A Breather

Things are little funny around these parts right now... I am struggling with motivation. That is basically unheard of and makes me wonder, if I am flirting with burn out and/or overtraining.

It started innocently enough with thunder and lighting on Thursday morning, when the alarm went off at 4.30am for my morning swim. Lighting means the pool would be closed and I welcomed the 1.5 more hours of sleep this skipped swim would give me. For the afternoon, I had a bike ride on tap, but was seriously spending all day dreading it. So sometime in the late afternoon, I decided to make Thursday a rest day.

Friday morning, I actually got myself out of bed and was able to put in a decent six miler with a couple of tempo intervals on the road. So basically, I started out the day on a good note, but it sure went downhill from there. At work, we had a fundraiser bake sale and I went bananas... I had as much sugar that day, that I am honestly surprised, that I didn't bounce of the walls by 9am. Since I already barrelled down the sugar highway, I topped off a day with poor descision making by having a milk shake for dinner.

For Saturday, I "only" had a 35 mile bike ride on the schedule, but Coach Katie offered a little training camp consisting of a lake swim and a 100 mile bike ride. Even though I didn't have anything big on the tap, this idea sounded really appealing earlier in the week and Terry and I decided to do it, but with a shorter bike ride (around 60 miles) since we both haven't been logging any mileage even close to 100 since before Charleston Half. The swim started out well enough, but I wasn't feeling it. We did a draft practice that had me chase feet that were going in the wrong direction, the sea grass and random leaves in the water freaked me out... I felt pretty stressed and it has been a long time since I was feeling stressed in open water. Next up was the bike ride. The group started out together, but Terry and I were dropped pretty quickly. No hard feelings, those guys had a 100 miles to do and bigger fish to fry and I just didn't want to try to push a pace that I wasn't comfortable even if I was doing less mileage. About 10 miles in, Terry pulled up next to me saying that he wasn't feeling it.... What a relieve, because I wasn't feeling it either. I spent the time on the bike fretting about how much stuff needs to get done at home and how much longer we'll be out on the road and how late it's going to be before we get back to the house. We decided to cut the ride short and ended up with a little over 30 miles, had lunch on our way back home, sat on the patio and talked. The rest of the afternoon was spend with some house duties, a doggy walk and a lot of couch time.

Sunday marked the return of my run buddy. I haven't mentioned it here, but Karma was out of commission for running for the last six months due to heartworms and just got cleared for exercise last week. In order to celebrate this, I originally planned to take her out to the trails, but then decided against it, because this puppy needs to build up some endurance first, before we start hitting the trails for longer runs. I had 9 miles on a hilly route on tap and hilly we have available from the house. So I did a five mile loop first, then picked up Karma for four more miles. She was dragging her paws by the end of the run, but otherwise held up great! Can't wait for her to be comfortable running 6+ miles again, so I have a trail buddy! Since Terry doesn't like to run trails and I don't like to run trails by myself, she is my ticket to trail running and I sure need a change of scenary. Overall it was a pretty decent run.

Now that you have seen my training schedule from Friday to Sunday, you might wonder, how I could possibly say that I am struggling with motivation... I think the most noticeable part for me were my eating habits over the weekend. I basically ate like crap and didn't care.... I knew that I will regret is sooner or later, but was quite bratty about it: I don't want to eat healthy, I need a break, I have been doing to good, but nobody can keep this up forever, yada yada yada.

Today is Monday. A new week, a new beginning and a new chance. Here is the game plan:

1. Stick to the plan, don't do more than the plan. I tend to train more, just because I like to train, but the bottom line is, I don't have another race until early August and it's a shorter distance (Sprinternational), so there is really no need for me to log huge mileage. The big mileage is going to return soon enough, once B2B Half training is ramping back up... Don't burn yourself out!
2. If you don't feel it, then you don't feel it... Don't beat yourself up for skipping a session here and there.
3. Remember that you like to eat healthy! Treat yourself, but work on moderation. It can't be, that you eat either no treats at all or have a milkshake for dinner. There has to be a middle ground.
4. If you don't feel blogging, then don't blog. Sometimes, trying to put content on this blog is a stressor for me and it's completely made up in my head, because I know that there is nobody out there refreshing their browser every five minutes checking for an update.
5. Breath and enjoy the summer!!