for the love of...

I had a crazy good training week this past week. I'm totally falling in love with all of this training. When ever I'm frustrated with anything in my life, I just pick up my bike or go for a jog or swim. After my head is clear, my body is relaxed and I feel like I can approach most anything in a calm manner. Case in point: Thursday morning I had a small non-related triathlon frustration. Details are unimportant at this point. Just know I wanted to tear my hair out. So I loaded up my bike, and I had one of the best 16 mile rides of my training. After I came home, I was calm. I even took a practice GRE and earned my best score ever. This scenario makes me want to learn more about how exercising impacts emotions and stress-levels. Obviously, I know there that exercise and stress levels are linked, but I would be interested in learning more about the biology behind it. hmmmm....

Wednesday, I ran 6 miles again. My thought process behind this: I'm trying to mentally prepare for the fact that I will already have ridden 12 miles and swam a 1/2 mile before my feet hit the pavement on race day. I figure if I can run 6 miles, 3.1 after all of that other stuff won't seem so terrible. From someone who previously loved running just about as much as undergoing a root canal, it is a pretty exciting accomplishment for me to run 6 miles and actually enjoy it:)

Tuesday, I swam the distance of the race. All 16 laps. Not my favorite training session of the week, but I had to do it. I want to know that I can do it before I get into the open water.

I think what I have to keep in mind is that this triathlon is an endurance event. I cannot necessarily run, swim, bike my hardest in every training session or my body will say something like " dude, WTF?" With that attitude in mind, by body doesn't hate me as much in training. It is more about who will be able to mentally endure a 1/2 mile swim, a 12 mile bike ride and a 3.1 mile run at the end of the day. I want to make sure that this kid will be able to endure with 100% certainty on race day.

Cheesy motivational quote of the day: "Wounds and hardships provoke our courage, and when our fortunes are at the lowest, our wits and minds are commonly at the best."