Mind Tricks

End of recovery week.  I think I'm supposed to feel rested.  lol.  I guess I am more rested than I was a week ago, but I am not sure I am rested enough to face the week I have ahead of me!  Not sure I could GET rested enough to face this coming week...so I guess it's just a matter of the right attitude.  Positive thinking right?

We are what we think.  Have you ever heard of Masaru Emoto?  He's a Japanese scientist and doctor who has done extensive research with water, specifically water crystals.  He discovered that water molecules are impacted by our thoughts, words and feelings.  He has captured astonishingly clear pictures of water crystals as they are exposed to different music, words, and emotions.  When those words and emotions are positive - love, gratitude - the crystals are beautiful.  When the words and emotions are negative, the crystals are deformed and even sinister.  The Hidden Messages in Water.  It's a pretty interesting body of work.  And as he points out - we are almost all water...so we are what we think.  Such an important concept to grasp.  And so relevant to everything we do.

So that brings me to this last week.  The mind has an amazing ability to play tricks on you.  Like seriously - I've been through this before, a few times, you'd think I would know better.  But I'm sitting there on my bike at 5:30 am on Tuesday morning, and I really started thinking - man I suck, I don't think I can do this, what was I thinking signing up for Ironman, I don't know if I have what it takes...blah blah blah.  I just could barely do anything, and it seemed pretty easy to forget everything I have done.  Wednesday's run wasn't much better.  Then Thursday I got sick.  Not a head cold, or stomach thing, or anything like that - just literally NO energy.  I walked into an 8am meeting and Anne told me I looked pretty grey.  I felt pretty grey to be honest.  I had woken up for swimming, but knew I wouldn't be able to do it so went back to sleep.  I left work early, and really thought I would go do strength and spin but just did not feel well at all.  During this time coincidentally, I had also stopped thinking so negatively about my training and my fitness level, and reminded myself that I have been through this and I know this is normal.  And that it is going to get worse.  So I just have to turn myself around, pull up my boot straps, and trust in the process.  Zimmer knows what he's doing - lord knows I've doubted him before, and every time I get to my A race, it all falls into place.

Sure enough, the remaining workouts this week were pretty good.  Friday was a scheduled rest day, and I decided that it was best to leave it that way, rather than trying to make up Thursday's workouts.  My long run on Saturday - purposefully very hilly to replicate San Juan - was actually pretty good.  And today's ride outside was good too.  Glad to finally get outside on the bike.  Now I am sure the turnaround was in part a result of it getting a few days rest, but I think I am also just as sure that without letting go of some of the negativity I was holding, rest wouldn't have helped much.

So, I've got my positive attitude on and I am ready to take on this week.  What's in store for me?

1. 15:40 training hours - GASP - biggest week ever.  (I have a feeling I'll be saying this a lot this year).  This of course means at least 30 hours of time, if not more, with prep, travel, cool down, etc.
2. Closing on the new house - yes FINALLY.  Fannie Mae & her lawyers finally got through their stuff and we are supposedly closing tomorrow.  Of course this means there is NO WAY I can get the new laundry room floor in before the move.  So I've accepted that as "out of my control".
3. Packing and moving.  Yep, this week.  Oh, and find a mover to move me on Friday.  lol.  Oh, and get utilities hooked up.  Oh, and paint the walls back to primer, and clean the old place, and all that goes with that.  Oh, and buy a refrigerator.  
4. Oh right - and work.  Which is getting pretty busy again.

Ya, I'll be tired come Sunday.  But we are what we think.  And that I can control.  So to that end - now it's bedtime...gotta get up early for the first session of our new SF Masters class where Tracy is gonna kick my butt.

Happy training.  And make those water molecules beautiful, eh!

Kat

Recovery Week Here I Come

This has been a rough week.  The first part was good, and I was feeling strong.  Things outside of training started to go downhill after that, and my training followed suit.  It makes me wonder whether my training was harder because I was tired or because I was stressed.  Most likely a bit of both.  Either way, I'm sure glad this next week is a recovery week.

Today's run was HARD.  Not sure exactly why.  Sure I ran hills - I said I would, in order to get ready for the Puerto Rico 70.3 - and it was windy...double whammy for me...but still, shouldn't have been as bad as it was.  Everything hurt.  And it was one of those training sessions that at the end of it, I just start crying.  Weird, eh?  I don't know if it's a girl thing or what, but every once in a while, at the end of a really tough workout, I will just start crying.  It feels like more of a physical release than an emotional one, like a way for all the physical exhaustion to just escape my body.  It's happened about 3 or 4 times over the last two years.  At any rate, I will be running hilly courses for the next month, so I have to assume I'll continue to get better at it, right?  I'm sure the emotional stress from this week has played a part too.  I'll work on letting go of the things I can't control over the next few months, and really pay attention to how that impacts my training (presumably in a positive way).

