The Sunday Update: A Week Of Craziness

A bit crazy at the moment! It seems like the weeks have been flying by at a frantic pace. Part of the craziness is due in part to how unbelievably busy I have been with work. The first couple of weeks back to campus are always a bit hectic as I get my "sea legs" back. I am also working on a new commission that is due in March—not a lot of time. I was originally going to swim Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester, but I can swim at lunchtime on Monday and Wednesday's on campus, so that is when I am doing it.

I have been feeling pretty guilty about missing some of my workouts these past couple of weeks, but all I can do is try to get back on track and finish some of my current projects. The great thing about you learn about stress as you grow older is that you understand that it is always temporary. There is a cyclical nature to stress.


Training: I managed to get in my two long swim workouts. Coach Mary has me swimming for time right now rather than distance. I would much rather swim for an hour than have to swim 'X' amount of yards. I don't know why. It is psychological for sure. For some reason, swimming an hour doesn't really seem like that long, but lately sitting on a bike for even an hour has seemed like an incredible lesson in patience. I remember a time when I first started training for triathlons—four years ago—when swimming 1200 yards seemed like agony (I won't even tell you how long it took me). I will tell you that at my first sprint triathlon it took me a good 24 minutes to get out of the water. I swam 3000 yards on both Monday and Wednesday this week. Even last year when I was training for my first Iron distance event at Rev3 Cedar Point, I rarely swam that distance. Truth be told—I am actually enjoying swimming as an exercise. Coach Mary has made my swim workouts much more manageable. That is

I had a two hour ride yesterday. I was trying to decide between the Rockumentary about 80's Canadian heavy metal band, Anvil, or There Will Be Blood. One of the advantages of long trainer rides during the winter months is that I get to catch up all the movies wifey and I can not see in theaters. Trying to find a sitter for five children is about as easy and trying to convince my wife that training for triathlons really does not take that much discretionary time. To be honest, if and when my wife and I get a sitter, we would much rather go out and have a bite to eat and talk than sit in a movie theater. Actually, the last movie we saw in a theater together was Tangled which we saw the brood. The movie that we saw prior to that was Toy Story 3. Yup, we don't get out that much. I went with the Anvil story. If you have not seen it, do yourself a favor. You don't even have to like rock, or metal for that matter to enjoy this real-life Spinal Tap-esque documentary. Hysterical. 

I had a pretty terrible run today. I think it was a result of getting too little sleep last night and not properly hydrating the evening before my run, or this morning. The wifey and I went out to dinner last night with my brother and sister-in-law. We all had a little vino. Then we went to see the film The King's Speech. Yes, we got a sitter—grandma! Anyway, I had to take my run much slower this afternoon to stay within my HR zone 2.

Okay, I know I missed the Friday Top Five this week. Perhaps I will double up next week?

The Kestrel is built, but I am not riding it just yet as I ordered a new pair of pedals and am waiting to see what I want to do with my wheels. As soon as I figure that out, pics to come!

As with the stress, the blog posts become more frequent as the real life craziness calms down to a manageable insane level. Oh, did I mention I am now coaching Luca's travel baseball team? Yeah, did not have enough going on.

More Soon.... really !   Train Smart !