Just Breathe, Even When You're Pissy

Weekly Workout
Swimming: 2:15 (3 days)
Biking: 4:55 (3 days)
Running: 1:40 (2 days, plus 2 bricks)
Weights: 2:25 (3 days)

WARNING: The following paragraph will be me bitching and complaining. This week was a tough week for me physically. I went from about 2 or 3 days of physical activity over the last few months, to now 21 straight days of working out. I do feel stronger, but my legs were sore and body was achy and tired. Mentally I was ok until Saturday. During my long ride on Saturday, I just kept thinking about race day and wondering how it's going to be possible for me to complete a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile hilly ride and finally a 26.2 mile run. I know I'm only at the beginning of my training and I'm just building the mileage, but if I feel bad after 3 weeks, how am I going to continue over the next 6 months? It sucks when you have a rough week and doubt yourself. I know I'll get to where I need to be, but this is my blog and it's meant for me to get out my feelings and reflect on it, hence the bitching. At this point the mental game is more important to have in check then the physical. The physical will eventually come with my training. My legs were the sorest they've been thus far. My legs hurt to walk up the stairs, which was confusing since I am getting stronger and I'm putting in all of my workouts. I believe next week is a recovery week, so it will give my body time to, well, recover. Yay for recovery! Andrew told me that the shitty feeling is one of the side effects of doing weights while training for a triathlon. I had to switch up some workouts this week, which I think might have contributed to the soreness. Oh and the weather...the stupid freaking Atlanta weather!!! Seriously every weekend there's rain, cold and wind. I'm over it!!! Enough with this crap!!! Now that we've gotten all of that out of the way, onto this week's workouts.

My swimming continues to get stronger. I'm really concentrating on taking efficient strokes. The more efficient I am in the water, the easier my swim will be. My breathing has always been an issue for me. It's something I need to work on since I have a difficult time breathing every 3rd or 4th stroke. I tend to work a lot harder and end up gasping for air. If anyone has some tips, feel free to offer them. This is what I'm going to work on in my swims this week since it's a recovery week.

My biking frustrated me on my long ride. I've put in a lot of time on the trainer and Saturday I was able to take Lucy out for a ride on the road. Shocker I had bike issues. My cadence isn't working, my chain got stuck in the derailer and I had some funky squeaky noise going on somewhere on my bike (consensus was it was my shoe and clips). Those were the least of my worries though. I felt really good on the 1st 20 miles of our 50 mile ride. I'm much more comfortable on Lucy now. It only took about 8 miles for my legs to really warm up. I was in aero a decent amount and initially didn't have a hard time with the hills. Then my quads, outer hips/thighs and back just hurt. I was uncomfortable and was kind of in pain. I tried to push myself, but I literally was going 10 miles and hour @ points and my cadence was extremely well below what it should be and I was in the lowest gears. I just wanted to be off my bike and be pissy. The good news is I was much faster and stronger today then I was on my previous 2 rides outside. I guess that means I really sucked before since today I just kind of sucked.

My runs on my bricks have been surprisingly good. So far they've only been 10 or 15 minutes, but I've felt pretty strong. After Saturday's ride I had a 10 minute run, which was supposed to be at a 10:14-11:14 pace. I ended up averaging 10:08 (it would've been lower if it wasn't for the hill with 2 minutes left to go). I felt like I was going slow, but every time I looked at my pace it was below 9:50. Somehow my body just wasn't slowing down. This is beginning to be a theme with me. I have to force myself at this point to just go ssslllloooowww. I had some pick ups on my runs this week and averaged ~7:10, albeit only for 12 seconds. Andrew has me doing a timed 3.1 mile run next week to assess whether we should change the pace of my runs.

I got a long massage today, took and epsom salt bath yesterday and I start recovery tomorrow. I'm starting next week on the right foot with a positive attitude. If the next post isn't positive, I give you permission to bash me and I can't say anything about it.