Phabulous Phriday!

Well, I was pretty good about easing back this week. It's weird how, even when you want to cut back on training - and know that you probably should - there's that little voice in the back of your head urging you to keep powering through. Which is funny for me, because I am definitely NOT one of those crazy, driven by demons, Type A athletes that drive themselves to exhaustion week after week in preparation for whatever race they're preparing for. No, I am usually perfectly content to bail on a planned ride when the rain is falling (or threatening to fall) or push today's swim into tomorrow (or next never). But that voice is still there - "don't slow up now, you'll never get back on track!" and "you're in the home-stretch, don't ease up now!" and "everybody else is going farther/doing it faster/putting in more than you!"

It's really annoying, and stressful, and counter-productive. Maybe that voice is what keeps me on task, forces to me get back out there every day, but sometimes I wish I could just switch it on and off. But you can't. Luckily, I was able to mostly ignore the voice this week, and just do what felt good. Which was really refreshing - just go out there and do whatever felt good, for as long as it felt good. And no more.

As such, despite the mental fatigue I complained of the other day, I had some really nice sessions - Tuesday evening I ran 80 minutes at about an 8:10 pace (thank you, Garmin!), with a faster section mid-way. I hadn't planned on going this long, but the weather was nice and my body felt good. Wednesday, I did 60 minutes on the Kaiser bike (including a series of 60-second standing climbs) and then bricked that for 15 minutes. I took the day off Thursday, and rode easy for two and one-half hours this morning (43 miles). Cath and I are planning an OWS this afternoon depending on the weather - it's plenty windy out there, which will mean plenty of swells. Yuck. If we don't go today, I'll try to convince Drew to swim after our run tomorrow. Sunday will our rest day this week, and Monday I'll be back in the pool.

That's all for now - have a great weekend, kids. Be safe.