Week 4: Crew Season

This was supposed to be a "recovery" week, but the peak of intramural crew season had a different idea.  In addition to the normal schedule, I had an hour long crew practice on Tuesday morning and our first "race" (qualifying time trial heats) on Thursday morning -- which meant four days in a row of two-a-days!

Swim -- 1.5

Bike -- 47.3

Run -- 14.4

The major development this week was taking the bike outside for the first time this season.  I was nervous, since riding with clipless pedals anywhere near traffic massively freaks me out, but it went much more smoothly than expected.  I'm getting much better at clipping in, and didn't have any near misses clipping out this time (compared to the approximately 1.75 close calls per ride I averaged in my few rides with them last summer).  As usual, I got about 30 minutes into the ride before I realized that the really annoying headwind was actually created by me moving forward at 15+ mph.  Someday I'll get used to it, I guess!  Good news was that riding outside seems to be slightly less uncomfortable than riding on the trainer, for some reason.

I'm also trying to be a little better about my nutrition, making sure at least some of my calories are healthy instead of just eating a lot of food.  And I've started thinking about what I'll be able to to eat before and during the race, so I'm experimenting with shotbloks, gu, bonk breakers, etc.

Soup + Salad + Bread is better than pizza, I guess ...

Got a free sample of this at the B.A.A. 5K -- tasty, but also basically apple sauce

No race this Sunday, but it was still a pretty packed day.  I've never had to worry about what time the pool opens on weekends before! (answer is 9am)  But the early(ish) swim was total worth it, because it was followed by this:

Tavern brunch buffet!  There may or may not have been chocolate cake, too.

Game four!

Free (gigantic) tshirt!

Lil Phunk!

I was NOT super excited about heading out for a run after the game (especially after I came home to a bunch of dog vomit) but I got most of the mileage in at a faster than expected pace.

Here's the plan for this week:

The main change was another crew race today (we kicked butt, in case anyone was wondering).  It was a hard workout and an early wake up, which means today didn't really feel like a rest day.  I'm debating scrapping tomorrow's trainer ride to give my body a real chance to recover before diving into the hardest week yet.  I'm also realizing that 5.5-7 hrs of sleep per night is NOT cutting it on this training schedule.  Getting 8-9 hrs per night is going to be a priority in the coming weeks.  So with that, I'm off to bed!