Made2Move Performance Training

I didn’t want to. And I almost didn’t. But I did.

My legs were sore, and my mind was tired, more so because of the soreness in my legs. Wednesday is brick day – more specifically – BIG brick day, and although I had mostly worked up the gumption and enthusiasm for the bike part, my mind was already set on not running after. ‘My legs are too sore’, my mind said, ‘I just don’t feel like it’, ‘Running is my strength so I’m not as concerned about working on it’. These thoughts continued to roll through my mind. This is my last heavy week before my first race of the season – the final part of a 6-week training block where three of those weeks have been consecutive heavy weeks. Yes, I’m starting to feel a bit tired from it, but I will admit, most of that fatigue is in my mind. When I got on my bike yesterday afternoon, I knew that. And I knew that I needed to break that cycle. It is all in my head, and I was not about to let the negative win over the positive. Yesterday’s workout involved intervals at a high resistance with a lower cadence – all seated, and all without any movement in the upper body. I plopped myself in the saddle, and began my revolutions. ‘We’ll see how this goes’, I thought, ‘We’ll see what happens’. I had a new playlist on the docket, one with a series of “Ironman triathlon motivation” videos; I needed something different to stimulate my mind. As I progressed through my warm-up, I made note that my legs were feeling better than I had anticipated, and after the first series of progressive spin-up intervals and first motivating clip, my mindset was beginning to change. Slowly. But it was. A couple of videos in, and I was ready and willing to hammer.

It can be hard to get motivated to get on the treadmill and put in some run time when this is what you have to look at – a wall two feet away from your face. But this is the perfect time to get focused, into the zone, and visualize! I let myself get lost in thought and visualization: key aspects of endurance training.

And hammer I did. I made it through the hour of hard intervals, and the rest of the workout – should I choose to finish there – was easy cadence work and spinning until cool-down. Coincidentally, it also came at the time the last video in the series came on: NBC’s highlights of the 2008 Ironman world championship. It was just over an hour long. I couldn’t stop watching. Instead of taking the short cut and finishing my workout with the easy stuff, I switched it into high gear, and for the lat last 45 minutes, I pedaled like my life depending on it, with unrelenting motivation. When the highlights ended – along with the bike portion of my workout – I was all revved up and ready to get on the treadmill. ‘Be like Chrissie’, I kept thinking (if you are unfamiliar with the 2008 world championship race, I highly recommend you watch it). I got on that treadmill, and although at first my still-sore legs protested, once I get them moving and in rhythm, they seemed to be saying to me “come on, faster, let’s go, we’re ready now’. All doubts washed away from my mind. I ran just shy of 30 minutes, but I could have kept going. And going. And going. If that was how my legs felt and responded on a sore day, it makes me very excited to think about how they will respond on race day. I didn’t want to get on the treadmill, I didn’t want to get that workout in. My mind was telling me it wasn’t going to do it, it was telling me not to do it. I almost listened. But I found what I needed within myself – because that is where it always is – and got the job done. I am glad I did. I felt awesome afterward, and I felt satisfied and accomplished for having completed it. Oddly enough, I had the same type of apprehension with my swim workout this morning. Prescribed for today was a grueling test of pace, and pace-endurance (this should be read as: mental strength and endurance). 10 x 50, 5 x 500, and then 10 x 50 again. It is a simulation of race-day swim demands: the fast start of the race and getting out and into position (10 x 50), holding a pace and then steadily increasing that pace (5 x 500), and then picking it up and speeding toward the finish (10 x 50). Do it, I told myself. You can do this. You did yesterday, and you are going to do it again today. And I did. I hit every pace, every number, every interval. A quick little 4400 yards later, and that workout was kicked to the dirt as well. We have within us the power and ability to do so many things, if we only believe that we can. Don’t defeat yourself before you get out there, and although there will be days where this will inevitably happen, remind yourself that it is only one instance of many, and you have the power to change it the next time. Don’t forget that, and don’t let yourself think otherwise. To finish out this heavy week, the next three days bring with them three more swims (I get four days in a row of swimming this week. Woo!), another heavy lifting day (I really hope I’ll be able to get it in), a long run (hooray! The weather breaks!), plenty of yoga, and plenty of crazy core stability work. The race season is about to get underway, ladies and gentlemen. Saturday, March 21st will be here in no time. Ready or not (and I’m so ready!), it is here. Time to see just how well I’ve prepared.

