Saturday, March 17, 2012

Wake Up And Smell the Roses

This English saying couldn’t be any more fitting this week. I feel as if in the last two weeks I have learned/realized or just notice a couple of things that are going to be critical for this season’s success.
Last weekend as I mentioned on my last blog I had my not so pleasant encounter with my friend the scale, things have been going very well since. I have cut small things here and there and trying to stick around 2000-2200 a day, I know it may sound like a lot for some people but this girl needs her fuel. Anyways, things are progressing nicely towards my first race of the season.
This week I had two more wake up calls; Tuesdays and Fridays are my swim days, I have been swimming twice a week since I first started triathlons and have been pretty consistent on my times coming race day. Out of my three seasons I would say the second one (2010) was my ‘mermaid’ season, I will attribute my speed to my two swimming partners my friend Michelle McClendon and Jeremy Sipos. I used to swim one day with one and one with the other, to me just having them there to push me and knowing that they were as committed as me to get the workouts done was a biggy, maybe the misery likes company saying is also fitting J. Anyways, last year I did most of my swims by myself due to Sami’s and my schedule as well as master groups around the area limiting public pool hours, swim times were consistent through the season but just a bit slower than the year before.
Potencial issue of swimming by yourself
This year I have been swimming on my own again, I have been noticing my swim times are slower and I just didn’t fit quite right in the water. Tuesday was no different, I was getting frustrated and it just seemed as if regardless what I did I was not getting faster.  My coach recommended I swim with either a group or just with other people in general. Swimming with others is difficult because of my schedule and everybody elses, so my best bet was a group (AKA masters group).  There are many of those in the area, but I used to swim with Dynamo back on the days (very first time I was in the US 17 years ago). I honestly don’t even remember if Maria was the coach, I didn’t do it for long but I did remember that there were a lot of strong swimmers on the group. 17 years later and after being introduced to the triathlon world is no secret that Maria leads the strongest master team in town and if I had to pay for a masters group that is where I wanted to be. It has taken some convincing and negotiation with hubby since the schedules are not the best. I really wish I could swim in the am but that just doesn’t work for us. After looking into it I realized that Tues evenings and Saturday mornings are my best bet and it might end up working out quite nicely. So after my first workout with the group I am being  very optimistic and think that with 6 weeks left before NOLA 70.3 I can still get back into a place where I feel comfortable in the water again at a more consistent pace,  it might take a bit longer to get my scales back J.
Hoping to get my mojo back
Wake up call #2… After last week’s 10K I was very happy with my running fitness, unfortunately the victory dance didn’t last long, Thursday morning I went on my first track workout of the season and let me tell you that was NOT pretty! Not only I was ALL over the place with my pacing but I was way slower than last year, not to mention the day after I was really SORE. The good news is that like coach J says race day is what counts, obviously I am pretty much where I was last year with my run (even with the extra weight) and that is with less speed work, so I am hoping these next four weeks’ track workouts will give me a bit of an edge on the running and I will be able to have good run at NOLA.
Like it or not we are gonna become best friends
Now is time for me to put the laptop down and get ready for session #2 (bike/run) of the day, hopefully the weather holds up and my legs decided to show up!!
Happy training!

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