Your Fitness - a fickle BF

One of my nicknames for myself is "Mrs. Bright Side." I try to focus on the positive and be optimistic. I use this blog to try and motivate myself and hopefully others. It really helps me keep moving! Recently I've been thinking about fitness as a state of body and mind. For me, fitness has moved in and out of my life. I look at my children and right now their fitness is as tight to them as their own shadows. Lean and strong they go hand over hand on the monkey bars. They seem to run and play all day without tiring. As a kid I was like that too and I've talked about the change in me as a teenager. I was more concerned with (ahem) other activities than keeping fit.

My fitness is like a fair weather best friend. When I'm working out consistently she sticks by my side. But once I get lazy my fitness is off to the Bahamas, ready to hang out with someone who plays beach volleyball. She's not going to sit around with me, eating potato chips and watching TV. Depending on where you left off and your genetic prowess your fitness may stay with you longer rather than taking off right away. I don't seem to have that luxury. A recent few days off had me feeling slow on the run and ready to give up. Fortunately the upcoming race motivated me to keep going. I could have easily gotten discouraged enough to slide into an exercise funk.

The good news is that with some effort fitness always comes back. I know that I'm building a strong base so I don't go back to square one after a lazy period. It's hard to face but I learned that as I get older I'm going to have to work harder to keep my fitness. She doesn't age like I do and she's very unsympathetic to my excuses, no matter how creative.

For the whippersnappers out there - don't let your fitness go! Follow every exercise trend or stick with what you love. Just don't stop. Ever. Or your fitness and mine will be hanging out together somewhere in the sun and talking about the lazybones they left on the sofa.

Yours in training,
Annette

4 Weeks Until Showtime

Barring some massive injury, I will be on the beach on September 7th, 2008 for my first (and maybe only) half ironman triathlon. Today I'm feeling psyched for it but over the last two weeks I have been so down about my training I wanted to give up. I know I won't. It hasn't been anxiety, at least that is a good thing. I was able to point to a few things that might be causing this crisis of confidence:

1. PMS - you are so lame, my monthly friend.
2. The Beach to Beacon 10k - a great race but it sucked the life out of me for a week.
3. Burnout - I signed up for the half iron on Halloween day in 2007. I've been focused on this race for the last nine months. I'm getting tired, mentally.

I finally got back in the pool today, inspired by the swimming events at the Summer Olympics. The water made me feel so good. I also have some great workouts coming up. For example another huge stack of bricks this sunday which will total 38 miles on the bike and 7 run. Next week I'm on vacation and I start to taper. I'll do a final big bike and run on the 24th.

I promised myself I'd use this post to banish the negative thoughts and start the personal pep talks I'm so fond of. Lately I've been cursing myself (and I do hold the title of "Cousin with the Filthiest Mouth") so my inner language has been quite colorful.

I'm going to use my vacation time to try to quiet the voices in my head and accept where I am mentally and physically. I can do a post mortem on my training regimen in September after the race. I already know where I've fallen short and will make changes in the future.

In the meantime send a positive vibe my way. I'll need every ounce of energy I can get!

Best,
Annette

Vineyard 30+ Mile Bike Route

Here's a new thing I'm trying. I used Map My Run to map out my Vineyard Bike Route. I should have used Map My Ride but it's the same effect. They say I can put the map on my blog. Let's try it:

NOPE! Didn't work. Sorry...

Did it work? I'll publish and find out.

Beach 2 Beacon 2008

Tomorrow is the Beach to Beacon race day. I've never run it before! Isn't that a lovely logo? I'm excited to see how it goes. I know it's going to be a challenging race. The course is beautiful, winding through Cape Elizabeth here in Maine. I've ridden the route as part of my long bikes to work. Before the harvest I found that Cape Elizabeth smells like the ocean, cut grass, and strawberries. Very pleasant indeed. We'll see what we get tomorrow as the horde of 5500 runners storms the course.

How am I feeling? Strange today. It's August and the half ironman is 37 days away. In a previous post I talked about the anxiety I get at the beginning of a race. I forgot to mention that I did *not* feel that way for Mooseman. It could be that I was mentally prepared for the distances but I'm not really sure. I have a few more big workouts to do this month. There's a stack of bricks to do on the 17th (bike 60 min, run 30 min, bike 60 min, run 30 min, bike 30 min, run 15 min) and then a long bike (30 miles) with a 5k following it on the 24th. Other than that it's all recovery and maintenance workouts until the final taper.

I'm going to stick to the plan and follow through with the workouts. Once the half is over there's one more race, the Peak Performance Maine Marathon in October. I won't be running the whole thing, just the half marathon at 13.1 miles. After that it's rest, overwinter workouts and tattoo time.