Are you enjoying your athletic journey?

For athletes, it's easy to make an event the only focus in your life. But, in doing so, it's easy to become single-minded as you become laser-focused in pursuit of your goal. In turn, you forget what truly matters - the journey. Life is busy and stressful. Without even realizing it, you may find that you are never living in the moment but instead, constantly thinking about your future. 

When I approach my training/workouts for the day, I am driven by the experience. In other words, I never waste a workout - no matter the day or the training session, there's always something to look forward to and I feel grateful for the ability to train. I don't think about the outcome, but the process. 

Motivated for self improvement, the journey is what I love. The little decisions, nailing the basics and having fun are very important to me. This doesn't mean that I don't have goals and I don't work hard but my athletic goals don't dictate my life. 

Appreciate what your body allows you to do and be grateful for the ability to use your body. If you find yourself stressing over outcomes or comparing yourself to someone else, remind yourself that training should be fun. When there's a strong element of enjoyment in your athletic journey, you'll feel a greater sense of personal satisfaction, well before you reach the start line of your event.

Training for an event is much more than being physically prepared for race day. Sport teaches you patience, problem solving, courage, bravery, time-management, discipline, organization and responsibility. Training for an athletic event helps you become more prepared for life.

If you have recently found yourself feeling overwhelmed by a race day goal (or event), take a step back and just focus on doing the best that you can....today. Enjoy the road that leads you to your final destination because you don't want to look back and wish you would have done things differently. 

Weekend training recap - 3 weeks until IMWI!

I can't believe that in less than 3 weeks, I get to start my 14th Ironman. I am incredibly grateful to my body and mind for letting me train so hard for such an extreme endurance event. I've come to the conclusion that it takes my body time throughout the season to peak. Now is that time. I feel strong, healthy and confident for Ironman Wisconsin and I plan to use my experience, Ironman racing "lessons" and enjoyment for this sport to help me race at my best for 140.6 miles. And whenever I'm having a low moment (which I am sure there will be many!) I'll just look for one of our 14 athletes who I get to share the course with.

It took me a few days to mentally and physically recover from our 4.5 day training camp. While it's physically exhausting to keep up with 20 campers, it's even more so mentally exhausting to be so alert, attentive and aware of everyone during each workout (especially on the bike). I felt completely empty for a good 48 hours post camp. After a few nights of extra sleep and super easy workout sessions and lots of eating/food, I started to feel back to normal again which was a sign that I can ease myself back into more structured training.

On Tuesday evening, I was super pumped to take my new bike outside for the very first time. Yes, you heard correct....my new ride!! I couldn't be more happy about my decision to join the Ventum family as Karel loves his Ventum and I continue to hear such great things from other athletes about the bike and how it rides. I had the opportunity to test out a demo bike in Chattanooga in May and I was instantly sold - I just loved how it felt on the road. Although the frame arrived when we were in Europe, it took Karel some time to get all the parts he needed/wanted for and then for him to do a RETUL fit on me. With so much going on over the past two weeks, the frame hung on the bike stand until Karel had a few hours to start building my bike. On Tues, I had my first official ride on it and I loved it. While only about 70 minutes, it was still a fun ride.

No workout this week was super long (the majority of my sessions were around 75 minutes), the intensity was high. As I have mentioned in past blogs, building my endurance is not something I need to continue to work on as 12 years of endurance training (plus 10+ years of competitive swimming) has given me a good engine. The focus now is on adding a little more specificity while working on my mental game to dial in efforts based on feel, form and fluidity. It may sound simple but when you are fatigued, it's extremely difficult to find an effort that can be maintained with good form.

Before my swim on Friday morning, I told Karel that I was not expecting a good swim. I had felt horrible in the water all week and my paces were far from impressive to my standards. Despite how I felt, I kept swimming away because many times a blah feeling means a breakthrough is coming. Well, that breakthrough happened on Friday. It was also a good reminder that feelings are not actions. After a good warm-up, I had one of (if not) my best swim workouts in a very long time. I also contribute that to a fairly packed pool and sharing a lane with my friend Kristen (former pro triathlete who is a super speedy swimmer!). Karel was in the lane next to me sticking to his own cycle.

