Inspiration

I didn't swim today - I wasn't really going to swim hard anyway, but I did want to support my friend Michelle who was open-water swimming for the first time this season. Well, I saw a woman training a kid, and I guessed that it was Jill Fry - a local elite who works out at the same gym I do and is also a triathlon coach - I know quite a few of her athletes. So I said hi to her - we've emailed a few times - and we ended up talking after her son got out of the water for nearly an hour.

She is so incredible - she started out doing the Danskin and has qualified for and raced in Kona, plus she won the Issaquah Sprint Triathlon this summer and consistently places high in her races. So it was wonderful to talk to her - she's just full of information and training strategy. She really makes me believe that with the right training, timing, and belief in myself, I could achieve much higher goals than I've ever thought I'd set for myself.

The question for me is, what should it be? Top 10% in a competitive sprint? Placing in my age group? Completing an Ironman? Completing an Ironman in, say, 13 hours? Or 12? I plan to take the marathon season to think about this and set some hard but reachable goals.

So, this isn't the post I meant to write. I meant to write about what it was like to wake up at 4:25, really not want to get out of bed, then to start feeling more awake as I got in the car and started my drive. It was 4:40 a.m. and still dark - completely dark - whereas in the past few weeks, it's been already getting light. As I drove by the doughnut shop I used to stop in every morning to get my coffee - and not a doughnut, can't eat that stuff before a run - I could almost smell those delicious pastries, and I was filled with nostalgia for last fall's marathon training. I remember how charged up I felt every morning, how purposeful, and how excited to start that day's run and see how much farther or faster or stronger I could run.

This wasn't a sad sort of nostalgia - it actually made me happy to be awake at 4:40 a.m. and on my way to meet my running partners. I'm just about to start the same thing again - this weekend I have my first long run that has the purpose of marathon training as opposed to half-Ironman training - and I'm pretty psyched about it.

Anyway. On another note, it's time to start meal-tracking again. I've been slacking HARD since, well, before I went to Germany. And my jeans are telling me that it's not a great idea to continue unless I want a new, larger wardrobe. So here goes:

Food:
Pre-workout: Vita-top, milk in coffee: 130 cals
Breakfast: English muffin, ham, cheese, milk in coffee: 280 cals
Lunch: Salad with turkey: 250 cals
Snack: Yogurt, 110 cals
Snack: String cheese, 60 cals
Dinner: Chicken breast, whole-wheat pasta with tomato sauce, green beans: 700 cals
Mistakes! I thought I got the diet Lipton green tea with citrus...but it was the regular - and I drank TWO of them today! That's 320 extra calories! MAN!

Total for the day: 1850 cals. Really unfortunate.

Exercise:
Run 70 minutes
Core 15 minutes
Swim...uh, not really :-)
Calories burned: ~600 (HR monitor wasn't set for me; my pink Polar died, need to send it in for service)