Week of Lows and Highs!

Last week was an interesting week for me training wise.  I had some really good conversations with some awesome team mates of mine, yeah, Live Uncommon Team Mates!  They are awesome and if you have not experienced them, you need to, wicked bunch of athletes, parent, friends and down to earth people!

I came off spring break last week with the a week of intense training, not my highest mileage training, but very intense.  Thinking that coming off that week, I was going to be unstoppable in my training.  However, I found quite different outcome than that.  After running the St. Patrick's CASI race with the Live Uncommon team, I was drained.  If you read my post, you know, I was a little disappointed in my outcome of that race but I also should have expected it.  I worked my legs like no other during my "vacation", really taking them to their threshold for three days straight.  Then I expected to race my best 5k ever, right out of the gates!  Kind of foolish of me but I do always want to do my best and don't like failure.  I did experience a little, but more importantly I learned from it.  I was way over training.  I was doing unneeded time in the pool, on the bike.  I needed more track workouts instead of long runs.  It was nice to sit back and look at what I had done and realize, OVER TRAINING!  Funny, just a couple of months ago I was telling another friend he needed to cool it a bit.  Needed to take my own advice!  So I did!!!

Last week, I decided to just run and cut way back on the biking and swimming, the two spots I was really killing myself on.  I only logged about 28 miles running and it was just what I needed.  I even took Friday completely off knowing I was going to run 15 on Saturday.  I felt pretty good coming out of the weekend and have put together a plan that should meet my distance running needs and adapt into the triathlon training as well.    I am feeling pretty good at this point and hopefully this will turn that over training into some Pr's and a better attitude towards training.

I am going to have to invest in some new shoes this week as well.  I am at 312 miles, since January, on my Brooks Ghost 4, love the shoes, did not last quite as long as I like but my frame, 5'11" 218 make it hard for shoes to hold up.  I will get the same shoes unless anyone has some better advice for me.

This past weekend , I was also able to get after another favorite of mine, BAREFOOTING!  Who barefoot in March in the Midwest?  This did and now I CAN say I have been barefooting in March  on the Rock River!  It was not bad at all, about 62 degrees and having a wetsuit, made it enjoyable.  Check out the picture  at the right!!!!  Need to straighten out the arms, but all is Good!

Kind of a random post but it is what it is!  Last week was kind of random, taking time off, realizing reality, checking my mental capacity and being smarter about training!  I am looking forward to being smart in this phase of my training now that I have a nice base to build on.  Thanks to all the people out there who listen to my training obstacles and allowing me to make that hurdle and continue on.  Get out there, train hard, train smart and see what you CAN do!  I AM!

P.S.  Don't forget to check out my Live Uncommon Race Team page and make a donation for 7, yes 7, FANTASTIC causes.  If you would like to donate, you can also write a check to Live Uncommon in my name.  Come on, YOU can MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Just click on my badge!