Something to believe in

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh!" he whispered. "Yes, Piglet?" "Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you.


   Friday - Sleep. Hooray! For the first time in 10 days I slept 8hrs solid. I woke up and felt amazing! So amazing that I drove to the gym at 4:30am to aqua jog. 


w/u 15mins
1 x 1 x 10 = 1min Z4/Z5, 1min recovery low Z2/high Z1
5 min cool down

I then went home to sleep another hour before having to get up and go to work.

    I have a huge window behind my computer at work. I think I'm pretty lucky for this. At previous jobs I was forced to stare at white walls or even worse...the other side of a cubical. Now I get the beautiful countryside for my view. I am appreciative, I really am. I just wish Oregon didn't piss-pour down rain every freakin' day. The weather is really weighing down on me.

  I grew tired by evening. I probably need solid sleep for a couple days to catch up on all the time lost. I dragged myself to the pool and managed to knock out a short 1600y swim.


warm up - 400pull, 100k

4 x 75 (20r) - z2, 25 fr, 25 fist, 25 fr
3 x 200 (30r) - build each to z3

cool down -
50 - dolphin kick - core strength
100 - easy
50 - dolphin kick - core strength


I stretched and melted away in the sauna for 15 mins.


   Saturday - Mr. Sandman disappeared and left behind Mr. Insomnia. I hate Mr. Insomnia. I'm not supposed to take my sleep aid for more then 3 days a week max. I'm predicting Mr. Insomnia will be an unwelcome guest for the next few nights. What good are unwelcome guests? I'm going to leave a note and ask for hot coco by my bedside the next time he wakes me up.


  Stress! Agh! Does anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with stress? (This is the current reason behind Mr. Insomnia's visits.) I'm usually good at finding solutions to my problems. Recently I've stumbled upon the fact that I am not good at handling personal stress. Which is weird, because when work gets hot with deadlines I put the fire out. I work well under pressure. But I think this is only a case with work performance and or racing. On a personal level I hold myself to a certain bar. When I don't reach that bar I get down. When I get down I stress about what I could/couldn't have done. These are things out of my control. Yet I still worry about them. Dale Carnegie wrote this great book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. I picked it up long ago but only just now have I started to read it. I'm a type-A planner. Planning is a HUGE part of my life. It's one of my main job responsibilities as a buyer. Since I am now self-coached I have to plan my training again. Ugh. (I don't regret this decision). And I have long-distance relationship with a whole lot of logistics to work out. Is planning bad? I think not. What is bad is how I deal or cope when things don't go as planned. Outside of work 90% of my life doesn't go as planned. Since I don't know how to productively deal with this, it is making a negative impact on my entire life. As I reflect back on my past I think this became habitual from unhealthy relationships and set expectations.
Any advice is greatly appreciated. 
"When you suffer an attack of nerves you're being attacked by the nervous system.  What chance has a man got against a system?"


And to answer your question...Yes, I have a stress ball. I've dug my nails into it. 


 To start the weekend off right my momma and I met up for SlappyCakes. This time around we physically made our own pancakes. The savory ones were made out of sauteed mushrooms, bacon, goat cheese in a gluten free batter and topped off with creme fresh. The sweet were dried cherries, milk chocolate chips in a gluten free batter topped off with maple syrup. 
      Here's my momma flippin' cakes. Note that I posted the successful photos :)
                                        
                 And here I am about to devour one, notice the devilish grin :)

  I am soooo tired of this weather! I took the 20% chance of rain and I took Carnage outside. Baby girl and I rode for almost 3 hours on a pretty flat route. I'm rounding off week 5 of my stress fracture. I'm still a little cautious to take on hills. I avg'd mid to high Z2 for the 49.7 mi. I would have rounded the block for the last .3 but it started to rain and 50mi really didn't mean anything to me. My avg speed was 18.3mph, which doesn't really say anything. But I figured I'd mention it as my watts are for me to know :)
  Later that evening my quads were feeling the ride. Oh my! After reviewing my power data, my normalized watts (pedal to the metal with force vs. avg watts- pedal spinning w/no force) was low zone 3. It made sense my quads were fatigue. It has been...oh say, 6 months since I've ridden that long. My muscular endurance is not what it used to be. Lesson learned. Now, time to work on changing that.




   Sunday - Was a rude awakening.  The tops of my quads and hip flexors were swollen up like they were smuggling golf balls. My lats were also fatigued from the 2+hrs of riding aero. Energy overall was low. 


   I modified my training day and cut my long aqua run down from an hour 15 to 30 minutes. This was extremely tiring. Has anyone else had the experience of aqua running? The resistance can be brutal. After the previous bike day I felt like I had been jumped by the school bully. Speaking of cutting my long run short. This is/was the perfect time to do so. After much research I think it is most beneficial for my long runs to take part mid-week. I've been training endurance for the last 4-5 years. I know I can do the distance. I know what fatigue feels like. There is no reason that my quality long distance training needs to be back to back - Sat/Sun. I think I will get more "bang for the buck" in training and in regards to staying injury free with a long weekend bike and long mid week run - all in quality. 


Post run I swam. 



Warm up
500 buoy

12 x 50 (20r) - 25 drill, 25 free
(Rotate: cu, fdrag, & fist)
8 x 100 (15r) - 2 sets of 4 x 100
set =
1st - 75 easy, 25 z5
2nd - 50 easy, 25 z5, 25 easy
3rd - 25 easy, 25 z5, 50 easy
4th - 25 z5, 75 easy

Cool down - 100 buoy

   
Total yardage - 2000.


   I cooked, slept and ate for the rest of the day. What's on the menu this week? Pork  chili with a chocolate, espresso twist. Low fat Alfredo made out 3 italian cheeses, ricotta, and surprise - greek none fat yogurt, accompanied with gluten free pasta, chicken and veggies. Did I mention I napped? :) Finished the night off with a 90 minute deep tissue massage. As I write, I am flooding my stomach with H2o. The goal is to flush all the lactic crap-o-la out of my system.