Overtraining and Airplanes

This was an eventful week for me.  My wife came to visit this past weekend, so we went exploring the Virginia Beach area.  I would have to say we had a blast.  We went to the beach, explored the local state park, checked out some navy planes, and enjoyed a lot of great sea food.  One of the best places we ate at was Trilogy Bistro, so if you're ever in the Norfolk area give it a try.  My training on the other hand was not so eventful.

Trilogy Bistro which use to be an old bank

Last week I did great and really put in a lot of miles.  I think it may have been to many too soon though.  Monday was a much needed off day from training.  I was tired and really needed the break so it was perfectly place.  The only problem is I wasn't ready to go running on tuesday.  I was still pretty worn out and by the end of the day I really didn't want to run.  I had talked with Trey that previous weekend and he gave me some words of encouragement that really stuck with me.  As I headed out the door I wasn't feeling great, but I was happy that I had started my run.  Overall it was a pretty good run.  It started slow, but as I came to the end of my run I was feeling much better.  I went to bed early and was hoping that if I got a little extra sleep that night I would feel well rested in the morning.  That couldn't have been farther from the truth.  Wednesday sucked.  I was exhausted all day and I felt like I had only slept for 3-4 hours.  My feet were killing me and I kept finding myself sitting down trying to take the pressure off my knees and feet.  It didn't feel like an injury just like I had been standing for 3 days straight.  That evening came and I was not ready for a run.  All I wanted to do was go to sleep, so I decided to listen to my body and took wednesday off as well.  I had a rest day already planned for thursday, but the more I thought about it the more I think we started with too high of a volume for my first week.  Sometimes I catch myself pushing to hard early on trying to make up for lost time.  The problem is that it's not a sprint it's a marathon (pun intended).  Lost time is lost and all you can do is make the best of what you have left.  I made the decision to take wednesday off as well to try and give my body a little more time to recover.

Carolyn next to one of the planes on base

Here's where the life decision come into play.  My wife came to visit me for the weekend after 3 weeks of being apart and I would have to say excited wasn't enough to describe how I felt.  On my way to the airport I started to think about my training for the weekend and if I thought I would be able to accomplish it.  There are a few things that can distract me in life and my wife is always at the top of this list.  I knew when she got here all I would want to do was spend every waking second with her, so I made the decision to make my training for this weekend a second priority.  It's not that I wanted an excuse or that I didn't understand that I don't have a ton of time before this marathon, it's just that I understand there are more important things in my life.  I wanted to spend time with Carolyn and I didn't want to take an hour or two from her each day this weekend.  If I had time to get out the door and go run I would and if not I would enjoy the time with my wife and head out the door on monday.  That's exactly what happened and I'm perfectly fine with it.

another one of the planes on the base

So needless to say it was a short week of training.  I had one run on tuesday and other than that I was pretty inactive.  I don't feel like I wasted my time though.  I listened to my body and I payed attention to my priorities.  I'm still incredibly motivated and I know this week I'll be able to finish all my workouts.  I took a look at my training plan for the next couple weeks so I could talk to Trey about reducing my milage and it seems like he knew what was going on before I had even said anything.  He had already reduce my milage for the next couple weeks while still putting together a pretty aggressive training plan.  It looks like something that I can handle so I'm excited about getting back into the swing of things.

On another note I've got another product review coming up!  Can you guess what it is?

Here's another clue.

No?  Well I guess you're just going to have to keep an eye out later in the week to see what it's all about!

Self Motivation

What a great week of training!  It's been cold.  It's been wind.  It's been wet and I haven't missed a day yet.  Not that I didn't struggle this week, but unlike so many weeks before I was able to get myself out the door every time I needed to.  Tuesday and Saturday were probably my most difficulty days.  Tuesday was a long day at work and all I wanted to do was relax and have a drink, but I forced myself out the door and got the job done.  My watch died halfway through the run so I lost all my data, but at least I finished it.  I wasn't happy with my run, but I was at least happy that I had done it.

Saturday was one of those days where it seemed like everything was against me.  It was suppose to be warm and it wasn't.  It was suppose to be a light mist of rain and while it wasn't heavy it certainly wasn't a mist.  It was windy.  It's always windy here.  It might not be hilly, but it's windy and I think I would rather have the hills.  I struggled all day with heading out the door and I kept coming up with excuse to not go running.  I had things to do around the house and errands to run.  It seemed the more I put off my run the more I didn't want to do it.  If I was being completely honest I would also have to say that I was somewhat intimidated my the 8 mile run that I had planned for the day.  It seemed to linger over me all day and I started to come up with more and more excuses.  "I think I have a swollen lymph node, maybe I'm sick"  "I'm not ready for a run this long, it's too early."  "I want to relax, it's the weekend who really wants to waste an hour and a half running."  Luckily unlike so many times before I didn't listen to myself and I remembered that this is something I want to do.  This is something I enjoy and I want to get better at.  So I headed out the door.

As I ran I started to think about what made this time different.  What made me overcome my obstacles and head out the door?  The more I thought about it the more I realized that it wasn't anything magical or anything unique.  It was simple the fact that this time I was real with myself.  This time I owned up to what I had decided to do and held myself accountable.  Sometimes we forget that the best motivation is ourself, or maybe it's that we get to caught up in finding motivation in others.  Either way I think we need to stop looking so much at other people for inspiration and start looking at ourselves as inspiration.  The best part is if you learn to inspire yourself you will never feel disappointed.  You will never feel like a failure.  This week I inspired myself and learned a new truth.  That I'm not limited my my excuses and that I can head out the door even when I don't feel like I can.

