forever seeking balance

You cannot afford to wait for perfect conditions. Goal setting is often a matter of balancing timing against available resources. Opportunities are easily lost while waiting for perfect conditions.
~ Gary Ryan Blair

this week, training week number 12 out of 20 for ironman florida (whaaaat?), has been a very interesting one in the training department side of my life. as most of you already know, i tend to weigh heavy on the bike mileage, a nice moderation of miles with the running and a little skimpy on the swim. this week, i confessed to all of my friends on daily mile that i hadn’t swam in 3 weeks (hangs head in shame). i’m not even sure why but i have a theory or two. first one is that it isn’t nearly as convenient (or as fun) as cycling or running. with cycling and running, i can leave right from my front door. no getting in the car, packing a bag, etc …the second theory is that the times i have skipped out on swimming for a couple of weeks, i’ve never taken a step back. in fact, i feel like i improve. go figure! however, as true or not the second theory is, i am not letting that interfere with my training balance anymore. i mean it!

i have to thank my blog buddy Summer at the blue line runner for giving me the kick in the ass that i needed. kind of a funny story how this all came about but she couldn’t have texted me at a better time. as i’m sitting at work on wednesday, i get a text from Summer saying, “I’m going to tell you that I AM making myself swim today so that I can be held accountable. I have zero swimming motivation and it’s making me ill” imagine what a hypocrite i felt like when i read that text. long story short, i confessed to Summer that i hadn’t swam in 3 weeks and we came up with a plan to hold each other accountable from here on out. i’m happy to report that we both went above and beyond the call of duty with out training this week. it does help tremendously to have someone you know isn’t afraid to call you out if you aren’t holding up your end of the deal. we should all have a buddy training system like that.  anyway, we promised each other that we would not do any less than 2 swims a week from here until our respective race. THANK YOU SUMMER!

i have so much fun posting my workouts on daily mile. the people on there are awesome motivators! here are just a few fun excerpts of my daily mile training log from this crazy “seeking balance” week:

i ran my long run around my 0.47 mile neighborhood. did i go stir crazy? no, i did not. i turned off my brain and turned up the kickin’ tunes. it was actually kinda nice as i had my little aid station set up and could access it any time i needed it. i felt like i did last year around this time …healthy and running strong with no pain whatsoever. i’m so grateful that my hamstring healed.

making up for lost time here. just needed to prove to myself that i can still do the distance on any given day. i felt strong, smooth and even more confident.

i’m not sure which is more crazy, running around the block for 17 miles or riding the trainer for 51 miles. i think the trainer is the toughest mentally. i had to get this done just for sanity’s sake. i tend to get super irritable when i my planned workout goes down the drain which happened this morning with all the rain. in order to not be a miss pissy pants all day, i sucked it up and did my 51 mile ride on the trainer from hell. i’m sure the j-man appreciates that i did it.

overall, it was a great week. i found balance again and intend to keep it until race day gets here which is now 69 days away. i have a fast, flat century on the schedule for next sunday called the Bok Tower Century. it is part of the tour of sebring that begins on friday.

some odds-n-ends ….i re-did my music playlist so all of you music hounds, pump up the volume!! i was tagged by Jenn at Junk Miles to post 7 past blog links under certain categories and i left my list of links on my desk at work so that one is coming up next time. should be a fun one!

much love and peace out!