My swim workout totaled 5100 but surprisingly, it went by really fast. Here's the main set: 

Part 1:
6 times through
200 fast w/ 5 seconds rest
175 choice effort on same cycle as the 200

(Example, I did the 200 fast on 2:40-2:45 cycle so I had about 15-20 sec rest for the 175, which I used as active recovery but also had to keep a steady effort - not too slow). 

100 smooth

Part 2:
6 times through:
150 fast w/ 5 sec rest
125 choice effort on same cycle as the 125

(I did the 150 fast on 2-2:03 cycle so I had about 10-15 sec rest for the 150).

It was a tough swim but one that kept me mentally engaged throughout it all. It felt good to get that one finished and I felt very accomplished to start to the day.

So now on to the weekend. I had the first opportunity to really test out my new Ventum and it was everything I had hoped for and more. I instantly felt good on it (love my new custom Dash saddle) and I liked how Karel had the bottle placements (cages). I tested out the straw but I prefer bottles to avoid sucking down air so I plan to only use the straw-system in emergency situations and to rely on my 3 bottles from my cages. The bike is very smooth and handles like a road bike. I am still getting use to how it turns but other than that, it was an easy transition from my Trek. The bike climbs really well (again - feels like a road bike) and I felt really fast going downhill. While it was only my first real ride on it, I was happy from start to finish. For someone like myself who doesn't like change, I was really happy with my recent bike change and plan to ride my new Ventum at IMWI. 

Karel and I rode together for the long ride and it was a pretty solid session. While we didn't do any specific intervals, we let the terrain dictate our efforts and we kept the intensity high throughout. I made sure to apply a similar fueling/hydration to IMWI as I believe in using all my long sessions to dial in and test nutrition to give me confidence for race day. Despite pushing hard on the bike, I never worried about the run. I've gotten to the place in my Ironman journey where I would rather take small risks than play it safe for I can learn more from a workout gone bad than a workout that was too easy to complete. Thankfully, my workouts continue to get better and better as I am learning that my mind can often mislead me to thinking I am tired when in reality, I have plenty of energy still in my body.

Karel joined me for my run off the bike - all of it. As much as I wish I could say that I held his normal paces, it was the other way around - he stuck to my efforts. I had a very specific run set off the bike and Karel wanted to hold me accountable to staying mentally tough on this run, despite feeling tired. I welcomed his company and although we never talked throughout the entire run, it was nice to have him following me for every mile. It was an exhausting morning brick but one that left me feeling confident, strong and happy. I didn't feel too broken afterward and was able to feel relatively good in my muscles for my PM (super easy) treadmill run. Karel went out to the trail for his run and his mom walked around the trail while he ran.

On Sunday morning, I had one of those moments where I questioned if I would be able to complete my run as planned. While the distance didn't worry me, it was the mental energy that I needed to put into this workout and whether or not my body wanted to join in on the "fun" of trying to hold a steady effort. I don't go by paces when I run but instead, I go by feel. One thing that I am really trying to work on this season is running by "feel." I have gotten a lot better about feeling certain efforts and then I can review my file on Training Peaks to see if I was able to execute as planned and to evaluate my workout. I surprised myself once again but it sure did require a lot of mental energy. Karel also had a tough and mentally challenging run on Sunday morning and we both came home pretty exhausted. We mustered enough energy for an afternoon swim but the body was not giving too much for the swim so we adjusted our workout as something is better than nothing. 

While the workouts were rather intense this week, I never felt broken. I was still able to bounce back from my workouts and function well during the day. More than anything, by not chasing metrics (or an exact distance), I was able to work on some key aspects that are necessary in Ironman racing. I tested out clothing and gear/equipment (I love my new Nike Zoom Pegasus Turbo shoes, thanks Dane at Run In! - I plan to wear them at IMWI as they are cushy but supportive and I feel like I get good propulsion from them with my shorter running stride), I practiced my nutrition similar to race day (for bike and run), I ate a lot (and often) when I wasn't working out, I worked on my mental strength skills (especially working through low moments) and I used each workout to find that rhythm and form that I hope to achieve on race day.