Mileage This Week:
Swim 5mi/3.4 hrs
Bike 58mi/3.4 hrs
Run 26mi/4.9 hrs
Strength 1hr

Well, I'm down to 27 weeks till IMC, which seems so close.  Scary close.  San Juan is only 4 weeks away, which in a way is less scary but in other ways more scary.  At this point, I'm just ready to go to bed and rest as much as I can during this recovery week.

Hopefully the house will close this week, David will get out of his current snit, and no one else will get rif'ed at work.  That and I'll work on my positive attitude.  :)

Happy Training (and sleeping)
Kat

Tundra Time Trial

Today I competed in my first ever Time Trial.  The race was held on the Silver Comet Trail, which I've ridden many many times.  It was a new experience to add to my growing list of events I've done.  I had a good time, and definitely can't wait for another one so I can apply what I learned today to be better next time.

If you've never done one, here's how the time trial worked:  Everyone is assigned a time - we found out yesterday what our start times were.  Everyone goes off exactly 30 seconds apart.  If someone doesn't show up, they have a "ghost" entrant - and you still go at your assigned time.  You get called about 3-4 minutes before your start time to line up.  When it's your time, you get up on the top of the ramp, clip in, and the guy holds you and your bike as they count down the last 10 seconds.  Then you just go!  And ride as hard as you can for 12 miles.  HTFU!!

I was thinking the ramp seemed like a great idea, until everyone else started freaking out about it...but it turned out to be no big deal and in my opinion, a good thing - it gives you that little bit of momentum to get going.  By the time I got going and looked down at my garmin, my HR was already at 177!  Yikes!  According to the file, it took 1:14 to get there - ha! didn't seem that far into it at the time.  I was thinking, man I gotta get that down, but I really never did.  Bottom line, this is a time trial, and it is supposed to be all out, but 177 from the start was not what I expected.  I've down the FTP tests on the trainer a few times, and that is a little high to start for me.  At one point I actually thought my strap wasn't working - every time I looked down it was still saying 177.  Pretty much only went up from there to hit a max of 188.

I'd been warned not to go out too hard, and that the way out had the upwards slope.  In retrospect I think I took that a little too much to heart.  The turnaround came a lot sooner than I expected, and my data files show how much I stepped it up on the second half.  I had hoped to push my power numbers today and I did manage to get new highs for CPT30, 12 and 10min.  Final time was 33:41, about 41 seconds slower than I really would have liked, but still the fastest average speed I've posted in a race at 21.3 mph.  There are no age categories or masters category for women in the cycling races, quite a bit different than what I am accustomed to.  In the final analysis, I ended up 10th in a field of 65.  I'm happy landing in the top 15% at the beginning of the season.  I'm excited to see what I can do over the rest of the season.

If I am being honest, "not going out too hard" isn't unlike the rest of my training over the last few years.   I don't know that I've really pushed myself enough to know what it's like to really have nothing left.  There's still some fears around having enough to finish that I need to face.  Where's the line between pushing just enough and pushing too hard?  Training and C-races are the time to find that out, right?  Sure I've always pushed it at the end of a race, but I think too often I haven't pushed enough during the rest of the race to really see my potential.  I plan to pursue this over the next couple months and see how much I can take, what I can really tolerate.

Oh and to top off this experience, today was GORGEOUS, and close to 70 degrees when I raced.  Can't beat that!  Gotta go re-hydrate.

Happy Training!
Kat

...tired...

Man, I am dead tired today.  My training sessions were less than stellar.  This post is gonna be short.  :)

Monday I did the strength class at SF, and I said "for the third week in my block, I am feeling pretty darn good!"  Last block I was already pretty tired by the beginning of the third week.  For my non-tri followers, generally speaking we train in blocks of usually 4 weeks - 3 weeks on, 1 week recovery.  Periodization is what it is called.  It gives your body a chance to recup and repair so that you reap the benefits of your training.  Matt grinned at me and said "tell me how you feel in a few days".

