Balancing Act

This week has been a clear demonstration of the difficult part of balancing training when things like work commitments and social commitments get in the way. On Monday I had planned to swim in the evening after work. I had my sights set on it and even convinced a friend to go with me. Then as the day progressed, I got pulled into working on a mini proposal with a deadline of that evening. The coworker that got me involved thought everyone was pretty much done and it would just a matter of finalizing and compiling things, but proposals work by their own set of laws of physics and time, and things that should be done quickly will take hours longer. Long story short, I didn't leave the office until 10pm, so I did not swim. I then had the bright idea that I would try to wake up early the next day to swim, but who am I fooling here, I suck at waking up early. So after a battle between me and the snooze button, I did not make it to the pool. 

And then Tuesday after work, I had a social commitment instead of a work out. A friend from college was in town and thus I had to fulfill my duties as a gracious host to our nation's capitol. I took him to eat tapas and then enjoy some mint juleps from a very DC establishment filled with people in power suits possibly engaged in bar-based behind the scenes deal making. 

So although I am losing this battle verses training so far this week, I shall not be deterred! This evening, I did my first track work out... well, kind of. Since it is a high school track, they had some sort of sporting event, so we couldn't actually use the track, but used a trail near by to do a track-like workout. Adam finally succeeded in convincing me to join him and his friends from DC Road Runners on their weekly track work. The plan was 3 minutes on, 2 minutes off... 3 minutes trying to go fast/race pace-ish and 2 minutes slowly recovering. The group was small, but one guy had just recently done a marathon and was in recovery mode, so he was nice enough to keep me company since my general pace is pretty slow for a group of runners. In total I ran 5 miles including the warm up and cool down in total of 52 minutes. I need to get more savvy about using my garmin watch more effectively for these sorts of workouts, but from what I could tell, the first couple of "ons" were around high 8 or low 9 minute/miles. I think we did about 5 of the on-off combos. I need to learn to keep a more consistent pace and not fade out during a workout. But I was really happy I did the workout and was amazed at how quickly the time and distance flew by. Tonight helped me gain some confidence to make track workouts a more regular occurrence, and as I learn the workouts, my paces, and how to use my garmin to get better data, I'll also be able to describe them more eloquently.

All the leaves are brown...

After a horrendous winter with apocalyptic snow fall that was followed by record breaking heat waves this summer, DC has been punished with awful weather. However, somehow all of that seems like a distant memory with the beautiful autumn weekend we just had. This weekend was sunny, bright, a bit crisp and made more beautiful with the background of the leaves starting to change.

Crossing Rock Creek

Saturday morning, I was able to invite myself (thanks Alejandro and Rob) to my first ever trail run in Rock Creek Park (RCP). I was a real genius by leaving my Garmin GPS watch in the car searching for  signal instead of wearing it on my wrist for the run, so I don't know my distance, speed or heart rate. I do know I went out too fast as I tried to keep up with Rob and Alejandro for the first bit. Once I let them go and put  on my ipod, I was able to settle to a speed to keep my heart rate more normal and just enjoy being in this urban oasis - for non locals, RCP is giant park that intersects all of DC yet makes you feel like you're miles away in a beautiful forest. Once I decided to turn around, Rob tried to make sure I knew where I was going, and I thought I did... up until I started running over fallen trees I didn't remember before, and then had to cross the actual creek, and then hit a road. So, whoops, I got lost, but I had my phone on me, so google maps came in FTW. In total I was out at least 45 minutes, so I figure at the very least 4 miles. The other guys had gone longer, so once I found the parking lot, I used the extra time for some core work such as push ups, sit ups, lunges, etc. Rob very graciously let me invite myself to brunch at his house as well with a nice spread of bagels, fruit, and vanilla ice cream (although I was the only one that partook in ice cream). But in all, I think I am hooked; I really enjoy trail running. It made different parts of my legs sore - like right above my achilles, which is probably a good thing to strengthen (as Rob explained) more of the stabilizing and lateral muscles that don't get used when going in a straight line on the road.

