The Voice of Unreason

Training for ultra endurance events can sometimes mess with your reasoning. For example…..I woke up Saturday morning with plans to ride 100 miles. However, after 12 hours of sleep, I woke up exhausted, a bit achy and starving, all signs of not being recovered. I called Rob who was on his way home from Eastern Washington, explained to him how I felt and that it probably would not be a good idea to ride 100 miles, so I would run for 3 hours instead. Now you have to understand, this totally made sense in my mind. So Rob, who is very good in dealing with me, and I do mean very good, treaded ever so lightly and said, “Honey, if you are feeling that bad, bad enough to not ride, do you think it’s a good idea to run for 3 hours?” I saw his reasoning and agreed with him. But then, I had another idea and unfortunately, he was out of cell range so I couldn’t fly it by him….I decided that I could swim 3 miles in Lake Washington instead, after all, I could just float my legs, right? Wrong! It was so rough that I had to kick the entire way and constantly lift my body to deal with the chop. If I thought I was tired that morning, it was nothing compared to that night. It was fun though, my big sis kayaked alongside me and I got a taste of what August 1st will be like.

Swim: It was an awesome week of swimming! I had 2 lake swims and 2 swims in an outdoor pool. My first lake swim was for only an hour, but my second was a solid 3 miles. My pool swims couldn’t have been better, watching the sun rise with every breath, I can’t think of a better way to start the day. If we ever move back to CA or HI, the ability to swim outside all year long will for sure be one of the deciding factors.

Bike: I rode outside all week, totaling 3 rides. For my long ride today, I really sought out a flat to rolling route and it was beautiful! We rode across the Hood Canal bridge towards Squim. The water under the bridge was glass and the views amazing. There were a few climbs but they were long and gradual, not the out-of-the-saddle stuff we have been doing. I was pretty tired at the start but then started to feel pretty good after about 5 hours.

Run: I put off my long run to tomorrow since I bumped my long ride to Sunday. It’s good that I will run on slightly rested legs but the downside is that I will be running until 9:00pm tomorrow night after a packed day at work. It’s the Ultraman/Corporate life balance. Last weeks run happened on Monday as well, but it was a rough one, 85-90 degrees, for 3 hours on very tired legs. It took a lot of mental strength to get through it, and required me to go to that place inside that has gotten me to so many ironman finishes. Positive thinking and believing can be very powerful.

Gear Pick of the Week.
Its been a couple of weeks since I ve done a gear pick ….I ordered a new pair of running shoes last week and just like I always have, I smelled the box as I opened it, after all these years, I still love “new shoe smell”. Most of you know that I work for Brooks, but you also know me well enough to know that I am a very straight shooter. I love the Adrenaline GTS. In my opinion, it’s the best shoe out there. It has the smoothest transition, actually fits a woman’s foot and for those of us who run the distance, it has just enough support to help when your feet begin to break down, but not too much to make your knees ache- it’s the perfect balance.

This Wednesday we will be heading to Canada to train on the course. I can’t wait to bike a couple of those passes and run on the trails. It will give me a good piece of mind for my last 7 weeks of training.

Well that's all for now, hope you all have a fantastic week!

Thanks so much for reading my blog, your support means so much to me.

Beth