Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Sunshine is Back

Today's gorgeous sunshine makes the past two days of steady cold rain seem like a bad dream. Monday I ventured out on my bike for an hour and 19 minutes, it was a progressively colder and wetter ride. Yay me.

Lot's of self talk going on for this workout. I kept telling myself, "You can do this." "You've ridden in worse weather than this before." "PUUULEEZE, this is no ironman, you can make it an hour in the rain!" That made me think, rides like this one in cruddy weather when you just want to give it up and you wonder why you are even out there, help build the mental toughness needed for IM race day. So I kept going. I told myself, "You don't have to feel your feet to make your legs pedal this bike." My feet and fingers were completely numb with cold. Truthfully it was only the last 25 minutes that were brutal. By the time I made it home, my bike was covered in mud and so was I! In fact, the road spray had soaked through my tights and shorts and I had mud all over my skin. The hot shower was painful like I had frostbite or something!

Later that day in the early evening, Colin said "Come on, let's go for a run." I was still mentally un-recovered from the ride and not quite ready to step back out into the rainy day. I knew though that if I let him go running without me, I would wish I was out there. So off we went for 4 miles! Mentally my heart wasn't really in it, but he made me laugh and said it was perfect running weather, suck it up sally. It HAD stopped raining and it was on the cool side, but not too bad out there.
Want to get your shoes completely dry after a rainy wet workout so they're ready to go on your next time out? Simply stuff them with newspaper and the next day when you remove the newspaper, the paper is damp and the shoes are bone-dry. Works great for bike shoes and running shoes.

Yesterday I ran 7.5 miles in the rain with friends. Those great friends are what got me out there on my low motivation day. Today it is gorgeous and sunny, temps in the low-50's. Colin and I are headed to bike in a little while. I had one of the best pool workouts today, 2000 yards and I got my strokes down to 16 for each 25 for nearly the entire workout. That is crazy good for me! Granted it's not that good among "true swimmers" but it's the best I've ever done in the pool. Last winter I was taking 25 to 27 strokes per 25, over the summer I got it down to 18-19, but 16 is unheard of for me. My friend Julie (a "true swimmer") helped me with some drills in the pool last week that are helping me decrease the strokes, who knew?? It was a hard workout, but worth it.

Hard workouts, the theme for this post. A hard bike ride due to weather, a hard run (2 of them actually...) due to low motivation, a hard pool workout due to pushing myself. How do you deal with hard workouts? They are worth it though, aren't they? :)


4 comments:

Jen said...

Not sure any of my workouts are hard, yet... but I think having people encourage me would work well... and having them do the workouts with me would work even better.

I still need to find running friends.

Tina @GottaRunNow said...

My hands were painfully freezing for the first two miles of my run on Monday - didn't think to wear gloves. Glad you toughed it out!

Today I didn't feel like going for a run (kind of unusual), but I did it anyway. I've never gone on a run and wished that I hadn't afterwards! Yes, it was worth it!

Kate said...

i'm going to love reading about your tri-training. i don't know much about training for one but it sounds like a lot of (hard) fun!! glad it's sunny again!

sandy said...

I loved this post! Hard workouts make us tough. I had a hard run tonight...10 miles up and down hills followed by a short swim. As I ran, I couldn't help but think of you telling me that my shine was buried deep within. At one point during my run, I was a bit upset and I prayed outloud, "Please let me feel joy. Please help me get my shine back." It helped. Thank you, dear friend.