Racing in 2 Days!!!

Pre-race jitters started today. Cannot wait to get out there! Having to tell myself it's too early to start packing gear and visualizing (read: obsessing) the race, gotta save that for tomorrow. So far though, prep has included:

- Making sure to bring three swim caps, including my thick rubber one, for the 55 degree water. Will probably only wear two. 

- Telling all my friends and housemates that I HAVE to be in bed by 10 tomorrow

- Periodically pulling my new Cal race kit out of the closet and getting pumped about wearing it and racing not just for myself for the first time

- Getting 9 hours of sleep the past two nights and spending 30 minutes a day on the foam roller 

On the bike today

Doesn't get any better 

Brrrrrr

Just found out I'm in for a cold swim this weekend...55 degrees!!! How can the American River in Sacramento be colder than the Bay?!

Practicing my juggling

The last week has been an exercise in remembering priorities and maintaining balance. Hosting students interviewing for the BioE program at Berkeley/UCSF Saturday-Tuesday while having a ton of work to get done to wrap up my second rotation has really limited the time I've been able to spend training. Initially this caused a lot of anxiety for me. Losing the rhythm and routine that I've developed over the past 4 months just two weeks out from race day was really unsettling. But it's impossible to do any kind of good work with that type of stress, so I've kept myself focused on the following:

1) Trust the training - the Type A perfectionist in me says "you must do every workout you schedule or you're wasting all the effort from previous workouts." I've gotta trust that four months of fitness isn't going to go away with 6 workouts a week instead of 10. In fact, some extra recovery time is probably good. But my default is to push push push. 

2) Enjoy it! - when things are really busy, it's especially important to remember that I do this because it's what I love to do. Working out can't just be another thing on the schedule or the to do list. It's gotta be my time to relax and reset mentally. 

So for today, I'm making sure to savor the sunshine and enjoy the view from the pool before heading back to work.

Happy President's Day!

Took advantage of the holiday to do my Monday recovery ride outside instead of on the trainer. This was awesome. Beautiful morning to be out on the road.

But the most important part of the day (in terms of training) was 30 minutes on the foam roller. Definitely needed this after the weekend. I think that's Ed Sheeran providing some nice background tunage on the laptop.

Now it's time for some fun in SF! Going exploring with friends today. Activities involve some combination of: Lands End hike in the Presidio, bison in Golden Gate Park, Trouble Coffee Co., hunting for bakeries, and a healthy dose of spontaneity. 

I remember when Sundays were rest days....

...Now it's the toughest double of the week. With racing season upon us, rather than Sunday long runs, Coach Dean is holding track workouts at 9 am. And he calls it his favorite workout - cruise intervals. The idea is to run 4-5 1-milers at 30-40 seconds slower than 5k pace, with only 1 minute rest in between. Primary goal is consistency - splits should be within 5 seconds of target. Dean really likes this one because it's a great tempo workout, but doesn't leave you feeling totally spent (which means no excuse to skip swim at noon :P) Anyways, I gotta say I really liked this workout. Felt like exactly what I needed after a tough ride yesterday. A really solid run, but no overexertion. Ran 4 1-milers at 6:25 with 2 miles warm up and 2 miles cool down for volume. 

With about 2 hours to kill before swim, something pretty exciting happened - I had my first trip to a Cal dining hall. Marc swiped Anna and me into the brand new Crawford Dining Center. Pretty gorgeous, reminded me a lot of MoJo. (Shoutout here to post-swim meals with Ryan Karr - gotta say, I really missed those croissant egg sandwhiches). It took a lot of discipline to not go back for seconds and thirds. This is the hardest part of doubles days for me - waiting to refuel (read: binge eat) until after the second workout. 

Swim was as brutal as I thought it was going to be. Another 3800 yd set (I swam that on Friday too), and this time with Coach Rob keeping us on the clock. And he bumped me up a lane. This was both encouraging and intimidating. I'd leave right on the feet of the guy in front of me, and by the end of our intervals I'd be a good 10-15 yds back. Catching 5 seconds of rest if I was lucky. They ended up doing a third broken 1000 interval set, but I grabbed my paddles and headed to an empty lane to pull at my own pace. Had a really long, hard week of workouts and wanted to make sure I didn't push myself too far.

Speaking of - I think this might be the most yards I've ever recorded in a week. 11,800 in all. I'll have to go back and check. Definitely seeing huge improvements in the pool. Will be interesting to see how that translates on race day.

My treat for the day (and I was thinking about it the whooooole time I was swimming): caramel bubble milk tea from PurpleCow. Mmmmm. Oh. And I have to give some love to Lady Liberty (my Jeep). It was pretty awesome to be able to just drive home after working out this afternoon. Big thanks to mom and dad for sending it out here!

A pretty great Saturday

FHit the road at 7 am with Cal Tri buddies Marc and Andrew for a big 60+ miler. Rode this route 25 minutes faster than when I do it on my own. Awesome having people to take turns setting pace. Stopped at a fruit stand halfway through to refuel.

Early start meant I had time to get to lab and get some extra work done. Felt good to be productive on a Saturday. Had the place to myself...

Wrapped the afternoon up with some pretty excellent iced coffee. Now home to celebrate Valentines Day with three other dudes....

2015 Race Calendar

Here's what's on the schedule so far:

March 1st - UC Davis Aggieathlon - Sprint

March 8th - Stanford Treeathlon - Sprint

March 22nd - West Coast Collegiate Triathlon Conference Regionals - Olympic

*April 25th - USAT Collegiate Nationals - Olympic 

September 20th - Ironman 70.3 Tahoe 

And some thoughts: 

• Obviously collegiate nats is the race of the year
• Big gap between the collegiate season and 70.3 Tahoe (btw - not registered yet, but probably will be by the end of the month), but that's good because I'll be in Europe from May 13 - June 13 and going to take that month to totally rest from training 
• Really wanted to do Wildflower this year, but our bikes won't be back from nats yet

Better late than never...

Starting a training blog is something I've been debating for a while now. With less than a month before my first race of the collegiate season, it seems a little late to be starting now....But more and more I keep wanting to have a place to jot down all my pre/post-workout feelings and the numerous triathlon-related thoughts that strike me throughout the day. So here goes!

I want this to be a day-to-day blog, but since I'm already so far into training I need at least three more posts to get everyone up to speed. The first will be my race calendar for the upcoming season, the second will be a summary of the month of January (it was an epic one), and the third will be past/present benchmarks along with goals.

This should be fun!