On Sunday, Ty and Julia planned a great off-season activity of going for a hike in Old Rag, which is located a couple of hours outside of DC. According to Alejandro's garmin gps watch, it was a climb of over 2,500 ft for a distance of over 9.6 miles (probably closer to 10 if you include the walk from the parking lot to the start of the trail) which we did in around 4 hours of hiking (not including breaks). It was a great group that went out there so it combined two things I enjoy perfectly: training AND being social! I felt the burn again in my lower calves/upper achilles, and also my glutes and quads. The climb up had some surprisingly tough rock scramble climbing, so there was some good team work, including some key butt boosting. And in some sort of unspoken understanding, we all dressed up like Skittles - a taste the rainbow hike!

A Warrior Weekend to get my @$$ into gear

My goal race this year was the Eagleman Half Ironman Distance (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, 13.1 run) which was back in June. During much of the training for that, I was trying to balance social time with non tri-friends along with getting in long distance training. That often meant being out late at night, and then meeting up with tri friends after a couple of hours sleep to do some hung over training. I don't regret any of it since I enjoy being a night owl as well as training... but once the race was done, my focus became enjoying the off season.

And enjoy I did! I had a 2+ week vacation to Colombia, made new friends, went out dancing a lot, etc etc. Work also picked up the pace and I got to travel to Peru as well. All of this meant that I stopped working out. With the exception of a hand full of runs, swims, and biking in Deep Creek Lake on 4th of July, I didn't do much. I kept making grand plans to start tomorrow, but like a bad dieter or a smoker trying to quit, tomorrow never came. 

Medellin                              Cuzco                         Going out 

But this past weekend was my deadline - I was going to start working out again! And it was the perfect excuse because it was a weekend trip with tri friends. On Saturday, I woke up in Dewey Beach and joined Sandy for the first part of her run (since she is training for MCM). As we had done in the Spring for our Awesome Cherry Blossom Adventure, I decided to take my camera along to take fun pictures along the way. We started with our jumping pictures. Then went on our way and I went out about 2.5 miles with Sandy with a few picture stops. For having barely run, I felt strong, but have no data since my garmin watch was left behind. I turned back and did about 1-1.5 miles and was starting to feel out of breath, so I went to the beach and tried to run there, but mostly did sprints and then walked. But it was a beautiful day and I enjoyed being out and at least getting my body moving again (beyond the booty shaking I've been doing while dancing). 

Then Sunday we drove to Quarryville, PA for the Warrior Dash, a 5k race with about a dozen obstacles and tons of mud and some fire. Amanda, Sandy, Lindsey and I said the goal was to finish it together, so that's what we did. It wasn't as tough as I expected and the obstacles were fun and none were too hard or impossible. But we did get muddy. Very, very muddy.

The adrenaline from the fun race and endorphins from working out again kept me going through the week. Monday, I met up with Andy for a swim... but gah, even though swimming is suppose to be my strong suit, Andy was kicking my butt in the water and I was really feeling exhausted with a side of bruised ego since he's gotten faster since the last time we swam. Oh well, that tells me I need to swim more. But at least I can kick faster than him!

Tuesday, I ran 3.3 miles. I did the first 2 in under 20 minutes and felt very strong. I was focusing on improving my form and felt good. Then reality set in that I am out of shape, and the next 1.3 were mixed in with some walking, but still did that in 14 minutes. Then I went to the gym and did some strength training.

Wednesday, I went to a spin class at WSC, and my heart was pumping hard, but I focused on keeping a high cadence on all the "hill climbs". 

So the long weekend really did help get my @$$ in gear again. I took Thursday as a rest day and have to see if I swim or not on Friday. If not, then this weekend I am up for a swim and probably a run, and I think a long hike on Sunday.

Social Butterfly on Social Media

I am a social butterfly... sometimes too social for my own good. I often joke that I am more dedicated to attending happy hours than I am about training. But I also call myself a triathlete. I have been involved in the sport a couple of years and really enjoy it, often times because of the friends I have made and the challenges I have accomplished with them. But many of these friends are going to move up to Ironman Distance races, and I'm not interested in this point of my life in taking on that endeavor. Instead my goal is to get faster at shorter distances, but this requires me to be more consistent in training, setting goals beyond just finishing, and focusing on speed work. 

And since I'm such a sucker for peer pressure, I've already signed up for my first race next year (Columbia Tri), and peer pressure also made me start this blog. Hopefully by having an audience, as small as it may be, will create the sort of social pressure for me to stay accountable to training and working out more consistently. So I hope you enjoy reading and if I start to flake out, I get guilt tripped into recording my progress which means doing things to create progress!