A Brick in the Block

Training for a triathlon will be demanding, physically, mentally and emotionally. There will be days when you just can't push through a workout; when you hit snooze on your alarm clock because 4am came all too soon. Then there will be those days that you hit a PR, you've gone farther than than the last time, and you begin to see results. Your mind will battle your body, convincing you that you're not going fast enough, or you could have done another set if you really wanted to. It's an uphill battle more often than not. And you will experience fatigue, hunger, pain, irritation, and stress. But it's all worth it in the end, when you look back on everything you put yourself through, it's all worth it.

Along the way, the experiences we have allow for us to screw up majorly! And then learn from that mistake so it doesn't happen again. Last year, when I raced IM Racine 70.3 I bonked on the bike. I was so worried about not taking in enough on the bike that I actually took in too much. My stomach hurt like none other for more miles than I can count early on, and it took every ounce of my mental strength to push through that bike ride. That being said, I also wasn't the best at making all of my scheduled training rides....lesson learned. This time around I'm taking my rides more seriously, and oh what luck, being bike blocked this month ;)

When I opened my training log for this month from Steph her email read, "This is another bike block. You won't like it because it's not much running, but NOW is the time to get some uninterrupted time to work on the bike. Next 4 weeks involves 4 X a week on the bike, you will grow to love it. --Steph"  If ever there was a time I believed love was conditional....

Ok so I've already learned quite a few lessons in the 3ish months I've been training, and one of them is "Listen to the coach lady". Looking through the plan I noticed that Saturdays were Brick workouts. Now I'm going to say that to me, at this moment, I was thrilled! But I feel like part of the reason for this is because it's March, and the first time in months since I've done them. It will probably be a different story in August ;)

In all of the excitement, I ended up falling asleep at 8:30 on Friday night (I'm a rager let me tell you!). But it worked out well enough because by 4:45 I was clipped in and ready to ride. Two and a half hours on the trainer is grueling! And those last 15 minutes felt like an eternity. As soon as my watch hit the 2:30 mark I jumped off the bike and into "T1". I'm such a dork, I set up a "transition" in my bathroom, filled with several layers of clothes and my gym shoes. I can honestly say it is almost harder trying to put layers on when you're sweaty than it is to peel them off.

I had convinced myself this run was going to suck, because everyone knows the first few minutes off the bike and running are hell. But it actually went a lot better than expected. I ran up 55th and to the lake path. Did a wrap around the point, it was snowing a bit and no one was really out. I was soaking in the calm of the morning. Twenty minutes later and I was back inside my toasty, warm apartment. It was just barely 7:30am, I had accomplished all of that all before 8am, damn it feels good to be a gangster!


Definitely worth a nice big cup of coffee before running off to work :)