Guys, getting back into shape is hard.

No really.  It’s hard.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.  It’s absolutely definitely worth it.  But getting back to running real distances is certainly a challenge.

On to last week’s workouts.

Monday – Pool was closed for the holiday, so I did a four mile run.

Tuesday – Choir practice started up today (normally, it’s on Mondays) so I sucked it up and got up early to ride my bike for a little over an hour.  Crushed it.  Then stiffened up as the day went on.

Wednesday – More trainer work, plus some strength work.  That I am terrible about doing.

Thursday – And the wheels fell off.  I’m not sure why, but my hip was sore today when I tried to run.  Not the pain of before, but it just didn’t feel great, so I only ran a mile and then went to foam roll.  I’m pretty sure that I was just overly tight and so my stride was off, but it’s another reminder that just getting in the workouts isn’t enough – I need to prioritize rest and recovery too.

Friday – Off to the pool.  Plus strength work with noodle arms.

Saturday – 4.8 mile run today, with none of the pain from Thursday.  All that foam rolling helped a ton.

Sunday – Thanks, rain.  Instead of riding outdoors, I did an indoor brick with 90 minutes on the trainer and a mile on the treadmill.

With a race on the horizon, I’m just about where I need to be, but still pretty far from Army Ten Miler distance, which is where I need to be in October.  I’ll get there, but it’s slow going.

And now, I’m off to foam roll again.

First off, I’m excited to finally get to announce that I’m now part of the BibRave Pro team!  If you’re not already familiar with BibRave, you should certainly check it out.  It’s an amazing place to check out race reviews (and write your own).  I know that when I’m considering a new race, one of the first things I do is check out what other people have had to say about the race, and BibRave has quickly become one of my favorite places to research.  I’m excited to join the team (especially now that I’m racing again) and look forward to sharing the experience with you!  I’ve got a new discounts page that you can find in my header menu where I will be sharing all sorts of race and product discounts.

Apparently I can only get all greens during a recovery week.

Last week was my race recovery week and it went so well.  Look at all that green in my training plan.  It’s rare that I don’t have at least one yellow (almost always due to a slow swim) so that beautiful week of green makes me happy.

Monday – Rest day!  Well, driving home from race day and doing laundry day.  But no exercise, so it’s a win.

Tuesday – Easy run/walk.  I had a bit of residual tightness.  As I’ve gotten a lot of the major muscle groups strengthened in my legs/hips/glutes, a few pesky muscles have decided to make themselves known.

Wednesday – Trainer ride.  This was a reminder that it is a recovery week.  These were some tough intervals.

Thursday – Easy run/walk.  Much easier than Tuesday.

Friday – Swimming!  I think I may have a new favorite pool.  It’s not as enjoyable of an experience, but I also don’t have to fight for a lane at 6am, so I may be switching my pool allegiance once my pass is used up.

Saturday – Trainer ride.  I considered going outside and blatantly didn’t.  Instead I rode inside and watched Coco and did not understand why people cried, then sobbed while doing my PT exercises as I finished up the movie.

Sunday – MOAR SWIMMING.

Boom.  All green, all done, no pain.  Gotta up that run game though.  Slow and steady.

callmegundu / Pixabay

I am so excited to finally be able to do a weekly workout recap again!  I’m finally back into normal training without injury or travel (sorta) or anything else to get in my way.  Here’s to recommitting.  And being tired all the time.  And hungry.  So hungry.

Last week, I had to do a bit of finagling with my schedule to get almost everything in, but thankfully, I have a coach who understands that life sometimes gets in the way.

Monday (Memorial Day) – 90 minutes on the trainer.  It was such a bummer that all my county lap pools were closed because it would have been a perfect day for swimming.

Tuesday – Walk/Run intervals.  I’m still very slowly easing in to running with a solid warmup and cool down and a few 30 second bursts of running.  I’m terrified every time, but I’m still pain free.

Wednesday – 60 minutes on the trainer.  My coach does structured workouts that I can download into Zwift and I LOVE it.  I love how Zwift guides you through the workouts.  It’s so much easier than trying to keep my eye on my watch.  I’m using it with a dumb trainer, so I still have to do the adjustments, but the screen alerts are awesome guidance.