Introducing….Speed

We are five months out from the big day. The big race day.

We are five weeks out from the first race of the season. It is time to start introducing – little by little – speed. And I’m not talking the “speed work” that I’ve been doing – mile repeats with short rest – I’m talking 5k pace and better. But not a lot at one time. These are not long sessions like I was doing, or I would risk burning out and over-training myself. I just want to start the process of putting a little kick in my stride, a little more pep in my step. And today I did just that. I cleaned out the carburetor.

It seemed so simple and innocent on the page, just 5 x 1k repeats, at a pace slightly faster than my 5k pace. Recovery was only 200 meters. Not walking, not jogwalking, but slow-it-down-just-enough-to-get-your-heartrate-back-down-and-then-do-it-again pace. It was comfortably uncomfortable. I nailed it. I hammered it. I dusted the shelves, cleared out the cobwebs, and cleaned my own clock. And it felt awesome. Surprisingly, I think this is the first time my stomach might have felt better than my legs, and this may or may not (or definitely may) have something to do with the weights I lifted in the morning – particularly those squats. Nonetheless! I ran at a pace that I haven’t touched in quite some time, and at a distance that I haven’t run said pace at in quite some time. I was impressed with how it went, and impressed with how much stronger I have become – my posture wasn’t deteriorating like it used to when I would perform my speed sessions on tired legs, and my heart wasn’t pounding out of my chest. Well, it was pounding alright. But I could have – without a doubt – kept going at that pace. Which surprises me even more, and almost scares me, to think that I could. It is an exciting thought of a possibility! But I don’t need to worry about that right now, it will come in time, and it will come at the right time, if I am patient and do things properly right now. Speed takes time to develop, and given the higher intensity nature of the exercise, along with the greater physical, physiological, and mechanical stresses on the body as a result, you better believe I am going to allow it time. I don’t need to sprint to injury. I can’t afford that. No one can, and no one should think that they can.

We cannot just snap our fingers and have the adaptations and results we want right NOW like we can with so many other things in this world – this world of “instant gratification”. Instant gratification never lasts, because you haven’t done anything to make it last, you haven’t worked for it, you have done nothing to imprint it as a permanent impact on your life. That is what makes this process of training and planning a training schedule and scheduling races and integrating specific forms of work at specific times so gratifying – because if you stick with it (for those of you who have been following along, this should ring a bell), you’ll get to where you want to go, and you will be able to look back at everything you did, all the work you put in, and think ‘Wow, I did that, that is so awesome’. And it will be awesome.

“Have a dream. Make a plan. Go for it. You’ll get there, I promise.”
– Zoe Koplowtiz

Stop Being Lazy

I said this to myself as I arrived at the pool yesterday morning. I said this to myself the night before as I got all my things together to go to the pool in the morning. And all through my swim workout, I kept this thought at the forefront of my mind.

Swimming. I love to swim, I love the feeling of working hard in the pool, the feeling I have when I’m done with my workout, and that feeling of strength I get from swimming. But things have been a bit lackluster lately. I have been motivated to swim – or so I have been thinking – until last week, when it was mentioned to me that I wasn’t starting my rotation until I was nearly prone (at which point, it becomes rather hard to perform any kind of rotation). And with that, a little light bulb went off. Ding! It wasn’t my rotation that was the problem…it was my pull. Yes, I was pulling my arms through the water, but I wasn’t really PULLing. My pull had gotten…lazy. Lazy pulling does not get us anywhere, we do not have breakthroughs or “big” drops in time, we do not get stronger, and we certainly cannot get faster if we are not putting any effort into that major part of our swim stroke.

“Stop being lazy, stop being lazy, pull, pull, pull, reach, pull, all the way through”. I almost developed a rhythm to these thoughts. I went to the pool yesterday with a workout in mind to test my pulling ability – and myself. It worked, and yes, I passed. I was motivated for my workout, but – more importantly – I went to the pool with intent. Many times we may consider ourselves motivated or that we have everything in order, but do we really? Having intent gives us something to focus on, something to work for, something to be MOTIVATED to go and do. It is in this manner that our motivation moves from surface thoughts – thinking what we want to think, what we want to be true, and not what is true – to action and intention.

