Rest Day

Today I have been resting the body. It is really easy to put yourself in the "go mode" and just stay there, even during rest days.

Sometimes it's a good thing to sleep in, wake up, have breakfast, and decide to go back to bed for a couple more hours. After waking up for the second time you feel a little groggy, but well rested. Now you do what you need to, work, etc, then go back to bed for a few more hours. When you wake up for the third time that day there is a real rested feeling. Finally, eat well and go back to sleep for the night. This time around rest day = sleep day.

I am looking forward to our final build week before a rest week over the holidays. There will be an emphasis on cyclocross and swimming.

Here's a training recap from the few days leading up to our run/walk event:
Friday - good swim with a PB on the 200m Free. Next we swam a 2000m straight set where I swam about 4 minutes faster than 3 weeks ago. Drafting helps. Friday evening I set off to swim and run at the Crystal Pool. It was nice to run into other athletes finishing off their weeks training on a Friday evening.

We began the weekend with a standard Saturday swim including some long sets and basic aerobic swim training. This is where we boost mitochondrial density in the shoulders. I have to say, Saturday's water felt a little bit like molasses. The upside of swimming through molasses is that you can catch lots of of it. That's a good feeling.

On Saturday afternoon we did a group cyclocross ride which was not incredibly long, but definitely epic. On the way back we decided to blast through a couple farm roads / lakes. I have to be honest, I wasn't really expecting the group to follow through that massive pond. When I looked back to see the rooster tails flying on either side of everyones bikes as they pedaled through the water, I smiled. Way to go guys, that was fun. Climbing up through that random farm field / mountain was a blast too.

The quote of the day came from Patrick. Looking across a field we saw what looked like a fire road under some power lines. Patrick commented, "That would be sweet if we could ride up there." After scanning the field for rabid dogs and pitch fork baring farmers I replied, "We could bomb across that field, bushwack through that patch of trees and make it up there." A moment of consideration and silence followed. With quiet and somewhat excited confidence Patrick replied with a simple, "Go."

Now it's time to give Papaya a bath.

(ps. if you know why the header picture is all squished at the top of the blog, please send me a note)