Saturday, May 22, 2010

Sometimes, things just don't go to plan...

So friday was a particularly long workday...    I was out my hotel room door at 545am heading into work which meant no workouts before that.  I'm happy to get up at 5am and sometimes even 430 to workout.  But I refuse to getup any earlier than that.  So if I have to be in the shower getting ready by 5am to go to work, then working out ahead of that is not an option.  Friday was the big day so it was a long day and we ended it by taking everything down and loading up all the trucks to send all the gear back home.  Which meant I got back to my hotel room around 6:30pm feeling pretty damn exhausted.  But I forced myself to shower, and wake up and head to the gym for some strength training.  Once into my groove I really enjoyed the workout, but it was a bit labored as the long 5 hour takedown had taken a toll on my energy level.  But I still not only got the workout in, but I upped the amount of weight used in several of the excercises as well and got in a greaty workout.

The next part of the plan was to go get in the shower, change, and then head to the pool for a swim workout.  I did all of that... but the pool had way too many people in it and it made doing any sort of lengths or drills near impossible.  After 20 minutes I gave up.  I did get some quality pool workouts in during the week, but this was definitely not one of them.  All this one really did was frustrate me a bit.  So instead I just did a few bits and pieces in the pool which really served more to loosen up my muscles after the strength workout than anything else.  So at least some purpose was served.

Then I went to bed around 11pm after packing.  My alarm went off at 445am.  My plan was to try and run 8 miles before going to the airport.  I woke up wide awake at 4am and started thinking about it.  I was EXHAUSTED from a brutal week of intensely long stressfull hours.  I was tired and all running 8 miles was going to do was beat me up.  Then I looked at my training log.  I haven't had a day off in almost three weeks.  I've been planning to take one day off a week, but my schedule keeps making me have to shift a workout into that day off so it just hasn't happened.  And also since I haven't been able to bike in orlando I have already done plenty of run workouts there so I didn't really need the long run other than to continue to stretch my distance in that regard which I can do another day.  I also decided that it made a lot more sense to rest up and get ready for the 40+ mile group ride / brick workout I'm going to do on Sunday with some memebers of the Tri-NE group.  So thats my plan.  Unpack, get ready for tomorrow morning's workout, and sleep and rest.  I don't think thats a copout...   its a good plan as I think any run today would have been an excercise in fighting off exhaustion and not a productive training session.

In other news....   a VERY large box showed up while I was away.


My brand new Pro Bike Case!  ITS HUGE!!!  I'm told that Southwest will ship this thing for just 50 bucks each way.  But I'm suspect of this.  I may do a dry run past their counter with it to be sure.  If they won't then I'll use the box to ship it.  As its official!  I will definitely be headed out to San Juan Island for two weeks in June to visit my friends, run, bike, and swim all over the island.  Conveniently my friend Penelope out there is a swim instructor.  So she's offered to help me with my stroke and throw me in a lake or two out there with a wetsuit on to get some OWS experience in as well.  So I'm really excited about that.  Its insanely beautiful out there and its also the place where I learned to love distance running as the scenery is so gorgeous you don't want your runs to end out there.

As well as that some new bike Jerseys showed up including a new Livstrong one!  and sadly a new Livestrong helmet showed up but its too small... so that one is going to have to go back sadly.  Oh well.  I'll just have to order the next size up.

Time for me to finish unpacking and tidying up.  I'm looking forward to training with other folks this week.  Tomorrow's group ride, and Tuesday's Time Trial.  As well as that I have two more sessions in the pool with Jacki this week and lots of other fun stuff too.  And fortunately work isn't too bad this week so I'll have lots of training time now that monster project I just finished is behind me.  I'm looking forward to it!

And just a quick note to say I'm really loving the benefits I'm starting to see from strength training twice a week.  Not only is my muscle tone visually improving, but its making me less sore every time, and its making me feel less sore after long bike and run workouts too.  So the benefits of it are really starting to be obvious so I'm definitely going to keep that up twice a week.  Plus it will help me get down to that single digit bodyfat percentage I'm so close to already!  At last check I was between 11 and 12 percent.  Almost there!

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