This has been a frustrating week training wise... but I hope that some good will come of it. It certanly started off well with a nice session in the pool on Monday and a quick swim on tuesday. But since then its gone downhill. As I mentioned earlier after consulting with some friends in the know I've decided to take an off week from biking and running and let my legs recover a little bit before I get too far into marathon training. I figured I would still swim this week though. And thats where the frustration kicks in. Maybe I've been tired or maybe I've just not had the drive... I don't know but I didn't make it back to the pool till thursday afternoon (yesterday).
I got to the pool around 6pm after working a long day in the convention center here. When I got there the pool had 4 teenage kids goofing off in it. Although the pool is 25 yards long there are no lane dividers or markers of any kind. So I just picked the wall of the pool I felt was more empty and started my laps along the wall. Right away I felt awful and had lousy form. The first 50 was a massive struggle. My body position was all wrong, my legs were sinking and I was just a mess. So I tried to focus on head position and leg position and get it right. And nothing I was doing was working. I just didn't have it in me. Then all of the other factors in the pool started to get to me. The pool temperature was way too warm. So it was really uncomfortable to swim in. Which was odd as it wasn't that warm two days ago. On top of that the kids in the pool didn't seem to care that I was clearly trying to get laps in and kept getting in my way forcing me to stop. And they knew it too. So between my lousy form, warm water, grumpiness from the day, and the stupid kids I was not having any fun. I wasn't in a good mood at all and I let it get to me. So for the first time since the annoying guy who thought he was my laneside coach showed up I got out of the water and left the pool early. I only logged 500 lousy yards. Ugh. I was pretty grumpy about it too.
After the swim I met up with some friends of mine out here and went out for dinner. I don't usually drink much anymore. In fact typically I only drink when at home and even then its pretty rarely. Although I've been trying to ease up on those restrictions as its nice to share a glass of wine or a beer with the girl. But I don't usually drink on the road anymore. Its very easy to get caught up in the lifestyle of being on the road and drinking every night like many of the guys I tour with. And thats fine and they enjoy it... but its not for me anymore. Its just not the lifestyle I want to lead. So last night I decide I'm having a bad day and I'm going to just have a small salad for dinner to free up the calorie room for some liquid carbs in the form of a couple of beers. Well I'm not quite sure what happened but that turned into 2 beers with dinner, then off to a mexican bar for a few margaritas, some tortilla soup and chips and guac, and then off to the hotel bar for a banana split and apple crisp split between three of us with an irish coffee and a guiness. Yikes! Thats a LOT of alcohol for me! I was lit up like a cheap carnival! I guess I just needed to relax and vent a little and let go with the boys. So I had a lot of fun. When I woke up this morning there was a room service cart in my room with a pizza with two bites taken out of it and a slice of carrot cake. Apparently I ordered room service last night. Why I thought I was hungry after all that I don't know. So I had pizza and cake for breakfast. So yeah... not my healthiest day! So its back to being on my best behavior. Not so good that I did this on an off week when I can't go burn all those calories off!
So whats next? Well I think I'm going to take the rest of this week off as planned. I may try and swim again on Saturday or Sunday but I'm not even going to pressure myself to do that. I'm just going to chill and try and rest my legs up and recover this week and try and eat really healthily and give my body lots of good fuel to repair itself with. No more junk! and no more alcohol till I get home. Next week I'll start running again and get another long run in while I'm out in LA and see how that feels. In the meantime I need to figure out my weekly training plan. I know my running schedule which will be two short and one long run a week, but I need to figure out how swimming and strength training fits into that, and also at least one to two days of cycling as well. I also have decided to have at least one off day a week as well, and I want to take advantage of my work schedule to shift my long run into the middle of the week so I can have Sundays as my off day. I love the idea of sleeping in on Sunday and hanging with the girl without having to worry about fitting in a 3 hour ride or run that takes up half the day and leaves me exhausted. So more on all that soon as I start figuring it all out.
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