Saturday, February 6, 2010

finding balance

i am one with my body. i am one with my mind.

this week, fighting to get over a cold, made me take a good look at my training schedule. also some sage advice from LM, reminding me that i still have 9 months of training in front of me, helped me to take a good step back and try to balance out my week a little better. in other words, no balls to the wall training every day. so overall, i think i had nice week of solid training without burning myself out. here are my totals for the week in a nutshell, which was a little top heavy on the run:

ran: 40.16 miles
biked: 110.75
swim: 3800 meters
weights: 2 times
abs: 3 times

the highlight of my week was the swimming believe it or not. as i blogged in an earlier post, i am now hitting the pool with a purpose and with a workout in hand, not just doing laps for the sake of it. this week was my best swimming week yet and i've only been at it for 5 weeks. as a semi-retired personal trainer, i can appreciate these small victories. doesn't matter what your fitness level is, you still get excited about progress when you can see it and feel it happening and it keeps you coming back for more. not that i'm wishing the time away, but i can't wait to hit week 2's workouts in the pool on tuesday. for the time being, 2 swim sessions a week is working out well in my quest for the whole balance thing. i will add a third day in occasionally and maybe as i get into full IM training. 

i had a great run this morning. did 11 miles at a nice 7:25/mile pace. felt strong, no aches, twinges or pains anywhere (knock on wood). i continue my stretches like a fiend so as not to feel any trouble creeping up on me. as long as i can keep everything nice and loose, i usually don't run into any injuries. it's when i slack and get lazy on the stretching that i get reminded with stabbing pain in my left glute or knee twinges in my left knee. everything injury related happens on the left side of my body...weird, huh?! shorter leg? that's what the physical therapist told me once, so what is one to do when they have one leg shorter than the other?
thankfully, it's invisible to the naked eye.



since i've been seeing so many friends posting pictures of all the snow they are getting today, i thought i'd send them a bit of our sunshine. it is a picture perfect day here in florida and i'm so thankful i got to get out there and enjoy it this morning. saw lots of friendly folks out there riding, running, walking and rollerblading.

happy super-bowl weekend! not sure who i'm rooting for as i have no ties to either team but i will watch it. i think it's going to be a great game between 2 well deserving teams.

much love and peace out!

8 comments:

  1. Wow, way to go this week! Love the pictures of Florida - I am heading down to Jupiter in 4 weeks and cannot wait!

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  2. sounds like a great workout day! dont overtrain, I have a friend who had to back out because he started to early(beyond 6 months focused will give diminishing returns) That is a great photo, makes me warm! Have a great super bowl! Cheers!

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  3. Alright... big time jealous. I was plowing snow for over 12 hrs and you are basking in gorgeous sunshine. Did the swim workout yesterday... LOVED IT! Did 2 sets of the workout, felt great having a purpose in the pool instead of just flopping around pretending like I knew what I was doing haha. AWESOME run times!!! You did great sustaining that pace for 11 miles. Keep up the great work! Anything you find out about swimming better, please let me know :)

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  4. Matt, that's awesome that you got in a great workout with that program too. I can hardly wait to do week 2. The only dif is that they add in a 200 before all the sets we do in week 1. Cool! No more faking it in the pool : )
    medievalist, you will get to run in warm weather compared to what you ran your long run in this past week. Nice!

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  5. It better be sunny and warm April 29 to May 06. $4000.00 is a lot of cahs to pay for 45 degrees and rain!

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  6. Jim, are you going to be on vacation here in FLA around that time? Doing a race?

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  7. Thanks for stopping by my blog - I love having a new one (yours!) to put on my roll of blogs to read. WHAT FUN it will be to "watch" you train for The Big Distance - just your willingness to train for it, to me, is big!! Wow!!

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  8. Gee, thanks for the sunny picture. When I look out my window, I' buried under 3 feet of the white crap!!! I'll trade ya!

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