The nice thing about having 3 sports is that there is always at least one you can do indoors. (This is also a negative against triathlon for those of you who have trouble finding motivation for training. You'll feel like a bad person if you don't go.) So when Mother Nature wasn't cooperating last night, I went to the pool for the first time in about a month.
Pretty easy workout of 25's and 50's for about 30 minutes. Why does it always seem like no matter how hard or easy I swim, it always comes out to 2:00/100m on the pace clock? Which is nice if I can settle into the "why not just go easy then?" attitude. I'll be honest though, I was just screwing around. It felt good and my form came back...maybe not so much on the endurance end. But with nothing actually "scheduled" and no race to anticipate, it feels to me like just wandering around the lanes of a pool for awhile. I did some off strokes and intervals and called it a night.
This has been the weirdest summer. Very mixed feelings on several fronts. On one hand, it was meant to be a long, luxurious summer of time and nothingness in anticipation of killing it next summer for Ironman. It's been nice to bike as a family at the gardens, take the kids out in the middle of the day in the trailer to the playground, swim when I want, hop in with the cycle club. Notice I haven't mentioned running though.
Combined with my lack of run emphasis all spring for my race in June, my running has fallen off the table and onto the floor. When I love being on the bike so much these days, it's hard to convince myself to put the running shoes on. It's quickly become my least favorite. The swim I feel like I have to work on it, will improve, and it has payoffs. Biking I just love. So my plan this August is to spend a little less time in the saddle and a little more pounding the pavement. Much as that pains me in some ways. It's a free summer, do what you want.
Any other year, I'd be in the middle of 15 mile long runs for a fall marathon though. It feels so odd to not be taking part in one. The last Chicago Marathon I sat out totally, in fact, you'd have to go all the way back to 2008 before I even entered the sport or started running again. But Kelly is excited about volunteering with her new running group at a water stop. Which means I need to take the kids that day. I'll watch on tv. I'm happy for Kelly being excited about being involved. I'll get my in-person race-watching in at the Chicago Triathlon later this month.
Over the birthday weekend, I managed to watch a few minutes of the swim-to-bike of Ironman Lake Placid...with the kids before everybody came over for the day. It's making me a little twitchy though. My mom asked if I was still planning on doing Ironman Wisconsin next year and I couldn't really answer her. It's one of those big conversations that Kelly and I need to have still. All I could do is shrug to answer. Maybe? Probably not? I've had a couple conversations with myself about trying to understand why it's so important to me and why it's also not that important to me with a list of backup races I could easily do instead.
I feel so simultaneously lazy and free. This is how some people handle their training, but not me. I need a schedule, I need a routine, I need a race to build towards. I like big goals. But I'm also loving that I could take my daughter to evening swim lessons this summer. And plan my weekly workouts around whether or not I want to watch Big Brother on the DVR first. If nothing else, this summer has given me time to analyze why I'm an athlete and what it means to me.
Pretty easy workout of 25's and 50's for about 30 minutes. Why does it always seem like no matter how hard or easy I swim, it always comes out to 2:00/100m on the pace clock? Which is nice if I can settle into the "why not just go easy then?" attitude. I'll be honest though, I was just screwing around. It felt good and my form came back...maybe not so much on the endurance end. But with nothing actually "scheduled" and no race to anticipate, it feels to me like just wandering around the lanes of a pool for awhile. I did some off strokes and intervals and called it a night.
This has been the weirdest summer. Very mixed feelings on several fronts. On one hand, it was meant to be a long, luxurious summer of time and nothingness in anticipation of killing it next summer for Ironman. It's been nice to bike as a family at the gardens, take the kids out in the middle of the day in the trailer to the playground, swim when I want, hop in with the cycle club. Notice I haven't mentioned running though.
Combined with my lack of run emphasis all spring for my race in June, my running has fallen off the table and onto the floor. When I love being on the bike so much these days, it's hard to convince myself to put the running shoes on. It's quickly become my least favorite. The swim I feel like I have to work on it, will improve, and it has payoffs. Biking I just love. So my plan this August is to spend a little less time in the saddle and a little more pounding the pavement. Much as that pains me in some ways. It's a free summer, do what you want.
Any other year, I'd be in the middle of 15 mile long runs for a fall marathon though. It feels so odd to not be taking part in one. The last Chicago Marathon I sat out totally, in fact, you'd have to go all the way back to 2008 before I even entered the sport or started running again. But Kelly is excited about volunteering with her new running group at a water stop. Which means I need to take the kids that day. I'll watch on tv. I'm happy for Kelly being excited about being involved. I'll get my in-person race-watching in at the Chicago Triathlon later this month.
Over the birthday weekend, I managed to watch a few minutes of the swim-to-bike of Ironman Lake Placid...with the kids before everybody came over for the day. It's making me a little twitchy though. My mom asked if I was still planning on doing Ironman Wisconsin next year and I couldn't really answer her. It's one of those big conversations that Kelly and I need to have still. All I could do is shrug to answer. Maybe? Probably not? I've had a couple conversations with myself about trying to understand why it's so important to me and why it's also not that important to me with a list of backup races I could easily do instead.
I feel so simultaneously lazy and free. This is how some people handle their training, but not me. I need a schedule, I need a routine, I need a race to build towards. I like big goals. But I'm also loving that I could take my daughter to evening swim lessons this summer. And plan my weekly workouts around whether or not I want to watch Big Brother on the DVR first. If nothing else, this summer has given me time to analyze why I'm an athlete and what it means to me.