The glory of the recovery week

At first the thought of a rest or recovery week would send me into a panic. I would feel antsy and restless as I cut my training and effort roughly in half for an entire week. But I've grow to appreciate the rest week both for the necessary break it brings my body but also for the extra time it affords me.  What?! An extra three hours on Sunday? The world is my oyster! Last night, a Wednesday, I even went to a movie. A movie! In the middle of the week. By the way, it was True Grit and it was fantastic. I may even see another one. What's stopping me?

Totals for 1/17 - 1/23
Swim: 5100 yards (missed one workout)
Bike: 72.6 miles
Run: 25.1 miles
Conditioning: 1 hour bootcamp
2 roller session with "the stick" and one trigger point session.

Kin

Gonna be an aunt in a few short weeks!

Bi-polar Runner

On Monday night I did an hour long run which included a 2-mile time trial. I generally do these time trials once a month during the earlier phases of my training so my coach can judge my progress and set my paces.  The TT went surprisingly well. I felt strong and pushed myself just the right amount. I completed the 2 miles in 15:18, for a 7:39 pace. This is a decent improvement over my previous best of 15:51 (7:55). I was ecstatic and for the rest of the run I fed on that feeling and told myself "days like today are why I do this."
Fast forward to this weekend's long run of 1:40. I felt like two cement blocks had been strapped to my legs and my lungs felt like I had spent the weekend smoking. Unlike Monday, the thought running through my head was "why do I do this to myself." It was incredibly disappointing.
Why does that happen? How do I find consistency? And by consistency, I mean consistency in feeling good not feel like crap in motion. I suppose I could attribute the lousy weekend run to the accumulation of the week's workouts. I can understand not feeling 100% after a long week of work and training, but should it make THAT much of a difference? Maybe it should. Or maybe it does for me, but shouldn't. I know everyone has good days and bad and I should not expect to be the exception to these rule. However, I would think that a bit more consistency isn't too much to ask for.  What am I missing?
On another note, I have begun to use the Trigger Point hip and lower back kit to deal with my piriformis pain. I've only done it two or three times and while I haven't noticed a huge difference in my day-to-day discomfort, I do feel significantly better after I do a session.  I'm not sure how often I should be doing it, but I'm going to keep at it at two or three times a week and hope for continued improvement.

Training totals for 1/10-1/16
Swim - 6300 yards
Bike - 58.5 miles
Run - 23.4 miles
Plus one hour of boot camp and two trigger point sessions.

RANT...part 2!!

It's been hard to adjust to swimming in a pool with other people. In Kodiak, it was not at all uncommon to experience swimming laps in an empty pool for entire duration of my workout. Now that I'm living in Seattle, I knew that I would lose this luxury. For the most part, I've grown to accept the circle swim and having to share a lane with up to 5 other people. I cannot fault people for wanting to swim during the limited hours lap swim is offered. So, that's not my rant. My rant is directed at the people who cannot seem to understand the concept of lane sharing and lane designations. Lanes are marked with different speeds for a reason people! When the lane marker says fast or very fast and you don't even know how to put on a swim cap, then DON'T USE THE FAST LANE!!! Should be obvious, right? Common courtesy, right? Minimal brain power required, right? You'd think so. Along those lines, even if you are fast enough to be in a certain lane, should you decide to do a kick set or a few laps of back stoke, then perhaps you would be kind enough to move to a slower or more open lane for the duration of these particular exercises. Can you tell I had a bad night at the pool? 

Oh, but the silver lining is I swam my fastest 500 to date. Must have tapped into some of that frustration. 

RANT!

I was biking to work this morning. It was cold. 29 or something. I was almost to work when I hit a patch of ice and took a fancy little spill. It wasn't bad at all and no blood was shed. My issue is that I crashed on a fairly busy road and there were at least three vehicles that witnessed it. Not one person stopped...or even slowed down for that matter. WTF?? Fortunately for them (and me) I was not hurt, but they didn't know that.  Am I overreacting? How many of you would drive on past a cyclists laying on the side of the road? Seattle has a reputation for having overly nice drivers...apparently that courtesy does not extend to anything with less than four wheels.