Work has been horrendously busy these past few weeks.  It feels like I keep starting my posts lately with something about how busy work is.  Sorry for being redundant.  However, the work is affecting my training – and not necessarily in a bad way. 

The exercise has been a great stress reliever.  It also gives me something to look forward to as a break in my day.  However, I am also finding that I am running faster and I don’t know if that is necessarily a good thing.  I have a my long 20 mile training run on Friday and I had wanted to take my runs this week fairly easy to rest my legs.  Yeah… That hasn’t worked. 

I went out for my scheduled 7 mile run on Monday with the goal of 8:30 miles.  When I got home, I looked at my watch and it was under 56 minutes.  Whoops.  Sub 8:00 miles.  I felt great though, so I can’t complain.  My swim went the same way.  I did 1800 yards in under 31 minutes which is a personal best for the distance.  What the heck!?!

On Tuesday, I had an hour on the bike.  Armed with some episodes of 24, I hopped on and got started.  I did a 20 minute warm up and then 2 minutes hard with 2 minutes recovery for the next 30 minutes and then did a 10 minute cool down.  It was a hard workout and my legs felt rubbery afterwards.  Also, for some reason, my toes were all tingly – almost like they were asleep.  That has never happened to be on the trainer before.  Sometimes it happens when I bike outside in the cold, but never indoors.

Which brings me to today.  I was able to restrain myself and take it easy on my 2000 yard swim.  After my swim, I went out to lunch with a couple guys from the pool.  I had 3 Yesterdogs.  Not the healthy training food, but oh so good.  I also had a 6 mile run planned.  I wasn’t able to tear myself away from work until 5:30 which meant I would have to break out the reflective gear and lights for my run.  I went out easy, but felt myself speeding up.  I did my best to hold back, but again ended up finishing faster than I would have liked with an 8:05 pace.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy with how my workouts have gone this week.  However, it does worry me a bit about my long run.  Hopefully I can maintain this energy level for that run as well.

Work has kept me very busy this week.  I spent a couple days doing interviews, and I am so very glad that I don’t have to do them on a regular basis.  On top of that, I have a big project with a looming deadline that keeps getting interrupted by more pressing issues.  It is like one step forward, two steps back.  I guess I can be glad that this week has been an easy week in my training schedule.

Monday was technically a rest day, but I swam anyways.  I still had sore arms and abs from the circuit workout I did over the weekend, and this workout was more or less a way for me to stretch out the muscles.  I did a continuous 2500 yards pulling on and off each 250 yards.  I felt a lot better after the workout than I did before.

Tuesday, I took completely off.  It was very nice.  I wanted to jump on the trainer, but I was exhausted and decided to take it easy.

Wednesday, I did a swim and a run, but took both very easy.

Which brings us to today.  I woke up early and got a bit of work done right off the bat.  After that, I took some time to ride the trainer.  I did 2 hours while watching Chuck on the DVR.  I worked on riding in the aero position by alternating from the hoods to the aero bars every 5 minutes.  I followed up the ride with a 4 mile run this afternoon.  The run was pretty mundane, but the best part was that I got to wear shorts!  The temperature has been in the upper 30s this week, so I decided to take advantage of the veritable heat wave.

As for the rest of the week, I have a 6 mile run scheduled for tomorrow.  I may squeeze in a bike ride, but that is still up in the air.

This weekend, I am hoping to spend some time firming up a training schedule for my summer race schedule.  The start date of triathlon training is rapidly approaching, and I need to get some things down on paper.

Ugh.  What a day.  One thing after another.  I felt like it was two steps forward, one step back all day long.  Thankfully, I did my swim this morning because there was no way I could have squeezed it in along with everything else. Despite being as busy as I was, I was able to call it quits at 6:00 so I could go out for a run.  Because it was so late, it was already pitch black out.  I geared up with a reflective vest, head lamp, and blinking red light on the back of my head.  There was no missing me out there.

I was looking to do 8 miles to redeem myself after my horrible 8 mile “run” on Monday.  I think I succeeded.  Here is a quick comparison of how I felt on the two days:

What a difference a couple days will make.  Same course, same weather, and my run was 100 times better today.  I felt like I was running strong the entire time.  Parts of the course were a little slow due to it being dark and icy (not a good combination), but when I hit dry pavement, I felt like I was pushing the pace.

After I got my run in, I had a wonderful taco fiesta prepared by the lovely Jennifer.  Now it is time to squeeze in a bit more work before I crash.  It is going to be another early morning and busy day tomorrow.  Yay……