Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?

In the past few weeks I've discovered a lot more people read this than I thought, so I guess I ought to make an effort to update more regularly. Fortunately, I have another log that I keep pretty current, so I can accurately fill you in on my training. And lack thereof.

Tuesday, 1/17 -- We ran 3 loops of the CP reservoir with a timed mile on each loop. There were lots of squats and lunges before each mile. My splits were 8:27, 8:12, and 7:36. I felt very strong. I ran with my teammate D on the first two and tried out some racing tactics, which wasn't very nice since I know I'm faster than her and, well, we weren't racing. I'd run her pace, surge a little (nothing that I knew she couldn't cover) and settle in again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Then with 400 or so to go I steadily pulled away. On the last mile, one of my coaches ran with me and kept pushing me to go faster. I was dying up on the home stretch but made the conscious decision to suck it up and get moving. She yelled "yeah Betsy, I knew you were a fighter!" to which I responded with another gear. Oh, you have no idea. About 8 miles for the day.

Wednesday 1/18 -- 2200m swim. Nothing terribly exciting. I was exceptionally sore from Tuesday's squatfest.

Thursday 1/19 -- 5:30am group bike. Fun stuff. We did repeats up Harlem Hill at the north end of CP as follows: sitting in easy gear, sitting in hard gear, standing in easy gear ("running" on the pedals), standing in hard gear, sitting/standing in gear o' choice. Riding in a standing position is not fun with sore quads. I slacked on the first 4 and then took off on the last one to minimize the time in pain. I'm talking bat-out-of-hell style. Total miles = 28.

Friday 1/20 -- 2200m swim

Saturday 1/21 -- Training camp in New Paltz. We did a 1:30:00 indoor trainer workout followed by a 0:30:00 run. Contrary to popular belief, if you put thirty highly efficient (read: sweaty) athletes on trainers in a small room with the heat stuck on, it does not smell like roses. Who knew?! The bike was fine. Maybe I wasn't working hard enough because I really didn't find it all that challenging. And the transition run afterwards? Piece of cake.

Sunday 1/22 -- 2:00:00 run towing tires. Yes, that's right, I ran for two hours dragging a tire behind me. It was no radio flyer tire, either. This bad boy fell straight off a semi. Oh, and most of the run was uphill. Then we swam for 2:00:00. Did you know you're supposed to move your hips when you swim? I didn't. It makes sense, though. If I'm stroking with my right arm and I point my right hip to the bottom of the pool, I can maximize my reach. And you can, too! And yes, that was the first appearance of the word "stroking" in this blog. Don't worry, there will be more.

Monday 1/23 -- nothing

Tuesday 1/24 -- nothing

Wednesday 1/25 -- 2000m swim

Thursday 1/26 -- nothing

Friday 1/27 -- 0:30:00 swim

I take my recovery weeks seriously.

Saturday 1/28 -- Manhattan 1/2 Marathon. My race was pretty awful. I just felt tired. Nothing hurt, but whenever I asked my body to go faster it didn't respond. In retrospect, I went out way too fast (8:30s for the first 5 miles). I felt okay at that point, but definitely not spunky enough to be going out that fast. I kept thinking I would get into a groove and suddenly feel better, but it never happened. When I finally decided to back off the pace, I think the damage was already done. Once I was physically out of it (miles 7-8 were 10:00+), it was a constant mental battle to keep myself from walking. I changed my plan to just finish without hurting myself and get the miles in. I finished in 2:01:40. After the race, I had a banana and gatorade, came home and laid on my couch. I woke up 4 (!!!!) hours later, throwing up. I think I pushed myself too hard last week. I didn't train much (clearly), but I worked over 60 hours (not by choice, obviously). I didn't get enough sleep, my eating was all off, and I drank maybe one glass of water all week. Also, I overslept Saturday morning and didn't eat breakfast (what?!). And I dropped my gel somewhere along the way. The verdict: I was seriously dehydrated and underfueled. I guess it's nice to know I can still run 13.1 miles in that condition, but I'd rather not try it again.

Sunday 1/29 -- easy 2:00:00 spin in CP

Monday 1/30 -- pilates

You are officially UP TO DATE.

No More Beeeeer

So yeah, I passed my exam. I got my results late Friday afternoon, and I've been drinking ever since. Thankfully the weather was crap all weekend so our group training was cancelled, and I opted out of the indoor workouts.

I hope to have something more interesting to post about tomorrow. For now, I'm just here to accept congratulations. Go ahead.

Nervous Energy

My training has been going really well for the past week or so, fueled entirely by my anxiety over my exam results (which come out on Friday). I've convinced myself that I failed, and I'm okay with that. But I've decided I'll need to find something else to be good at, so I've started training like a maniac.

Last Tuesday I did an hour tempo run at 8:30 pace. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I swam, cross-trained, and biked on my trainer. Saturday I had a really good bike ride. Yesterday I ran 10 miles, 1-5 at 9:00 pace, 6-9 at 8:30 pace, and 10 in 7:45. Tonight I went to pilates.

Okay, more later.

Ooops

Sunday I biked to Piermont (~30 miles RT) with a few of my teammates. It was a nice ride -- easy pace, etc. -- but the roads were pretty crappy and I got my first flat of the year. I also had my first crash of the year, but it was at about 6mph going uphill so it was more comical than anything. We were all in a line and the guy in front of me suddenly slowed waaaay down. I couldn't unclip my shoe in time so I tipped over, as did the 2 people behind me.

Yesterday I watched football. And ate french fries (violating #5).

My exam results come out next Friday (the 13th!) and I'm slightly anxious (violating #7). Okay, so I can't sleep (violating #2) or eat. I was so tired this morning that I didn't do my 45 minutes on the trainer (violating #1) or take my vitamins (violating #8).

It's a good thing I made so many resolutions! If you're counting, I am now at 50%.

I think I will just try to make it through the next two weeks with my sanity intact and then I will re-evaluate.

Happy New Year

2006 has been a fabulous! I haven't done anything I regret all year. I've made an obscene number of resolutions (hoping that a few will actually stick), but I'll only share the top 10 here:

1. Train more (100% compliance w/ the program)
2. Sleep more
3. Drink more (water)
4. Cook more (once a week)
5. Eat less (no fried food, sugar cereal, tubs of frosting)
6. Spend less (no credit cards)
7. Think less (no obsessing about things I can't control)
8. Take drugs (multivitamin, omega-3, B-complex)
9. Be nice (to people I don't like)
10. Floss daily

I also have a lot of things I want to accomplish this year, but they will have to wait for another post as I need to work on resolution #2.