Give your head a shake

This week has kind of been a rough one on the training side of things.  As in, I haven’t really been training that much.  I think the exhaustion from the weekend just caught up with me and my legs have been tired.  That and I have a few “life outside of triathlon” things that needed to be taken care of too.

Ah, it is always a balancing act, eh?

So I bailed on a swim yesterday morning, and I ran errands yesterday afternoon instead of riding for an hour.

This morning I did get up early to get in my “long” run though.  45 minutes on the schedule and I went downtown to run around the river.  It was a lovely 11C out and it felt so fresh.  My running was still crappy though.  Over the first two miles my pace was slowing down…and I wasn’t even running that fast.  My legs were feeling like they needed a good stretch or massage.  Finally I just pulled over to stretch things out and give my head a shake.

I haven’t raced a sprint tri in a year…before I started training with Angie.  I want to do well in the race, and I really want to see some improvement.  Plus it is entirely possible that I feel like I need a little racing redemption after Lake Stevens.  I was thinking too much about wanting to be fast…wanting the run to go better than Tuesday’s craptastic intervals.  Too much thinking was really affecting my run.

After stretching and my self evaluation I got back on the pathway.  Lo and behold, my running was feeling better.  And I was getting faster!  Funny how things work out sometimes.  I think I just needed a chance to acknowledge my expectations, but then move past them so that I can just focus on the moment and enjoying one final triathlon of the season.  More important than anything else, I am doing this race with my friend DGB.  Two years ago we were in Seattle to race her very first 10K.  Now this year we are in Leduc so D can race her very first triathlon.

Being there with my friend this weekend matters more than anything else.  I’ve had a great season of triathlons this year, especially considering it was my first year really training for this.  Whatever happens on Sunday happens, but at least D and I will be cheering each other on!