“You’ve got to know what you want. This is central to acting on your intentions. When you know what you want, you realize that all there is left then is time management. You’ll manage your time to achieve your goals because you clearly know what you’re trying to achieve in your life.”
– From the movie, Patch Adams

Stop being lazy. It is time to stop being lazy, and I did. I have a new focus now, an improved focus, and even better than that – I have intent. Something clicked for me, and I hope to be able to take it and run (I mean, swim!) with it!

“Effort plus motive equals result.”
– P.D. Ouspensky

If you feel like you’re in a rut, or that your “motivation” does not seem to be getting you anywhere, take a closer look at what you are doing, or, better yet – listen to what other people may be telling you. All too often we don’t notice what we need to change. So, get out there, find something to focus on, put some intent behind what you want to do, get motivated to go and do it, and then…DO IT!

Shark Bait

Sunday swim day. BIG swim day.

I received confirmation last night that my swim buddy was indeed going to be there this morning, which meant I was definitely going to have to bring my A-game. When you are swimming with someone faster than you, you need to be ready to go. And I was – my mind was, anyway. I could feel some lingering fatigue in my legs from yesterday’s run, but I was excited and ready to take on the challenge of the day.

Today also just so happened to be my fellow swimmer’s birthday: 54 years today. I had a 5000-yard workout planned. He wanted to do 5400. 5400 on the 54; fair enough, I said. Sticking with my workout plan, he was able to get his 5400 in; since his pace is faster than mine, he would swim a further distance on some of the intervals.

The true intent of this little story, however, lies in what came towards the end – and really, was a culmination of what was a fighting battle the entire time. The final exercise of the day (before cool-down) was a hard 100. I told him what time I hoped to attain, and he said ‘Ok, I’ll give you a head start. I’m not going any slower than 1:10. Don’t let me catch you.’ I had become…shark bait. My A-teamers reading this can relate, since I make them play the shark bait game quite often, but this time it was my turn. I was already feeling beat – on top of the fatigue from yesterday – but I still felt good, or some form of it anyway. Game on!

The second hand of the pace clock hit the top, and off I went. I decided I would take it all-out right from the get-go, and hold on as long as I could, as best as I could. After all, this was the last exercise of the day, so I better put whatever is left in the tank into it! The first 25 yards felt good, but the burn was already building. By 50 yards, I was already sending my kick – my greatest weapon – into overdrive. At 75 yards, despite my efforts, I was caught. We swam side-by-side for a few yards as I gave my best last-ditch effort. I hit the wall at 100 yards, my chest heaving, my legs protesting, and my arms feeling completely like jelly. I was 4 seconds slower than the time I had hoped to attain. All things considered, however, I did pretty damn good. I’m surprised I was able to hang in for most of the workout the way that I did, somehow managing to stay just under a 1:30 per 100 average pace.

Today’s Swim Workout
500 warm-up
200 kick
800 pull
5 x 100, descending down to race pace, @10s rest
400 swim @30s rest
100 race pace
300 swim @20s rest
100 race pace
200 swim @10s rest
100 race pace
100 swim
200 kick
5 x 200, descending down to race pace, @15s rest (done as a pull set)
100 easy swim
100 all-out sprint
300 cool-down

If you don’t challenge yourself (within reason) every once in awhile, you cannot expect to improve. We need to experience some stress every now and then to let us know how strong we are, what we are capable of doing, and what we will be capable of doing in the future.

With that, I will leave you with a little close-of-the-weekend-start-of-the-next-week motivation:

What It Takes

Enjoy the Process (of working toward your goal)

I had 17 miles to think about what I wanted to write today. 17 miles to pound thoughts into the ground, to daydream, to let my mind wander. 17 miles to sort things out, let some things go, and think of better resolutions to others. It was my time to enjoy being outside, to breathe that wonderful, fresh, air, and to have 17 completely uninterrupted miles all to myself. It is in this way that going out for a long run does not seem like a chore (as it maybe once did), but rather an escape. The temperature today was perfect (24 – much better than the 10 degrees it has been), and although the roads were not as bipedal-friendly as I had hoped they would be, my body – and my mind – were up for and completely motivated to get out there and put some miles in today. It is because of this motivation that I come here to compose this little number on what it takes to achieve your goals – as some would say, being “process-oriented” – for your perusal.

