March Training

I really feel kind of like an "old soul" when I write "I can't believe how fast the time is flying by".

It is a couple of days into April and I'm about a month away from the 1/2 marathon, 2 months away from the Spring tri and 4 months 2 weeks from the 1/2 Ironman. 

Although the weather is starting to really grate on my nerves and training happiness looking back at March I feel, even despite my two weeks of back to back travel I did well and put in some decent training time.  One area I did not meet my goal with was the 30 day "Arm Challenge".  I did pretty good for the first 1 1/2, but then I just kind of got tired of my arms hurting so bad and never knowing if I would make a good swim of it or potentially drown due to fatigued arms.  Didn't trust myself to swim through the discomfort and the fear of drowning or needing assistance was enough to steer me away from doing arms the day before my swims.  This month is a 30 day "Core Challenge" which I find is much easier and less taxing on my body, plus the core is needed in all three Tri sports so it benefits them all, but doesn't prevent me from getting swims, bikes, and runs in like the arms seem to do.

This months mileage:
Swims: 8,000 meter= 5 miles
Bike: 61miles of spin + 2 hours and 15 minutes on trainer (don't have anything set up to figure out mileage yet when on trainer- maybe goal of next year purchase)
Run: 53.7 miles (yep I count every last tenth per my nice Nike GPS watch or treadmill)

Due to travel and not keeping with my training of 6 days/week when away from home either due to inability to get my butt out of bed or fit the workout in to my conference schedule or the 2nd travel when it was me and the kids all day long and they just aren't old enough that I felt safe leaving them in friend's house alone while I ran in a city I'm not familiar with.  So I had to get my act together and double up with workouts many days this month and really it worked well.  When you have a work day worth of time in between workouts it doesn't seem that bad or taxing.  The shorter period of time between workouts the harder it is, but this will need to be done over and over again to get my body ready for some crazy back to back to back mileage once in the race. 

My eating/nutrition is going o.k.  Some days better than others.  Me and my darn moderation issues.  I think that will be a life long work in progress. 

One thing I did com to realize this month that my expected training schedule of three swims, bikes and runs/week once 1/2 IM training starts is going to be pretty tough and part of me wonders if I will need to scaled it back a little.  I know sacrificing less workouts will mean sacrificing training and possible performance, but part of me thought about maybe just doing the same "mileage" required, but longer workouts.  Will keep you posted on that one. 

Lastly, had a couple of interesting conversations with some more experienced women triathletes recently.  They have been participating in endurance sports (one does lots of swimming, the other does lots of biking), and they both feel like with getting older they feel the desire to perform at their best- they want to improve and be at the top of the podium when they participate in races.  It got me thinking about my own philosophy... I am more all about "the challenge" and less about the "podium placement".  I also think that if I don't sign up for something I really am not good about keeping on track with workouts, and become more lax.  I would never think of doing two a days or brick workouts in just my general physical activity, but this makes me do more and expect more of myself.  At the end of the day I feel better, although sometimes a little sore and a little crabby if I don't get enough sleep or don't eat well or plan my time, but really the times I go multiple times without workouts I noticed an unease/unhappiness.