TGIF

It's Friday... Thank God!

I've been back to work for a week now.  It's not that bad.  I'm hardly behind after being away for six weeks.  I guess that says a lot about my work load.  I'm still looking for a better job.  I'm always looking for a better job so that's nothing new really.

The kids are with Rob on a mini cottage vacation.  I've been home alone for the last two days.  I haven't been home alone... in ... well a long long time.  I have enjoyed the solitude but now I'm ready to rejoin society and my family.  One can only walk around drinking wine out of the bottle in their underpants for a short while before conscience spoils the fun!  I thought I was going to be free to workout like a maniac but instead I did absolutely nothing. Nothing at all.  

So now it's Friday and weigh in is going to suck balls.  I ate like a cow (constantly) over the last 24 hours and have not worked out at all.  On a brighter note, I should have plenty of gas on my lunch hour run today.  I went on a stretch of high mileage earlier in the week and was totally exhausted.  So I kind of needed the break.It's just occurring to me that life should be about balance... but for some reason I'm always so far from the middle.  I workout like a mad woman, to the point of exhaustion, and then I do nothing for two days straight.  Need to find a more balanced approach... I think.

Tapering... maybe a little too much

It's been a few days since I worked out.  I think today I'll do a brick - short distances but good intensity.

I have to confess I've fallen off the diet program; mainly due to PMS and chocolate cravings.  On that note... could the timing be ANY worse?!?  We're leaving for the campsite tomorrow.  I thought it would be all over and done with by now.  Grrr.

Long run... way better!

Last week my long run was super duper hard.  I ran 26k but from 23k on it was all I could to to walk run my sorry ass home.  It was my own fault though... I did a brick workout the Saturday and my long run on Sunday: BIG MISTAKE.

This week I rested on Saturday... well I only did a 20k easy run... and ate well.  Nonetheless, when I woke up this morning I was not looking forward to running 29k.  I felt like I needed to redo the 26k just to be sure I'm not moving forward to fast.  I ran the first 13k really slow... averaging 6:10 or so... but at the turn around I was feeling okay so I increased my run distance to 27k.  The run back averaged more like 5:50 (give or take) for negative splits even.  Much better!  So now I feel way more confident moving on to 29k plus I have the benefit of added conditioning.

I'll continue to taper for the tri and focus on running speed.  My race distance next week is 7.5k and my goal is to run it well under 5:00/km.

Tapering sucks

I'm tapering now I guess for the k-town triathlon, but I'm still increasing mileage for the Toronto Waterfront Marathon.

In keeping with the advice in the Triathlete's Bible I've maintained the frequency of my workouts, increased and/or maintained the intensity but decreased the duration.  So yesterday I did a mini brick workout... 15min swimming, 30 min spinning, and 5k run.  This morning I'm going to cycle 20k and run 5k... followed by some swimming at Carleton U (mainly because I'm bringing the kids to the open swim).

Tomorrow will be a hard day: 29k endurance run.

It's still a lot of training... next week there will be more rest.

Triathlete's Bible

I've been doing some reading...

psych!!

Yesterday's swim totally SUCKED!  My neck muscle was feeling raw and sore before I went out... but I didn't feel it that much while swimming.  I don't think it was the wet suit.  I dunno.  I think it was all in my head.  The plan was to swim 750 - across Meech Lake at Blanchet Beach and back.  When we got there I watched the kids while C swam out and back.  When it was my turn, I was just not stoked at all.  I didn't feel tired or anything just sort of apathetic about the whole thing.  I squeezed into the wet suit and out I went.  I felt really buoyant and I barely needed to kick my legs.  So, in that way the swim was easier.  For some reason, though, while I was on my way out across the lake all I could think about was how inefficient my swimming is and how freaking long it was going to take to get this over with.  So I'm thinking the whole focus on my swim stroke was due to the fact that I didn't have to even think about my legs.  I tried to kick just a bit harder to leverage the fact that they weren't tired at all.  I could totally feel my arms slapping rather than cutting the water, and I could feel my stroke stopping short of the surface of the water rather than following through... and that's how the swim went the whole way.  I turned around about 50m early (maybe more I dunno) just to be done with it.  Not sure what lessons can be learned from it other than take a day or two off between swim workouts?


The beauty of triathlon training is that even though I had a crap swim workout yesterday, I'm still stoked about training on bike and running today.  Variety is the spice of life for us ADD folk :P

Let's talk nutrition...

I've been pretty good all week.  We've agreed not to buy any more junk food... chips, chocolate, candy etc.  The kids will survive :)


Breakfast has mainly consisted of dried blueberries and cranberries - you know, for antioxidants - yogurt and toast with PB... that's not too shabby.  Wash it all down with a couple of cups of coffee (with skim milk and Splenda) and voila... ready for the day.


Today I made this pasta salad to go with honey mustard salmon which Rob plans to BBQ. Yeah, those are some good eats.  I pulled all of the herbs for the pasta salad from the garden... and it tastes so yummy.


Off I go now to test out a rental wetsuit in Meech Lake... yikes.