Sure enough, last night I was tired, though I managed to really bust out a good interval session on the treadmill, but this am - good lord, I was so damn tired.  I actually got back into bed after getting up for swim at 5am.  Don't worry, the race in a month got me out again, and I dragged my ass to the pool, but I couldn't do the whole workout.  My tank was empty by about 50 minutes.  I called it, and went home.  I was a little out of it all day, bumping into things, and even left the house with only half my makeup on!  Spin tonight wasn't much better - I really just wanted to fall asleep on the couch - but I did go and was happy with just being able to spin my legs for an hour.

It's been a rough week.  Bunch of layoffs at work, one of my favourite people included (Murph), and then the stress of the closing which isn't going to happen tomorrow after all...

Will be skipping tomorrow morning's run and sleeping in.  I have the Tundra Time Trial on Saturday - my first ever - and a long run on Sunday that is really a key workout.  So I will opt for rest tomorrow which will do me better in the long run (ha, no pun intended!).  Thanks to Tracy for making me realize it's okay to do that under the right circumstances!

Night all.  Happy Training!
Kat

The Beauty of the Long Run

I used to think that the great thing about long runs was that it gave you time to think.  You know, about life, what' going on, what to do about what's going on, and so on.  Today I think I have learned the TRUE beauty of the long run: time to think about nothing and get away from life, what's going on, what to do about it.

Last weekend, two of the pro's on the SF team - Amy and April - gave a Q&A session after our regular Sunday Grind class.  One of the things they talked about was how stress on your body is stress, no matter where it comes from.  Stress at work, a fight with your SO, buying a new house, whatever it is...all add stress to the body just like a hard training session does.  And all these things impact your ability to really bring what you need to bring to a hard workout.  My brain has been noodling on this all week in the background.  I think I've never really given that fact its due.  I've always just accepted these stresses as an inevitable part of life.  I've recently started rethinking that.  I've certainly started to really notice that when things aren't great with hubby, it has a huge negative impact on my training sessions.  It's not a connection I've made in the past, probably because I didn't want to deal with what that meant.

One of the things my coach has always drilled into my head is "stay in the moment"..."one mile at a time". Today I started thinking about that in conjunction with the whole stress thing.

I had a long run on the books - longest of the season so far.  I was not in the best place today, and really struggled to get out for my run.  My plan of an 8am start was definitely not happening.  I finally dragged myself out there at 11am, and it was truly gorgeous out (...and I need to train in as much "heat" as I can with San Juan only 5 weeks out).  I struggled the first 5.5 miles.  Couldn't get my mind off the situation at home.  Started getting cramps pretty bad about mile 4 and they would not go away.  I stopped for a gel at mile 5.5 -- don't normally stop for a gel but I was not feeling this run.  My pace was okay, and the first 5.5 was supposed to be zone 1-2 so nothing lost to this point.  The next 5 miles were to be at race pace, and I knew I'd struggle with this if I didn't change something.  So I pretty much just handed over the whole mess to the universe and let it go.  I focused on this moment.  Not how many miles were left, not how I was going to get through another x miles, not what to do about life, just RIGHT NOW.  I cherished the feel of the sun on my skin, I thought about my form, I listened to my breathing.  Nothing else.  And you know what - the cramps went away, and I ran the next 5 miles faster than I thought I would, with each mile better than the last.  11.5 miles done in what seemed like no time.

"Breathe.  Let go.  And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure."  (Oprah)

"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past or worry about the future, but to live in the present moment."  (Buddhist quote)

No doubt about it - I now believe the beauty of the long run is the time to think about nothing but what is going on right in that moment.  Thank you universe for the confirmation.  And today's lesson from training, as is so often the case, is amplified in Life - treasure what's going on right now.  It's all we can really grasp and all that really matters.

Happy training everyone.  Stay in the Moment!
Kat

I'm a Swimmer!!!??!!!

Look, I'm no swimmer.  I swim because it's the first leg of a sport I love.  I'm not fast, and probably never will be in that first leg.  It's not for lack of trying.  I remember taking swimming lessons as a kid, I even remember taking them because I wanted to, not because my Mum made me; because I wanted to be a better swimmer, and I remember being a teenager in Sarnia wanting to be a better swimmer enough to ride my bike all the way across town to take those lessons in the summertime.  But I sure never remember anyone teaching me how to really swim.  Sure I could make it across the lake up North, but really swim?