Here were my workouts from the weekend:

Saturday
-AM Bike - 3:56, 70.4 miles, ~4800 feet of elevation gain
-Run off the bike - 1:01, 7.73 miles.
Workout: 10 min build to stronger than IM effort, 30 sec walk.
20 min IM effort w/ 30 sec walk every 10 minutes.
10 minutes stronger than IM effort. 30 sec walk.
Finish off with FBRF (fatigue-based running form - the best form you can hold and the best sustainable effort while fatigued). 

-PM treadmill run - 4 min walk into 20 min EZ jog followed by 1 min walk. 2.5 miles

Sunday
-AM run - 1:58.07, 14.1 miles, 587 feet of elevation gain
Workout: 3 miles warm-up w/ 30 sec walk between
10 x 1 miles at Ironman "effort" w/ 30 sec walk between (I plan to walk all aid stations at IMWI)
Smooth running to finish off

-PM Swim - 2600 yards
600 warm-up
3 x 200's single arm drill w/ fins/snorkel
8 x 25s build to fast w/ fins/snorkel/paddles (FINIS agility paddles)
MS: 1 round of
1 x 100 fast w/ paddles
200 smooth w/ buoy
2 x 100 fast w/ paddles
200 smooth w/ buoy
3 x 100 fast w/ paddes
200 swim with buoy
10 sec rest for the fast
20 sec rest for the smooth

Listening to the body

I had an incredibly tough past four days of training as I gear up for Ironman Wisconsin in 34 days. While no workout was "long" per Ironman-training standards (my longest bike was 3.5 hours and longest run was 1:21), I tested myself both mentally and physically with very structured workouts at a high intensity. While I shocked and impressed myself with the ability to perform my workouts as planned, Karel was unable to follow through with his scheduled training as he was feeling very fatigued and empty inside.

Rather than pushing through or training with an ego, Karel listened to his body (that was screaming "rest"). While he still trained, it was loosely structured, low volume/intensity than planned and he based it all on feel. He didn't complain or worry about his season as he knows all too well that the body is worth listening to when something feels off. 

As athletes, listening to your body can be rather difficult. For if you listened to it every time you felt tired, sore or fatigued, you probably wouldn't get much done. But if you are always ignoring the red flags that your body is telling you, all because you want to train as hard as you can, burn calories, stick to your normal routine or you fear losing fitness from a missed workout, this can be a big problem.

While we all love the rush of endorphins when training and the feeling of accomplishment when a workout is complete, I feel most athletes are unable to properly listen to the body because they can't put the ego aside. There's no award or badge of honor of continuing to train when your body is giving you warning signs that it's not in the right state of health to push through pain, fatigue or other issues. No one workout will make your season better and certainly no workout (or race) is important enough to damage your body and risk long-term health consequences. 

To reach athletic goals, it's important to push yourself physically, mentally and emotionally. We all have that voice inside of us that is telling us to quit and we must often soften that voice to keep the body moving. But it's not ok to ignore the voice inside that is telling you to adjust or slow down when something is not right with your body. It takes experience and practice to identify this voice and many times, it isn't until you make a few mistakes in ignoring this voice that you learn that this voice is actually there to help you become a stronger athlete and not a weaker athlete. 

The next time you worry about losing fitness by not sticking to your scheduled workouts because your body is telling you something important, remind yourself that there are serious consequences to not listening to the body. Injuries, burn out, hormonal issues, stress fractures, depression and other issues are not part of the training plan and are certainly not worth that "one" workout that you feel you must complete. 

Not only does your body become physically exhausted and broken down with training but so does your mind. Listening to your body is important. The more in-tune you are with your body, the stronger and wiser you become as an athlete.  You must take good care of yourself, both physically and mentally for training is demanding and we all have our limits of what is "too much."

My best advice when it comes to listening to your body is to never wait until you can't do something with your body to rest it. When the pain, exhaustion or fatigue becomes so uncomfortable that you can't train, you've gone too far. Try to stay one small step ahead of your body. This means that you can still "test" yourself to see if the voice inside your head is telling you the right information but be very aware that something may be going on. This requires a smart mindset for you must be in the moment so that you can quickly adjust in the case that the body is trying to tell you something serious.

Missing a workout or two will not derail your overall training efforts but ignoring your body will put you at risk for a major injury or health issue - which will certainly ruin your training and racing season. For the sake of your long-term health, listen to your body and give it what it needs when it needs it. No workout (or race) is worth it.