Monday
Swam, felt pretty damn tired. I think it's the job hunting stress, the lack of sleep, and the early winter cold coming on.
- 200 warmup
- 4x200 free
Fuck, what a day. The previous day I had a full on brain fart in the tech screen with a highly respected bay area startup. Their recruiter had scheduled another call for today, but based on the results of the first call (which, admittedly, I fucked up), decided to terminate. Without telling me. I was pissed, stressed, and ready to implode when Jary called about going on a ride. He's just had knee surgery, so it wouldnt be a hammerfest, but it was beautiful outside and I needed to get out. So we rolled a lap (14 miles) around the island on a beautiful fall day. That was the highlight of the day. It doesn't take away the anxiety, but it definitely puts it on hold.
Wednesday
Today I woke up determined to see what it would be like to bike commute to one of the companies I'm in the final round with. It's out in deep, deep Redmond, and I had a vague idea that it would be somewhat of a hike. 43 hilly miles later, I have to say that this would not be a daily commute :) That said, it was a beautiful fall day, and I could think of no better way to spend it than in a tuck position on the aero bars (when I wasn't grinding up hills, of course!).
Thursday
Morning swim:
- 200 warmup
- 2x200 easy
- 1x250 easy
- 1x300 easy
- 1x150 warmdown
18 miles bike ride in the afternoon. Turned out my interview at company 'D' went well and resulted in a verbal (to be followed by an actual) offer. This combined with an offer from company 'W' has resulted in a much lower level of stress over the last couple of days. After the interview, the weather was so beautiful I rolled out on the bike. The last couple of days of biking had taken it's toll, and I was kind of tired. Plus, before starting the 2nd mercer island loop, I realized that I was running a little late, and wanted to hang out with the kids. So I took the Gallager Hill route home (fuck, that's steep). Rolled about 18 miles in roughly an hour. First lap went out hard, 19.3 mph avg, 2nd part of the ride I was mostly rolling/climbing, 15.6 mph avg.
Friday
Today, between phone interviews/fielding offers, I was basically a slothbar. After getting 2 job offers, my stress level went down to where I can sleep again, and boy did I. Then, the scheduling/calling on the offers as well as handling a third offer pretty much killed the day. Wait. This sounds like I'm whining about getting job offers. No, that's not what I'm doing. I'm STOKED to have multiple job offers 1 month after getting laid off, in an economy where the unofficial unemployment rate is 20% and lots of very capable people are really hurting. I'm just saying that between all of the 'getting work' work going on, and my re-discovery of that elusive thing called sleep, I didn't have a lot of spare time.
Saturday
Swim
- 250 warmup
- 4x300 free
- 250 warmdown
Sunday
goal: 7 mi tempo run: 2 mi warmup, 5 mi @ 8:15 pace, 1317 feet climbing
actual: 7 mi, avg 8:33/mi, around 1 hr.
averages:
mile 1 @ 9:26 -- down from house and up first steep climb
mile 2 @ 9:44 -- steep hills
mile 3 @ 8:18 -- rolling flats
mile 4 @ 8:05 -- rolling flats
mile 5 @ 8:08 -- flats
mile 6 @ 7:56 -- steep downhill
mile 7 @ 8:14 -- steep hill up to finish
It was hard to keep @ 8:15. The first two miles were climbing, the next 4 were rolling up and down, and the last one was a steep climb. Mentally keeping this pace on rollers was hard, but something that has been working for me lately is the following internal 'conversation':
"this doesn't feel that bad. I've felt worse."
"wheezing is totally natural at this point. It's perfectly normal to not be able to get enough air in"
"I'm tired, but not all _that_ tired. I've been way more tired."
Not sure why, but these thoughts seem to mentally freshen me up. I haven't been running too much lately, so it was good to get out and go hard for a relatively short distance.
After the run, TRX killed me off good.
TRX
- Standard leg routine here, abbreviated b/c of hard run.
- 2xsingle leg split squats, 15 reps 1st set, 12 reps 2nd set w/20 lbs extra.
- 2xsingle leg front squats 10 reps/set
- 2xsingle leg tuck behind squats 10 reps/set
Summary: a good week of cycling and swimming, with runs bookending the week. Wish I could have gotten in more resistance training, but all in all I'm glad to get out this much in November.
No comments:
Post a Comment