Juggling with Some Help

Oh Thank God—I finally received the answer to my dilemna in the form of wisdom and Starbucks. I was starting to feel a little tension about how I was going to juggle triathlon and marathon training at the same time, without burning myself to a French-fried crisp by September. In preparing this schedule, I’m trying to keep 95% of my workouts either in the morning or at lunch-time, plus longer weekend workouts. A couple of days ago, I checked my T3 (Total Technique Training—which is my Triathlon Team/Swim Coaches) email and they had sent out a “blanket” training schedule for some upcoming races including the Lake Conroe Half-Ironman on Oct. 29th. It featured different training periodizations, # of hours per week you should be training based on your race goals and what long runs and bike mileage should be. GREAT! I could just push this back two weeks and use it as my schedule for IM 70.3 on November 11th . Well, sort of…It still didn’t really help me plan my daily schedules. It also obviously didn’t take into account that I’ll be ramping up running mileage at the same time for a Marathon 4 weeks later. What’s an overachiever to do besides train 15-18 hours every week? Wrong…

Well, apparently my obsessive compulsive anxiety was shared by others and they sent another email today wanting to get together with us individually this weekend to help plan our training calendars. They realize that not all of us have the same goals or are in the same "fitness league as others." Oh thank God. We’re meeting at a Starbucks this Sunday at 2pm and I’m coming armed with my calendars, training schedules and questions about how to make this work in an organized way. I tend to make every week “a hard training week” because I’m sure how to do otherwise. What this probably means is that on really heavy running weeks, I won’t bike as much. Or, I may take several days off running all together and just focus on swimming for a while. I don’t know. I’m just anxious to receive the affirmation and know-how to put it together effectively.

The good news is that my fitness level is such that I don’t have to push myself to the extremes in order to finish either event. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve already had some of my proudest performances already this year. These upcoming events should be the icing on the cake for a stellar 2006 season. I just want to do both of them free of injury and mental, emotional and physical exhaustion.

Bring on the Starbucks Coaches. We’ve got some schedules to plan! Now, if only they could also plan my wedding and reception!! :-)



Workout Today:

Met Richard and Thon this morning for a recovery jog. I cut off at the Congress Bridge for 4.5-5.0 miles. I then swim 2 ½ laps at Barton Springs. (1000 yards or meters—not sure)