New Place and New Goals

This weeks training was... uneventful.  I started a clerkship at the Naval hospital in Portsmouth this week, which needless to say has taken up a lot of my time.  Training in the morning is pretty much off limits since I've been up at 5am almost every day to get to the hospital on time.  This means I have to do my training in the evening and needless to say it's been more difficult than I expected.  I'm use to having longer breaks in the middle of the day where I can fit my training in, but now that I'm working a normal 8 hour day I have to set aside some time later on in the day.  This is way harder than I thought it would be.  It seems like every time I get home I have errands I need to run or I am just to tired (lazy) to go out a run.  I blame a lot of it on being in a new place and having to deal with all that comes along with that, but in the end I had the time and should have gone out even for a short run.  This isn't me beating myself up, it's me being honest.  I don't like excuses and I think everyone should at least be honest with themselves.  It's the only way to really improve yourself.

I did get out the door today and had a amazing three mile run.  It was a great reminder that one of my favorite ways to explore a new area is to go out for a run.  You get to really take in everything and see a lot of the areas you wouldn't normally see driving.  The beach is less than a mile from where I'm staying and I haven't been there yet, so I headed down to the beach for my first run here.  It was amazing out there.  There was almost no one on the beach and I really felt like I was by myself.  When I got back I was revitalized and started to think about my season coming up.  The first triathlon I do is normally in april.  There is also a marathon in march the weekend I head back to atlanta that Trey and I had talked about.  The more I think about it the more I really want to do it.  It really would be great to be in marathon shape before my triathlon season even starts.  I also like that I'll have a sort term goal to focus on and keep me motivated.  Three months is enough time to train for a marathon, but I will have to be incredibly dedicated.  I can't miss more than a couple days of training if I really want to be able to do this. So now my next step is to call Trey up and work on a training plan for the next three months.  Hopefully after that I'll have a marathon under my belt before the triathlon season even starts.

Does Skiing Count As Cross-training?

It's been a while since I posted, but I actually have a reason. I spent the last week on top of a mountain!  Ok so it may have been West Virginia where the mountains aren't as high as some out west, and there may have been a ski resort up there to keep us warm, but there was definitely no cell phone reception and we had to use some sort of "wire" to connect our computers to the internet... I think it's called an "ethernet cord???"  Since everyone had to check their facebook and email accounts our time "plugged in" was limited.  By the end of the week I started to remember how you can have fun without all of our gadgets and gismos.

This was my first time skiing and I would have to say I was a little nervous.  My wife's family have been skiing their entire lives and are really quit good at it.  Of course me being me I wanted to be a natural and even though I was better than most I was far from the best.  We had decided that the best way to approach this was ski lessons.  I know there are a lot of people decide to let their friends and family teach them and after watching some of those people I would high suggest ski lessons from a professional.  A professional is there to teach you and knows exactly how to teach you.  Your friends may know how to ski and may be the best skier on the mountain, but that by no way makes them a great teacher.  I heard way to many conversations like, "just go man, you just have to man up and go!"  I don't know about y'all but the advice I want from my instructor is not to "man up," but how and what I can do to make it down the hill in one piece.

The wife and I right before we head out to ski on my first day!

My first day of ski lessons went great!  I learned how to snowplow (or pizza pie as me and some of the kids called it) and I learned the basics of turning.  I never fell and after going down the bunny slope, which was a green, several times I felt I was ready to hit the slopes with the rest of the family.  I could have never been more wrong...  If the ground wasn't flat I was terrified and i spent the entire day either pizza pieing or on the ground.  There was a small hill on one of the greens that after my first day became know as "my hill."  This was not because I loved this hill, enjoyed this hill, or even thought it was a nice view.  I loathed this hill.  I was terrified of it and I fell a good 8 to 10 times going down this thing.  I would get up and fall after about 10 feet and this continued all the way down the hill.  Needless to say I was so frustrated and really didn't know if I was going to like skiing.

The bunny hill where they held ski lessons

The next day went much better.  I went to another ski lesson and after avoiding "my hill" all day I was starting to stay more up right then on the ground.  I was still pizza pieing, but I would only fall once or twice on each slope.  It was at the end of the second day that I realized I really like skiing.  It was a challenge and even though it took all of my concentration to stay up I was enjoying myself more and more.  It really reminded me how you can have such a great feeling when you accomplish something you struggle with.  It felt amazing to push through the hard times and the frustration.  I never gave up and by the end of the week I could go down all of the greens, including "my hill," and I even started on a blue!

That's me in yellow pizza pieing!

So how was my triathlon training while in West Virginia?  Not so hot... pun intended.  I brought my running shoes, but once we got there I found that there really wasn't any place to go run.  It was a small mountain with a lot of people.  There were no trails to walk/run on.  The roads were narrow and covered in cars.  Regardless of all this we skied from the time the slopes opened till the time they closed.  I was so tired at the end of the day that I don't know if I would have gone out and run even if I could.  The workout from skiing was actually a really good one and it hit most of the major muscle groups you use while running.  My thighs would burn at the end of a long slope and I was really getting a workout in my hip abductors, mainly from getting back up after falling but hey they were still getting worked!  Of course skiing worked those muscles a little differently, but cross training is a great way to maintain your fitness.  It breaks up the monotony of day in day out training.  So even though I wasn't running I was still working towards my training goals, just through different means.  I picked up a new hobby and was able to overcome another obstacle in my life... now thats what I call a vacation!