40 and rain...nice.

Update. Last time I wrote I was going into my 3rd big week in a row and was feeling pretty burned out. I also had some big pressures from work and was just plain tired and fed up with everything. It’s amazing how a recovery week can change an attitude. By Thursday I was ready to hit again. I’ve made a few more tweaks to the overall training plan. Mondays are historically low on the motivation list. I now attend a masters practice up in shaker so I kick off my weeks right. The workouts are only 4-5 k but, at least I’m moving. I find them quite easy for the most part. This morning was a little more challenging. We did a decline set of 3 sets of 6x100’s. 1:20, 1:15, 1:10. I was pretty surprised that I held those last 6 on 1:03-1:04 to 1:07 as the slowest. After 4 days straight of strength training and a lot of drinking I was satisfied. My next swim is Wednesday which is now BIG Wednesday. Last tally was 9100in 2 hrs. I’ll probably go for 8500 this week. Really no need to go farther. Hopefully I can get back in the evening for 4k more soon. 12-13k once a week is mandatory for terms of not losing any swim events this year.

Lately I have been a little stressed. This issue with my leg is annoying me, and in general I am need of a change. My sleep patterns are way off. I wake up every 30-45 minutes for 2-3 minutes at a time. It just seems like there is a lot of ‘noise’ in my head. I just can’t seem to organize anything. There is one place I find some peace. I can drive myself nuts trying to figure out life’s messes and as soon as I hit the water it’s gone. The cool feeling of the pool, the sound of nothing but bubbles, the sense of weightlessness. I’ve tried to work stuff out while I swim. It’s like the pool and my life are like poles of a magnet. They repel each other. So needless to say I’ve been improving a lot in the pool. On average I repeat 6-8 seconds faster per 100 while pacing 2100yd (1.2 mi) swim. Doesn’t sound like much but, that’s an extra 2.5 minutes where I’m not tired in a race. I can be out of T1 before fastest runners are out of the water. I don’t care much about the fastest cyclists because I can hold my own with little effort.

So that sums it up a bit. My training cycles are shorter due to intensity so now I’m crabby every 3 weeks instead of 5. This is the week 1 of 3 in my next cycle and I have some good workouts planned. If I push the next 21 days I can definitely compound this fitness. I will lose some workout time but, the good thing is that my boys start baseball in 2 weeks. That’s exciting. AND my littlest keeps bugging me about bike racing. He’s 5. I am going to feed that desire as much as possible.