Thoughts...some random...some not.

I just feel like things have really picked up in the last couple of weeks.

I'm beginning to get the pre-race anxiety. The "oh crap here comes taper time. I hope I don't screw this up. I hope I do enough. I hope I don't over-do it. I hope I've done enough the last 16 weeks."

Sigh.

There is so much information floating around out there that you can really mess yourself up psychologically by trying to take too much in and be overly critical of yourself.

I am trying to make time this week to write out my taper/peak plan so that it's on here. Now that I've gotten somewhat used to posting my schedule on this blog, I begin to get a little anxious when I haven't done that yet.

Also, I'm getting anxious about the bike. I know I'm not as strong as I was last year but at the same time...I'll be okay. I'm much MUCH stronger with my run. I can't even believe how much I've improved. I did a hard run last night and managed to hold a 7:09 for 11 minutes x 4 with 2 minute rests and kept my heart rate right at the sub-anaerobic threshold (for me, that's around 174-175). My legs are dead today, but that's good.

I think that's where I'm also doing some questioning. How hard is too hard to push? You want to push hard, but only when you're supposed to. 1 hard workout in each discipline a week. That's it. The other times are moderate to recovery. So when I DO get that one opportunity to push, sometimes I don't think I push quite hard enough. I wanted to make sure, last night during my run, that I really felt like I wanted those intervals to end. That my legs were really burning a bit.

I know that we've moved away from the mantra "No pain, No gain." But I do think there's something to it; obviously you don't want physical PAIN, but getting to the point where you're a little bit uncomfortable, where you feel some burn - that's the right kind.

I am doing my best to stay away from questioning myself - i.e. "did I do enough hill repeats?" "did I push hard enough with the swim?"

Whether I did or not is behind me. These last 4 weeks are it. I've done what I could do given the craziness of the last 3 months (and boy...have they been CRAZY...and exhausting). I'm going to San Diego knowing that I did what I could to stick to my plan. I just have to go into it and give it my all.

Still, that competitiveness inside me burns. I want to go out and kick some butt. I want to have my best time ever. I just want it SO BADLY!

Why?

I decided this is the year of triathlon. This is the year I'm sticking to a plan. This is the year I'm going to be in the best shape of my life and just go all out for it.

After this year, who knows? As much as I love this sport and love the fitness that comes along with it, there are a lot of other things I'm interested in doing. I'm interested in cooking more. I'm interested in growing a garden to use my own veggies. I'm interested in becoming fluent in Spanish. I'm interested in reading more. I'm interested in getting into cycling racing. I'm interested in more yoga. I'm interested in learning more about web design and learning CSS. I may even be interested in running a marathon at some point.

If you're working out 10-12 hours a week and also busy with a relationship and have friends to stay in touch with - it doesn't leave a lot of extra time for those other interests. My life is too short to devote it all to triathlon. So this is the year to go for it and be dedicated to it. So that I won't have to wonder "what if I really trained in a focused and dedicated way - how well could I do?" This is the year to explore that.

I don't think I'll give up triathlon after this year, I just think I'll back off the intensity and just have fun with it. Pick a couple key races to do every year and do them for fun.

Those are my thoughts right now. I think I'm just tired of being a slave to the schedule. I just want to get to the race and DO IT! I'm so excited about it...it's like Christmas...I've been waiting all these months...just get here, already! I want my presents! I've worked so hard and been so good!

Cool news of the day:
Fitness Journal was featured on Fox News today (click here to watch the clip)! The bonus: the snapshot of the homepage just happened to be from yesterday, in which the daily calendar picture was one that I had submitted - it was Jerry, Devon and I from when we were up at Donner Lake a couple of summers ago. AWESOME!!!