It has taken some time, but I have come to love my long runs again, because they give me a chance to get out and let my mind “run” crazy. So here are some of those “crazy” things that go through my mind…

We all do things because a goal drives us, but what so often happens – and I see this quite a lot – is that we end up focusing solely on the end goal, our “ultimate” result. Whether it be a specific race performance, a weight we want to be at, or a certain number of miles we are able to run or yards we can swim. This can be very toxic because we fail to see the progress we are making along the way. Or, even worse, we do not get to experience that progress because our focus is too stuck on one future outcome. Well, we can only get to March by going through every day of February!

For example, my long run. The “ultimate” goal for today was to get in 17 miles. I know the route I want to run, and I mentally break it up into pieces; I’ll tell myself ‘get through this part and we’ll see what we can do in the next one’. I focus on the things around me, I look internally and see what is happening within my body – how I’m responding, how things are going, how I feel, and decide how that will dictate what goes on next. By doing this, I make that “ultimate goal” more manageable – and I achieve it. Then I can mark it as a success in my book en route to that bigger goal – the Ironman. This is also what keeps me on track when I have ‘bad’ days, or when I have a day where I might not quite reach what I set out to do. Focus on the next day, on the next task! And enjoy what you learn along the way. Today I learned how much stronger I am becoming, how much further I can run and how much easier it is. How much better I feel when I’m out there, and how much more I will be able to do as a result.

Enjoy the process of working toward your goal, because if you don’t, that goal will continually get farther away, harder to reach, and less feasible. Goals are about the process and what you overcome and tackle en route; the process is what gets you there! And if you don’t enjoy it, then what good is your goal?!

I think it’s time for me to call it quits. I’ve only been attempting to finish this up for the last five hours. But I got to enjoy some of the movie ‘Thor’ in the process! Included in that was my first introduction to Chris Hemsworth. Probably won’t be my last. And I have even had some ice cream! Of course I did. After 17 miles, I think I can have a little ice cream.

Big swim day tomorrow. Bonne nuit, tout le monde.

(In It For) The Long Run – the review of Week 15

Saturday. The day of the long run. Yesterday. The sun was rather resplendent, but the temperatures were not. Neither were the roads. It was going to be another of those days where I had to make another decision. Run outside? Get on my bike? Head to the pool? Get out my skis? Abandon all plans and eat ice cream?! Or…

….get on the treadmill. Like a little kid that doesn’t like carrots and will avoid them at all costs, I have the same attitude about doing any kind of leg work on the treadmill for an extended period of time. Blech! Turn my head away, and avoid by all means necessary! Unlike the little kid, however (or maybe similar to that little kid), I know that I like running (carrots). Whether it’s outside (steamed carrots) or inside on the treadmill (raw carrots – I don’t like raw as much), running is running, and I need to get my miles in. How can I survive 15 miles on the treadmill…

Break it up. I’ve been doing my mile repeat and interval workouts on the treadmill, and these workouts have been in the range of 10 miles or so, and that time seems to fly by. So, I decided I would break it into thirds. Take the first 5 miles at an easy to moderate pace, the middle five miles at a faster pace, and the last five miles back down to the moderate pace. So, did I do it? How’d it go?!…

I comfortably finished up under two hours. My first five miles seemed to fly by (I did have some good music going), and when I got to my hard miles, I picked it up just slightly more than I originally intended, and when I rounded that final “lap” for the last mile, I decided I still had plenty left in the tank and I would keep going. Another lap passed. And another. And then another. I ended up going six miles at my hard pace, before I turned it back down. I gradually picked up the pace the last four miles (after slowing it down a bit), with a quarter-mile sprint at the end of each mile. I was glad to be done, and happy with how it went. I nailed it, and it wasn’t as bad as I had thought it was going to be. Oh, and did I mention I had it on an incline the entire time? And my legs were still sore from my strength routine Friday afternoon.

Anyways. I got my long run in this week. Check! I got my long brick workout in this week (on Wednesday), check! I got both of my strength workouts in, my mile repeats, and three solid swims – including today’s big one, which was quite the challenge. Check, check, and check!