Thursday – At PT today, my therapist spent a ton of time on my TFL, to the point where walking was hard afterwards and it was sore til… well, til yesterday.  Needless to say, I did not run this day.  I did walk a mile to and from PT though, so it wasn’t a total waste.

Friday – Pool time!  I switch back and forth between a meter pool and a yard pool, which makes some of my drills seem so much harder.  You don’t think about the difference being that big until you’re doing longer sets.

Saturday – More pool time, plus another walk/run set.  Picked up the pool time I missed on Monday.

Sunday – I so wanted to be outside.  But it poured.  So much that at one point during the day, I was outside cleaning crap out of a drain so my basement didn’t flood.  So I spent another 90 minutes on the trainer.  Which I love, so that’s okay too.

Look at that!  A full week of workouts.  (Well, sorta.)  I’m so happy to be back to full training, even if I’m just easing in to the running.  I do miss my couch, but I finally feel like I’m normal me again.

OpenClipart-Vectors / Pixabay

Last week was another big week of training, gearing up to my last triathlon of the season.  We also had an eclipse last week.  Seems pretty long ago, doesn’t it?

Monday – Eclipse Day.  This was a rest day for me.  It was also my telework day, and late in the afternoon, when the network went down, I decided to take advantage of the time of day and went to the pool to get in my Tuesday swim.

Tuesday – Took my rest day here.  And it was glorious.

Wednesday – FTP test.  This didn’t go well.  I just didn’t have any energy for it, and about 15 minutes into the 20 minute test, couldn’t hold my watts, so I decided to stop the test and just continue by riding hard and finishing out the workout.  I didn’t even bother to look at the stats, just decided that my I probably wasn’t fully recovered from the weekend and chose to not worry about it.

Thursday – 4 mile run

Friday – 2000m swim.  Got to do this in an outdoor 50m pool, which made it seem faster, but in fact I was sooooo much slower.  I think I was just being lazy since I didn’t feel as rushed – at my normal pool, I’m pushing to get done so I can get on the road to work and miss the worst of the traffic.  This pool (only open early during the 2 weeks when my main pool is closed) is located such that a few minutes here or there doesn’t affect traffic.

Saturday – Got up super early to get my 2 hour ride/2 mile run in before going out for dim sum with some friends.  Worth it.

Sunday – 8 mile run.  It was a gorgeous day to be outside.  I’m ready for the cooler weather (but not so much for the snow just yet).

This cheetah doesn’t want you to know that she is totally unprepared for racing. manfredrichter / Pixabay

This weekend, I’m racing Culpeper International.  It’s local and hilly.  And I am feeling very unprepared.  At least as compared to my previous races.  I’ve really been nailing my training over the past few months, so to have such a lackluster month right before a race has me feeling a bit off kilter.

No regrets, of course – I was dealing with a small injury that led to another small injury and my quad still isn’t quite right (but it’s getting there).  And it’s not that I’m actually untrained.  Just not feeling quite as prepared as I would have liked for a race that is as challenging as this one will be.  So I’m going in without any real time goals, just to finish strong, whatever that happens to mean on the day.

On to last week’s training:

Monday: Rest Day

Tuesday: 2 mile run and Team Fight swim

Wednesday – Supposed to be an FTP test but I didn’t have the energy, so I put it off and ran Thursday’s 4 miles instead.

Thursday – FTP test time!  And when I was done, I discovered that the battery in my power meter was just low enough that it dropped out a few times during the test, so no measurable result.  Alas.

Friday – 2000 meter swim, followed by my annual physical where my doctor proudly proclaimed me healthy (and commented that she likes to see healthy people come in for checkups and why don’t more of you do this?)

Saturday – Volunteered at the Team Fight tri camp, which meant lots of swimming in some crazy water and some running of the bike/run course as I helped direct people.  Went home and finished up my 6 mile run on the treadmill.

Sunday – I was dead after Saturday, but went out to ride anyway.  Felt like I was dying the entire time, and when I finished, discovered that I was PRing segments of the course.  No wonder everything hurt!