four things friday
1. I had a little bit of hard running to do on Tuesday morning at the end of my long run and it seems to have woken up my pissed-off-posterior-chain. My left hamstring has been sympathetic tight the last few days. It calmed down yesterday after some nice easy swimming while the pool closet was on fire, but I took ten steps out the front door this morning and it woke right up again. So I shut it down. Taken directly from my not-panicked-at-all-email to Sonja: I'm not that worried about it, but I'd rather skip a short run now than be annoyed by it over the next two weeks. I've been doing light stretching and foam rolling, but mostly I'm just trying to let it chill out.
2. I was thinking, in my head the way I do, about starting to put together my race plan for CdA. Just like I've said a hundred billion times, I don't plan on creating goals for the race based on time. I did this for Knoxville and I think it served me well, mentally, when I started puking my brains out. However, I'll put together a plan for the day, and I think the overwhelming theme needs to be "perceived effort rules all things." Or maybe even, "if it feels too hard, it probably is." I know that there are probably a lot of ways this day could go down. There's the "magic unicorns are magical" plan, which means I constantly flirt with the line called "too hard" and slip through the finish line in the fastest time possible with my current fitness without blowing up. There's the "good lord what were you thinking you idiot" plan, which means I constantly flirt with the line called "too hard" and it runs me over like a squirrel (I hate squirrels) and leaves me to die on the side of the road. And there are a million plans in between these two, but if I had to pick, I'd pick that one that leaves me drinking beer with a medal around my neck thinking, "Wow, I had more to give. Can't wait for the next one!" I don't want to get off the bike thinking "WOW AMAZEBALLS BIKE SPLIT YO!" I want to get off the bike thinking, "Okay, yes, I can run now. For a long time." I'm sure all the experts on the internet that spend all day every day giving advice about things they know basically nothing about will agree, and probably even have some extra tips for me. I've got a great place you can store those tips.
3. That said, I don't actually feel like I'm tapering quite yet, I just feel like I'm not in peak training any longer. I still have hard workouts showing up on my schedule, but they are starting to get a little bit shorter and there is more recovery time. So maybe that is tapering, I don't know. Either way, I've been able to cook dinner four nights in a row and I'm about to do some laundry without being completely out of sports bras so it seems like things are calming back down a bit. I've also finally been able to spend a tiny bit of time with the poet this week, although I think going to a baseball game was a presumptuous idea so early in the taper because I spent most of it falling asleep with my eyes open except for when I was being jarred awake by his extremely loudcursing yelling encouragement of the Mets.
4. One of the many things I've been doing in my downtime, other than rewriting my cover letter 268 times a day to fill it with buzzwords of a job listing so no one can call me back, is learning to use the nice camera my mom so generously lent us two years ago. So far, all we've done is put that sucker on automatic and take millions of pictures of my ass, but I feel like all those buttons and settings are probably not just decorative. Yesterday I watched the first thirty minutes of the "this is what that crap is for" video that came with the camera and then spent time in the backyard stalking my favorite subjects. I took over 400 pictures and got about six good ones, which I think is how it works.
You can click on them to make them bigger, which makes them much nicer to view PLUS it means you love me because everyone knows page views equal love. I'm going to go swim and eat my hamstring feelings for a while, you bitches all have a lovely weekend. Anyone racing I should be stalking or have we all finally decided that it's too effing hot for that crap?
2. I was thinking, in my head the way I do, about starting to put together my race plan for CdA. Just like I've said a hundred billion times, I don't plan on creating goals for the race based on time. I did this for Knoxville and I think it served me well, mentally, when I started puking my brains out. However, I'll put together a plan for the day, and I think the overwhelming theme needs to be "perceived effort rules all things." Or maybe even, "if it feels too hard, it probably is." I know that there are probably a lot of ways this day could go down. There's the "magic unicorns are magical" plan, which means I constantly flirt with the line called "too hard" and slip through the finish line in the fastest time possible with my current fitness without blowing up. There's the "good lord what were you thinking you idiot" plan, which means I constantly flirt with the line called "too hard" and it runs me over like a squirrel (I hate squirrels) and leaves me to die on the side of the road. And there are a million plans in between these two, but if I had to pick, I'd pick that one that leaves me drinking beer with a medal around my neck thinking, "Wow, I had more to give. Can't wait for the next one!" I don't want to get off the bike thinking "WOW AMAZEBALLS BIKE SPLIT YO!" I want to get off the bike thinking, "Okay, yes, I can run now. For a long time." I'm sure all the experts on the internet that spend all day every day giving advice about things they know basically nothing about will agree, and probably even have some extra tips for me. I've got a great place you can store those tips.
3. That said, I don't actually feel like I'm tapering quite yet, I just feel like I'm not in peak training any longer. I still have hard workouts showing up on my schedule, but they are starting to get a little bit shorter and there is more recovery time. So maybe that is tapering, I don't know. Either way, I've been able to cook dinner four nights in a row and I'm about to do some laundry without being completely out of sports bras so it seems like things are calming back down a bit. I've also finally been able to spend a tiny bit of time with the poet this week, although I think going to a baseball game was a presumptuous idea so early in the taper because I spent most of it falling asleep with my eyes open except for when I was being jarred awake by his extremely loud