For the build week after a recovery week, Week 15 certainly packed quite the punch. But I was ready. And I handled it. And I am most definitely looking forward to my rest day tomorrow. I worked hard this week, and I can feel it now. Not in a bad way – in a very satisfied, I-got-my-work-done-and-I-did-it-well way. Which means a rest day is certainly in order. And I’m looking forward to it.

One-hundred and seventy-some-odd days until race day. I’m going to make sure I do things right every day, every week, every month until then. Because I’m in this for the long run.

Challenge Workout

Alrighty. Here we are, bright and early on this lovely Wednesday morning, the 28th day of January, year 2015. I am here to make good on a challenge I was issued by an 11 year-old. The challenge? To see if I could do the workout that he did in his gym class, and how many times I could get through it.

Here’s the workout:

Round 1:
53 jump ropes
19 body weight squats
7 plank walks

Round 2:
53 ski jumpers
25 lunges
19 triceps bends
7 burpees

The goal is to get through as many times in 10 minutes as possible (10 minutes for each round).

I have to admit, this was a rather humbling experience. I had my morning class take part as well. I believe it proved to be a bit more challenging than we all thought.

He made it through 8 2/3 times on the first round, and 5 1/2 times for the second. How many times did I get through it? Watch the video and figure it out!

{equation should read: (the year that Christopher Columbus discovered America – 1400) / 9 + .1}

Action shots

Action shots – again!

If anyone else out there wants to issue a challenge, send it my way! Bring it on!

Cruisin’

Maybe it’s not always pretty. Or comfortable.

Because on the days it’s not pretty or comfortable, it’s pretty damn awesome. That day was today. I started Week 15 out with a bang, so I hope to keep it going. Allow me to elaborate…

On the schedule for today was my usual ante-meridian lifting session, followed by some mile repeats in the post-meridian hours. Some new exercises in my strength routine might have me feeling a little sore come tomorrow; I’m not particularly concerned with this. The smashing success of the day, however, was my mile repeat session. Only five today (trust me, these will build up in no time), but I hammered through this session with much greater finesse than that of my previous bout with mile repeats in my hard week. Meal timing played a big role, as I switched things around a bit, and I did not allow myself to consume anything – aside from small amounts of water here and there – within the two hours before the start of my session. Definitely a better idea. Or maybe it also has something to do with good training and getting stronger and adapting and giving myself a good recovery week….hmmmm….there could be a pattern here.

Anyway. The pace at which I was running felt almost easy today. I was cruisin’! Although I do not want it to be easy, I also do not want it to be overly challenging, either, because that would defeat the purpose of the exercise. Five one-mile repeats, with two minutes rest between, is not so bad. When that number becomes ten or 15 repeats (five or six will feel like a breeze then – see what I’m getting at?), at the same pace with the same rest interval, well, that could be a different story. If I always try to adjust my pace for just this one day, then I’m never going to be able to develop consistency – and therefore get an adaptation from it – if it is not a consistently experienced stress. I see this happen all too often with many people. They want to go hard, now, and if the workout is not hard RIGHT NOW, then it can’t be doing anything. Au contraire – if you always go hard, and as a result are probably doing a lot of training above your means, you are doing a lot of what Dr. Jack Daniels calls “quality junk training.” Yes, you are working hard (that’s great), but in the long run, physiologically speaking, you aren’t doing yourself any favors. You’re actually doing more harm than good, and you will inevitably slow down your progress. It may seem easy now, but it will progressively become more challenging.You cannot forget that; you cannot forget about what lies ahead and the path you are taking to get there. You cannot do it all at once. You build up to it.

My goal with these repeats is to work the strength of the middle-miles; the strength to keep going once the run gets tough. I know the endurance is there, but I want to maximize strength-endurance, my pace-endurance. No, I cannot reveal what that is.

I was hoping to get more technical with this, specifically with my reference to Jack Daniels, but it’s getting to be the quitting time of the day. I won’t leave everyone hanging on all that information, though, so expect to see something in the coming days regarding training quality.

