Love the Hurt: Shocking the Body

Thanks Massi for the sweet shot

Just like everyone else...busy. Didn't get a post out last week and that seems to be more common these days because...well, I'm training. It's game time. No more lax/unstructured training schedule. Tri season is upon us and even though it's only January, I'm faster than I ever was. I'm more hungry then I've ever been and I'm more confident and aggressive going into this season. One of the benefits of being my own coach this time around has allowed me to really dictate my schedule on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis. I probably switch up my schedule three times/day in my head. Just listening for cues from my body on whether or not I'm prepared to nail it or take it easy in all three sports. In a way, I'm "shocking my body" by breaking the routine I've always had. I'll throw in workouts at weird times of the day, put in little mini-sport specific training blocks in and really keep my body guessing while listening to it at the same time. I started the off-season off by following everything by the book and naturally just went to a day-by-day approach and since I've been doing that--I've seen big gains in fitness across the board.

9 Year Anniversary montage

I guess the one workout that comes to mind to me over the past few weeks that I'll share is my solo journey from Ramona to Warner Springs to Temecula. It's a ride I've been thinking about doing over the past year or so but just never had the opportunity until this last weekend. To back up a bit, the night before Amy and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary down in La Jolla. We started by looking at some art then did some olive oil/wine tasting at We Olive and then ate at Eddie V's for the first time. Now back when I was in sales Amy and I had the luxury of going to Ruth's Chris and Donovan's from time to time and it was always a special treat to do so. It's been awhile since we've gone to a fancy restaurant, but what better way then to do it then on our anniversary. $300+ later we just enjoyed the best meal of our lives! Holy crap, it was worth every penny and I highly recommend that place if you live in soCal or are coming out to visit.

Ride montage

I thought waking up the next day with four glasses of wine and a 15 year old scotch in my belly would be painful to start the ride but I actually felt great. I think there's something to be said when you drink high quality alcohol. No fogginess! I know soCal has it good when it comes to weather but this winter has been particularly cold. 20's is 20's no matter where you live and add a serious headwind that I rode into all day all by myself and my bike set up a pretty epic day for me. As miserable and cold that I was all day I had a smile on my face the entire ride. Where else do you have four hours of alone time to just think to yourself? It may seem crazy to some people but out of those four hours I received self-meditation, enjoyed nature, got a great workout and dreamed the entire ride. When you go on a ride, you're not just riding aimlessly - I've grown to love riding my bike more then any of the three sports (running is actually last on my list these days) and my ride fitness has sky-rocketed because of that love.

Other then the ride, I've been getting in the water quite a bit, particularly with the snorkel and band. It's done wonders for my stroke (especially my recovery arm) and can't thank fellow Wattie team mate Dusty Nabor for the little bit of mentoring he's been giving me for my swimming alongside my awesome swim coach (Coach Carol--who's crazy fast) so my swimming has improved and most importantly my CONFIDENCE has improved which I think is very important, especially with swimming being my limiter.

No half marathon for me this year. I was going to do R&R AZ then changed my mind to Surf City and then ultimately decided on skipping out this year. When I do half marathons, I RACE them. I don't trot so each time I do them the next day I can barely walk. It takes me a good two weeks to recover from them and I don't want to sacrifice the training time I could get during that. I have nothing to prove with my running. I know I can run. I need to swim and bike fast and that all starts with the Desert International in Palm Springs in March. I'm already itching to race and it'll be exciting to see how much faster I am this year compared to last year.

Until them, CHEERS!!!