Week One of Training, Check!!

Pardon me while I fall asleep on the keyboard... zzzzzzzzzzz...

Seriously, this winter break has been more stressing than a whole semester! Because Robbie is at his parent's house, and my parents and sister are home, I find myself running all over the place in order to see them, instead of the normal seeing Robbie every night at our apartment, and seeing Colleen for our weekly dinners and on weekends. Combine that with working extra hours nanny-ing, being alone in a really cold apartment a few nights a week, actually having a semblance of a social life, and of course, the new training stuff, I'm totally exhausted.

Oddly enough, next week when the semester starts, I'm pretty sure I'll get more sleep, even if I'm doing more, just because I'll be on a stricter schedule. It'll be nice to have the gym open 7AM-11PM too, this whole 11AM-9PM thing is total crap. It's almost impossible for me to get a swim and weight set in between babysitting with those hours. Luckily, my boss has offered me use of her treadmill anytime I want to use it after the kids are in bed, and Coach has been awesome letting me use their studio for the day I couldn't run in the gym because it was closed and couldn't fit it in during daylight hours.

In other news... training is going really well, and I have to say that I'm really happy with the fact that I have a PLAN. I know, I train like a maniac year round, always with some goal in mind, but this is the first time my plan has any real structure, something that changes as I progress, factors in rest time, changes workouts to mirror progress, isn't just "Monday: 1 hr run, 1 hr bike" every single Monday. Rather, it's "47 minute run at a 6.2-6.5 mile per hour pace," then an explanation as to why. So, thanks to that, I'm working a lot harder and I'm feeling improvements already, in little things like a reduced heart rate when putting the same power down on the bike during long trainer rides. And recording everything and knowing Coach Keith is looking at it makes me even more accountable.

This week so far has seen a super long trainer ride on Saturday, a long brick on Sunday (running some hills and trails in beautiful but freezing weather!), then a 3200 meter swim on Monday, broken into 800's (soooo long...) and a weight set, then trainer ride and run yesterday. It'll be nice to ride outside with the team once school starts, though I'm enjoying the trainer + TV combo too...

Matt and I are also striving to stay on our damn diet, though it's much harder now that I'm actually training hard and constantly hungry- usually for junk food! We succumbed last night and ended up getting fries and sodas at a Sonic that just opened up, but generally I've been pretty good about eating well. It's hard to figure out how much to eat in a day, since my training is always changing, but I'm trying to figure it out. I'd still like to drop weight but I figure at this point as long as I eat healthy stuff for the most part, the weight will come off on it's own and I'll hit a good race weight fairly easily. It's just a matter of sticking with the healthy foods and avoiding the "8 cookies per night" binging that I love to do.

So, to sum up, hopefully by next week I'll be on a fairly normal schedule and will be able to post more. For now, wish me luck!!