Let’s Talk Recovery (and review Week 14)

Ahhhh yes. Recovery week. That wonderful week where your training volume and intensity is decreased so you can reap the benefits of all the hard work you have logged over the preceding weeks. That wonderful week where not only my body gets a break, but so does my mind. This is my time to relax, get caught up on other things, and get everything in order for the next training cycle.

In particular, I like to make good use of my recovery week by doing lots of stretching and – you guessed it – yoga. Although I do plenty of this during my build weeks, having a week where I really focus on stretching and straightening everything out after a few weeks of hard work is critical to my recovery rate and success in triathlon, and ensures that I am fully recovered and prepared for the work to come next.

I have focused almost exclusively on the back body – after going through the tightness issue in my back/hip/hamstring, I put a lot of focus on stretching my entire posterior to release all that tension. It has of course worked, but I was moderately neglecting another, big, part of the puzzle…my front side! And boy, was I in for a surprise.

My hip flexors and quads were so tight, I had a difficult time doing even some of the most basic poses in yoga. Well, that might explain some things, I thought. A tight front body can throw the pelvis out of alignment, too! Therefore, I did a lot of stretching to work BOTH sides.

High lunge with chest opener. The entire front body is stretched here – quads, hip flexors, abdomen, chest, neck. If I turn my left foot under, I would also be able to stretch the anterior tibialis of the shin.

A combination of the two! This is a very deep stretch in the quad and hip flexor muscles, as well as the muscles of the torso and chest. It’s taken some practice for me to be able to do it. But the difference I feel is noticeable!

Alright, so I stretched. But what else does my recovery week entail? Allow me to be a bit more specific…

Monday was a light stretching day, followed up with some foam rolling.

Tuesday involved a light strength workout in the morning, a little time on the trainer in the afternoon (no more than 60 minutes).

Wednesday brought with it a morning yoga session, and a little run in the afternoon.

Thursday was my swim day, and I put in a decent 3500 yards. I still want to maintain some level of intensity during my recovery week, and putting a little zip in my swim work will do that for me, without taking away from my recovering.

Friday was another swim day; specifically, A-team swim day! (I will introduce the A-team at a later point). Friday was a personal journal day for us, and our test of the day was the 30-minute swim. This is a great test exercise for swim endurance, and even anaerobic endurance; a test to see just how far you can swim in 30 minutes, and how quick a pace you can push – and hold!
I managed a new 30-minute swim PR of 1900 yards, which comes out as an average pace of 1:34 per 100y. Not too bad, but I still would like to do better. I KNOW I can do better, I just have to be a bit more scrupulous about getting my swim work in, and sticking to the letter, as I am not always good about pushing myself in the pool. But that is about to change! Within the spectrum of swim training, it is my goal – not just in preparation for this race – to get in a big set of 5000-6000 yards on Sundays. This is nothing I haven’t done before, I quite frequently get in swims around 5000 yards, but now there will be a bit more intent behind them, since I will be swimming them with someone who swims faster than me. This is good for me, I need the push, so at 10am on Sundays (and occasionally 8:30am), my body better be ready to hit that water…and GO.

Plow! When I first began practicing yoga, I could not do this if my life depended on me. This pose is what really pointed out the imbalances I had along the back body – specifically, my right foot (the side all my problems were on) could not reach down nearly as far as the left. Now I can get both down! This is an amazing stretch of the posterior – gastrocs, hamstrings, glutes, the entire back, and the neck. I DO NOT recommend attempting this stretch unless you are thoroughly warmed up, and have properly learned how to execute it.

Saturday was a run day, and the day when I start to build things back up a little. I got in 7.2 miles, not a lot, but not too low, either.

Sunday I got in my usual morning swim, and to finish my day out, I went through a little yoga routine to really get myself stretched out; yoga after swimming is great – you work all your muscles in every plane of motion during swimming, and with yoga you stretch out all your muscles in every plane of motion. You can’t go wrong.

That concludes recovery week and my 14th week of training. 182 days remaining until race day. Another build cycle begins today, with some new exercises in my strength routine. Bring it on!

Everything in time…

The new refrigerator was scheduled to arrive sometime between 12:15pm and 2:15pm. Actually, it was supposed to arrive LAST Saturday, but the snowstorm closed the Thruway and the truck with our fridge on it was coming from Ohio so…it didn’t make it. They called and rescheduled for the following weekend (as in, yesterday).

