First Week

Well, the first week of the new training plan is over.  Only missed Monday's run due to injury... but the rest were completed.  My thoughts by day:

Saturday Feb 6th - Awesome pyramid intervals for 2 hours with Jeni @Roadwaves ... then got stupid and actually tried to ride hard during my team's spin class...

Sunday Feb 7th - Awesome 55 miles on Heritage Park Loop.  Never hit the wall and worked hard on my bridging to other riders.  However, had problems walking due to left hamstring afterward

Monday Feb 8th - Still problems walking but was able to do the 400 yd swim & yoga class... Got really pissed off about 2 things - my hamstring preventing me from running & how bad I am at yoga

Tuesday Feb 9th - Off.  Massage was great and helped. Leg (and everything else) is feeling better

Wednesday Feb 10th - 4-5 Mile Tempo Run was okay.  Apparently I did it wrong, which was a bit frustrating... and because I had to rush off to a conference call, I didn't have time to stretch afterward <-- That will NEVER happen again!

Thursday Feb 11th - Trainer class at Ride On - crazy intervals w/ Jeni again... my legs and hip flexors were burning (see Wed's entry) but I can feel my cadence picking up on the sprints... Yay!

Friday Feb 12th - swim 4 x 200s w/ 1 minute breaks in between <-- First - this was the longest distance I've ever swam in a pool... and I actually liked it!  Read up on some tips for triathlon swimming online and they were a tremendous help today in the water... *Note to self: only focus on improving one thing at a time... 5 "new" things at once can be distracting! Yoga was a little better today.  The instructor had to help me with almost every position but I still could barely do anything. Instead of this:

 I look like this:

So what did I learn:
1- Swimming isn't so bad... I may even learn to like it!

2 - I officially DISLIKE yoga... mainly b/c I REALLY suck at it... which also means it is in NO way relaxing.  There must be another way to work on my flexibility and core!?!?!?!? Or perhaps I need to do yoga more often? I'm at a loss here.  But that class definitely ripped out the happy feeling inside of me from my swim and turned me into a frustrated pill to kick off the weekend.

And there my friends we have... the first week.  In honor of it... and because it's Valentine's Day Weekend... the hubby and I are headed to a semi-getaway!  Well, I'm not even sure you can call it "semi".  We are staying the night at the Westin Poinsett (on points), going out to dinner at Stellar Restaurant & Wine Bar, hopefully catch a show at the Peace Center (Wicked), maybe drinks afterward.... We'll sleep in tomorrow morning, enjoy breakfast in bed... and late morning head out to Donaldson for a fun 30 miles followed by a short run.

Hopefully the idea of what's to come at the end of this workday will bring me out of my funk...

Happy Valentine's Day!!

One Step Forward

You'd usually finish this phrase by saying two steps back... right? But I'm hoping for only 1 step back... I'm okay with staying in Neutral; better than moving backwards!

After yesterday's wonderful ride my left hamstring was really hurting and I chalked it up to the hamstring isolation drills we did during our team spin (In hind sight I should have refrained from this drill). By the time I got home, I was able to admit it wasn't just sore.  Alas, while watching the Super Bowl at a friend's house last night I freely admitted that it's pulled. This wasn't quite the way I wanted to start out my week of training.

I shot my coach an email letting her know of my predicament before hitting the sack around 10:30 last night... Up well before my alarm clock at 5 a.m. this morning, I was hoping and praying it was all a dream and my hami was fine, but that wasn't the case... and at 5:20 we headed to the Y for laps and Yoga.

Aside: When asking everyone I know how long it would take to swim 400 yds, the answer ranged from 5 to 15 min.  Let's just say I was on the high end of that estimate.  In my life I had only swam laps once before today.

The laps were tiring, especially for my upper body which was awakened by exercise for the first time in a long while.  The yoga was "okay".  Background: I have a 6" scar (and I'm being nice here, I've never measured it and it could easily be longer than 6") on my left knee... that knee can't bend as far as the right.  And I definitely can't sit in a kneeling position, which apparently happens a lot in yoga classes.  The scar tissue also makes it interesting anytime the knee is flat on the ground bearing weight.  And the teacher's name... "Pandora"... seriously?  I'm guessing it was her stage name.  Anyway... yoga is not my cup of tea... but if it helps build my core and my flexibility (previously accomplished with martial arts)... I'll stick with it... I simply wish there was not so much kneeling involved.

After that class on the way home the hubby kept inquiring as to what was wrong... I kept telling him nothing, I'm just tired.  And being the wonderful hubby that he is... he knew that "nothing" always means something... So he kept asking.   Finally we both agreed that we're both exhausted from the late night and early morning (first early morning is always the worst)... and on top of that I'm pissed about my hami.  I know... there's nothing to do about it now... but I can still be pissed about it right?  Especially after getting this response from my coach regarding what I can and can't do:

"Schedule a deep tissue massage... NO spin No bike and NO run... Be VERY CAREFUL. U do NOT want to tear it more! Rest and recover."

That first part I like (scheduled for Tuesday at noon), but not at the expense of my workouts... And there we have it folks... this is what I'm very pissed about. No pub run tonight... no 4-5 mile tempo run Wednesday... and possibly no night ride at RideOn Thursday!  Too many No's when everything started out so promising.

But I'm going to be a good girl... b/c the rest of the message contained the following: "Do it right and u can be back on the bike this weekend! Be stupid and be out 2 weeks!"  I trust her... and I'm not going to be stupid... after all, that's what got me here in the first place!

On a good note - we did have super yummy quesadillas, nachos, red pepper dip, and hershey's kiss sugar cookies last night while watching the Super Bowl.  And while I didn't get a picture of them, I'll share a picture from a mahi mahi fish taco fixed at the end of January:

Cheers!