Wednesday, January 16, 2013

A, B, and C Races

I wanted to call this post "Cold Lattes and Cabin Porn" but well let's just say I thought better of it... But if you are ever bored and you are as obsessed with the mountain life as I am google "Cabin Porn." I thank my good friend the Adventurer for that nifty little secret. I spent a solid hour looking at peoples perfect little hideaways in the mountains, but only after I googled the word mountains in google images and spent a good 30 minutes staring longingly at the pictures that were offered to me. This is what I do with my free time, but I always claim there aren't enough hours in the day. I have a problem.


I promise I have been busy since I last wrote on Monday; I haven't just been wasting my days away staring at mountain and cabin porn. I have been training, and working, and writing in the last 48 hours as well, only stealing a few peaks at beautiful mountain landscapes like the one above when I need a little boost. 

Since it is Thursday and I'm talking mountains I'll throw out a "throwback" that I frequently find myself daydreaming about. The completion of the Appalachian Trail Thru-hike picture, one of my favorites. The Appalachian Trail is to blame for my constant daydreaming about mountains and new obsession with "cabin porn."


That's a PBR in my hand, special for the occasion, but I'm not a hipster. Not that there is anything wrong with being a hipster. 

Ok all the mountains are out of my system for now, I'll get to everything else since the few of you that read this are probably rolling your eyes and aiming for the back button right about now. 

Yesterday I kept the work out simple and ran a quick 5k in the morning before work. Monday had been my first day at the pool again and Monday night I hit the trainer and did an easy 12 miles on the bike while watching "Shameless." If you haven't seen that show yet I suggest you get on it, unless you are highly offended by sex, drugs, guns and more sex. This show is crazy, but very well written and absolutely addicting. 



Last night I finally talked myself into sitting down and writing out an entire outline for the book I'm working on. I actually enjoyed it way more than I thought and I can tell it is going to make the writing process much easier. I may even do an outline for each chapter. I may just go outline batty. I think I love outlines. Just sayin'. Too bad I didn't write an outline for this post, maybe it wouldn't be all over the place. 

This morning was another easy 3 miles on the treadmill because I wimped out after walking the monster in the icy rain. The nice warm gym called to me, but man do I hate treadmills. The run would have been longer had I gone outside. I also worked legs after the run. Nice little work out before tonight's spin class. But it did leave me thinking I needed to get my butt in gear and get a scheduled training plan together so I am not doing so many random work outs. I need some consistency so I can start seeing some results. 

I spent the rest of the morning before work preparing my training plans for the season. I read a short article in the last Triathlete on A,B, and C race plans so I used that and began to build my season and training plans. 


Needless to say I got a little too into it. Just like my outlines. I printed out a bunch of plans, downloaded a new calendar on my ipad, sinc'd it to Strava and my Garmin Connect, and loaded up all my work outs. This may mean the end of my dry erase board method. Before I knew it I had to start working and stop pretending I am a professional athlete who is paid to do nothing but eat, sleep, and train. 


This training plan building, outline making frenzy was fueled by pretzels and peanut butter. I cannot stop snacking on these two today. I'm tempted to put it out in the rain shut the door and force myself to stop thinking about them. 


And on a totally random note, some small person left this little treasure in the store the other day. I guess she heard I had a little bit to learn about the creatures of the sea, mainly the sea turtle. Thank you whoever you are, I promise I will look after it until you return for it. 


I also want to mention something that irked me a tiny bit last night. I'm wondering if I'm crazy or if this would bother some of you too. I went to the gas station on my way over to my brother's house last night, that damn gas light was on again... hate that. I handed the guy my card and told him to fill it up, please and thank you and all that nice stuff. It seemed to me that he did just that. But when I turned my car on and pulled back out onto the highway I noticed this:


I took it at a red light mom I promise! 

But look, it isn't all the way to the full line! Why did that bother me? Am I the only one? I asked for it to be full, and I wanted it full! It gives me great satisfaction to see that little orange pointer up at that full line, like a big weight is off my shoulders for the next few hundred miles. But no, this time for some reason it didn't quite make it all the way to the line. Why? A part of me wanted to go back and have it topped off, but that was stupid right? I just had to get over it. It would be there after tonight anyway so why worry. Well for that 10 minutes it really bugged me. Anal much? And I felt horrible that it bothered me, there are much MUCH worse things in the world and if that was the worst thing to happen to me that day then I was in a damn good position. But still... I just wanted a full tank. Ok, got that off my chest. Now you all think I am absolutely nuts and a little childish. 

This random blog that had absolutely no real subject was brought to you by my double shot of espresso this morning. This is why I only allow myself one of those once or twice a week. I'm still sipping on it, even though I bought it at 10AM and it is now almost 3. Hence the original title. 

Do you make in depth training plans or just wing it?

If you do do you break them down into A, B, C races?

I've never broken down my season like this and I am looking forward to seeing what kind of results I get. 







4 comments:

  1. I usually have a rough plan of what I want to do/accomplish from day to day from a training perspective. I am not organized enough to be too rigid with it, but marathon training has given me a prett pay specific plan at least.

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    1. I'm usually not rigid either. I'm going to give it a shot and see what happens!

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  2. I used to make training plans for myself, but right now I'm in the wing- it phase because of changing races. I'm going to be getting back into triathlons from trail races and a couple ultras and I need to start over with swimming and biking. Once I get into a groove, I may make a plan...but I'll have to find a goal race, first. On that note, I am jealous of the fact that your bike isn't in the basement. I'm in an unfinished, poorly lit, cold basement watching netflix. On the positive side, whenever I finish the attic, I'll be heading up there!

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    1. From the basement to the attic, nice!! I just set up wherever I am.

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