I had big plans this weekend. Big training plans, that is. I was going to get a 16-mile run in on Saturday, and a nice long, tough, swim in on Sunday followed by an intensive yoga session in the afternoon. I awoke Saturday morning to beautiful sunshine, and frigid cold temperatures. With wind. As I figured, I would have to get my run in a bit later in the day, once it had warmed up some. My parents had somewhere to be at 2pm, so I was hoping the refrigerator would be delivered by that time – or, even better, by the time they had to leave at 1pm – so that I would be able to get out and get my run in.

1pm rolls around, and still no new fridge, and no word on a more precise time of delivery. Damn. This means I am going to have to sit around and wait. My impatience steadily growing, and my motivation to get out and run steadily waning, the phone finally rings about 20 minutes to 2pm with the word that they will be there in about another 20 minutes. Almost on the dot, they were here at 2pm. Here’s where I will make a long story short: after taking a bit longer than I had thought they would, they finally depart just before the 3pm hour. By the time I get some things squared away in the house, it is nearly 3:30. And I. Am. MAD. I mean GRUMPY. I’m looking at the clock, trying to judge my time and how much daylight is left. Can I get 16 miles in before it’s dark? The temperature is now going back down, and the wind has picked up considerably. I have to face it. I can’t get out and run right now. For the next few moments, all aspects of anger, frustration, defeat, and my-training-week-has-once-again-been-screwed thoughts go through my head. I think about getting on the treadmill and pounding out 16 miles. I think about getting in a short run outside and finishing the rest on the treadmill. Thoughts are flying through my mind. Meanwhile, time is passing and the day is getting shorter. Then I say to myself, ‘Wait a minute. Calm down. STOP. Calm down. There is a logical solution, but you have to get back in your right mind to find it.’

My decision? Hop on the bike. Why? Of all aspects of a triathlon, cycling is my weakest, so, suffice it to say that cycling is where I need the most work. Therefore, when you get right down to it, when I’m in a training pinch, that’s what I need to do. For Sunday, I would get my long run in. I would have to forgo my beloved Sunday swim, unless the weather looked to be sans rain all day, then I might consider getting the swim in with the tri club in the morning, and getting my run in later in the morning. My big goal for the week was to get the long run in, so I would have to switch things around to accommodate this. That’s fine, that’s how training works. As I believe I have stated before, you have to be ready (and able!) to adapt.

This morning brought with it resplendent sunshine, significantly warmer temps, and slightly less wind. However, I was still in a bit of a funk from yesterday, and my motivation to run was not entirely optimal. I studied the weather forecast for awhile, and decided that I would forgo the swim entirely in favor of getting my run in during the morning hours; I didn’t want to be out running 16 miles in freezing cold rain.

So, at right about 10am I lugged myself out the door. Just go easy, I told myself, our goal is to just finish this today, not to set any speed records. My first five miles was mainly into the wind, but I kept my pace, and even within the first couple of miles, I knew how this run was going to turn out. My posture was excellent, there was not a whippet of fatigue to be noticed in my legs, and I was feeling supremely awesome. But I didn’t want to get carried away with these thoughts just yet – after all, I still had quite a few miles to go.

When I hit mile 9, I couldn’t hold my legs back anymore. For whatever reason, only having 7 miles to go made me feel like I was so close to the finish, that I could start sprinting. So, I let go of the reigns, I released the throttle, I pushed down on the accelerator…

I negative split the run; my second half was considerably faster than the first. I finished at a pace that was about one minute per mile faster than the pace I started at. I didn’t let myself go entirely – after all, it’s not quite time for that yet – but if I was feeling that good, I was going to let my legs have their day. This was the longest I have run in nearly three years, and the best I have ever felt. And that was when I knew, everything comes in time. Not OUR time, but a time that is determined by something other than ourselves. I knew then that I was meant to get my long run in today, at that time, in these (perfect) conditions. Because I did today what I was meant to do, what was intended for me to do. And that is something that I cannot change, that I cannot determine.

My right hamstring and IT band tightened up quite a bit after I finished, so I’m glad I now get to head into a recovery week. Recovery for my body, recovery for my mind. I look forward to rejuvenating, and now, especially, I look forward to the start of my next cycle. Everything in time…