. I had PT that afternoon that ate into my riding time. I did manage to get a good ride in on Saturday morning. It wasn’t the 4 hrs I had planned. About 9 of us (including my coach and several other “teammates” met out at Mt. Laurel for a 40 mile ride. The ride was nice. It’s always good finding new routes and new challenges when you are riding. We rotated the lead around so everyone got a chance to pull the group. There were lots of rollers on this route. We went down and around on hwy 41 & 43 and back up through Vandiver. And when I say up, I mean up. There was about a 1.5 mile climb up one side of Double Oak Mt when we had about 13 miles to go. This was rough. Biking 220lbs (yeah that’s right 220…woohoo) up a big A hill gets a little tiring. I’m pretty quick to build up self-doubt in certain circumstances and this was one. At one point I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it; I let the thought of stopping creep in to my mind, but one thing that I have gotten good at over the past 16 months of “triathloning” is talking myself up and getting motivated. I know I can handle anything out there; it might not be pretty or fast, but dangit I’ll finish it (i.e. NOLA 70.3). Overall it was a good ride.
It’s fun to look back and see where you’ve been to help you stay focused on where you are going. This time last year, I was riding maybe 15 miles for my training. Running was primarily done on my lunch break on the treadmill so I was lucky to get in three miles. I had only been going to master’s swim for 5 months and the thought of swimming 600m straight freaked me out and seemed unattainable. Fastforward 12 months, I’m biking 35-60 miles a time for training rides, running 5-9 miles (fine, so I run/walk, running is till a struggle due to injuries/gimpiness), and consistently swimming 3000-4000m three days a week. Just reminding myself of where I’ve come from helps me make it through some of these rough patches in training, work, and life (cue after-school special music).

Eric’s Quote of the Day: ”’Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you” ~Tim Ferriss