Motivation

The hardest thing about this sport is staying motivated to train hard with enough sustained intensity to reach your goals. There are days that you will wake up and not want to do a damn thing. Why? Not because your injured, or because you've plateaued, just because you don't want to do it. If you ate the same thing for breakfast every morning, there will come a day when you really just want something different. So what is the prescribed fix for this? Get out and do it. I was once told by one of my professors that he could tell me exactly what I needed to do to win the Nobel Prize. I was thinking he was going to say something corny and it would involve hard work and studying a lot. But I was surprised at what he told me. He said, you need to love what you're doing, be passionate about it. And most importantly, you need to be persistent. Not everything is going to work the way you want it to. But if you keep trying and approach your endeavors with a positive attitude and a genuine interest in succeeding you will not dissapoint yourself, or anyone else for that matter. I have commented previously on the struggle of balancing training with work and social stuff as being a really hard part about being a triathlete. I think that having the mental stamina to want to succeed every day is just as hard, and not something everyone can do.

"Some dream of success, others wake up and work hard at it"

So with that being said. I was pretty burnt out Thursday night. I really wasn't in the mood to swim or run any more. So I dragged myself to masters practice. The workout was interesting. It was put together around 300 m sets. We did our normal warmup and then went right into a 300 build by 50. Then we did 300 m of drills focusing on rotating in the water. The we did 6 50's. We repeated this with each set of 6 50's on a faster interval. It was a great workout to help work on some body positioning in the water and still get an aerobic workout. As usual, it was roughly 2000 m.

Afterwards I got the running gear on and set out to run suicide trail (appropriately named by my pal because of the terrible hill at the end). I added a few twists and extra turns so It would come out closer to 4 miles. My legs were tired. I feel a lot better on my feet than I did at the beginning of the season, but man I can tell when they're tired. I kept a 7:30 mile for most of the way and called it a night after the 4 mile loop. Usually, 2 loops isn't such a problem, but considering the previous workouts this week, 1 was OK for me.

Friday was a day off. I needed to let me legs rest so I could be revamped for the Saturday morning group ride.

My alarm clock went off at at 6:45 this morning and I had just about 30 minutes to wake up get on my uniform, get some water bottles and head out the door at 7:30 hopefully. I rode the 7 miles out to the meeting point. We had about 12 guys. At 8:03 we were on the road doing a solid 23 mph, which didn't stop the entire way. I sprinted up a few of the hills and did my turn at pulling for 10 or so miles maybe. I almost (keyword almost) got dropped on a few of the hills. I usually end up in a crappy position on the hills and am either trapped behind some guy who is out of shape or I'm pulling until the bottom of a hill when a few guys blow by me sprinting up the hill and I'm not in any condition to follow. The total ride distance was 51 miles with an average of 22.5 mph. Calorie count was at over 2000 and I didn't notice my heart rate get above 175. I was sweating a slightly more tan when I got back at just after 10. Not many people can say they did so much before 10 a.m. on a Saturday. I've been sitting around since then. My legs are tired and sore.

I'm thinking of building a serious track machine for off season solo training. You'll hear about the progress here. My pal said he'd sell me his track frame for $30-40 which is an awesome deal if you ask me. And since I'm such a savvy e-bayer now I think it'll be a fun project. No rush on it though.

I hope everyone is enjoying your air conditioned houses/appartments/places of occupation because it's humid out.

Listening to: Darude - Salmiakki Sessions #16 featuring Above and Beyond

Feeling: Like I should be taking EPO (just kidding).