Seriously, who knew there was this much to swimming.  And it's funny too, because everyone who DID grow up "really" swimming (and there are a lot of them here in the States, and especially the South it seems) seem to think that the terminology is all so common.  "Elbows up".  WTF.  It took me a long time to figure out what that actually meant.  For a while there I was swimming like a damn coathanger, thinking "why aren't I getting any faster - my f#%&in elbows ARE up!"  LOL.  Now of course I know what that actually means.  Thank God for youtube.  :)

So many little things that add up to a great technique.  A lot of my tri buddies are REAL swimmers.  They swam in college and I mean they (aka Tracy) do 100m in a minute flat.  <gasp>  And they don't look like they're really trying.  But man they're FLYING.  So many little things - hips up, head down, pull strong, elbows up, use your lats, complete your stroke, rotate but not too much, stop being a wind-up toy (pretty sure that is specific to just me!), and so on - and then one day, things start to come together.

And I still swim because I want to, and because I want to be a better swimmer.  5am comes quick though and some days there's a lot of pep-talking going on to get my ass out of bed.  Today was one of those days.  "Is it really 5 o'clock already?"  "I don't want to get up"  "Just get up Katrina"  "You want to be an ironman you need to get your ass out of bed" "one missed day won't matter" "Never mind IM, you have a race in 5 weeks, get your ass out of bed" "Seriously"  "HTFU.  Come'on"

And so I got up.  And I got to the pool, and I wasn't even late.  And today was a Great Day.  :)  Today, my swim coach Mike, walked up and down the deck for 50m watching me, and he came around to my lane, and said "Katrina, keep doing what you're doing!"  This is a first!  He said my hips were up, my kick was efficient, my timing was great (i.e. no more wind-up toy)!!  I was like, "Really????"  He said if you were watching you swim you'd say "there's a girl who knows how to swim!"  Hooray for me!  Man it just Made My Day.  Of course he also said that I still look a little mechanical, and I could pull a bit more when I hit my sweet spot, but that's all good.

So, I may never be fast, but I know I'll get faster, and I also know that I just need to keep working at it, and it'll come.  It feels good to know that when you work hard, you do get better.  Even if you are not a born swimmer!  Thanks Mike!

In the words of a famous swimmer:  Just keep swimming...swimming...swimming!

Happy Training!
Kat

29 weeks to go

Well, had planned to be posting more often than this, MAN life is busy!  I managed through the first month pretty well, given the lax couple of months since Augusta.  Did better than last year but still not as good as I had hoped in keeping committed after the final race of the season.  So January was tough as I got right back in the thick of it.  Was very glad to get to my recovery week.  LOVE recovery week!  Last week was my biggest week ever yet at 14.5 hrs planned which was kinda intimidating, and I only made it to 12.5.  Did all but one workout last week.  In fact I've only missed 5 workouts in the last 5 weeks.  Not bad, though will do better.  Counts so far:

Bike - 22 hours, all indoors, but somewhere around 390 miles
Swim - 12 hrs, 25000 yds
Run - 14 hrs, 93 miles
Strength - 8 hrs, countless lunges, squats, pushups, bench dips!

So I've got this countdown poster at work in my cube, and each week I pull off the sticky that gives the number of weeks and replace it with a new one.  Today I slipped out of the 30's, to 29.  And man, that seems so close.  How did it get this close already??  Still pretty damn scared about the whole thing, can I really do this?, but getting much better at "staying in the moment".  And the days I don't feel like getting out there, I find myself thinking - if you want to do this, you just have to commit to it and do it.  Just do it.  It's so simple isn't it?  And yet SO powerful.  This weekend I ran 10 miles on the treadmill - a mere hour and a half...the girl I was running beside, a teammate of mine from Sport Factory - ran FIVE HOURS on the treadmill - 33 miles.  Now that is inspiring - THAT is commitment and dedication.  Damn.  Jen is training for a double ironman.  Go girl!

Had my first "race" of the season last weekend, and though I just missed my 10k PR, I did manage to place first in my age group.  It was a pretty hilly course, compared to my PR course which is totally flat, so I was happy with myself that day.  Even better was Kira competed in HER first race ever, and I was super proud of her.

Feeling good and feeling strong.  Looking forward to the next week, getting out there and doing my best.  Had a nice simple recovery run tonight, and it felt really good to just get outside and run without worrying about what the garmin said.  Just ran.  Even felt a bit like being home - home home that is - Canada - had Sarah blasting the ipod, had my new lulu outfit on, and one of my Running Room hats on with my beloved maple leaf.  :)  and there was a chill in the air, so wasn't hard to think of home.

Happy training!