Week in review April 18-24: Just the basics and a road ride finale

Actually not too bad.

Guys, I needed to play hooky last night. I was freaking out just looking at my personal to-do list, so I decided it was better for my mental health to stay home from the pool and knock a bunch of stuff out.

For the most part it was a success: I ordered some work clothes, bought train tickets for an upcoming vacation, cooked dinner and prepped lunch for the following days, and even planned a family party. Whew! I didn’t get to everything on my list, and I realize these are all first-world problems, but the necessities got taken care of and I felt better by the end of the night.

(OK, OK — I also re-watched episode one, season six of Game of Thrones.)

I got to bed a bit later than I would have liked (story of my life) and I KNEW it was going to be a bad decision with storms coming in overnight. Sure enough, at 1:11 a.m. there was a terrified dog in my bed, shaking and trying to hide her head under the pillow. I comforted her as best I could because I really can’t be mad at my dog for being scared of thunder. And, like always, my OTHER dog reasons that if her sister gets to be in the bed than she does too. Finally everything quieted down by 2:30 a.m. and I was able to get a bit more sleep. Sadly, it’s never enough!

So, this week is off to a slow start. But last week included:

Swim: Twice in the pool for 5600 meters total in a bit less than 2.5 hours. Eh. Neither of these were great, which I attribute to work stress last week.

Bike: Once on the trainer (I lost a trainer day to some necessary side-job business) and one 35-miler on the ROAD on Sunday for a total of about 3.5 hours in the saddle. I was so happy to finally get outside on the road: The sun was shining! It was warm but not too warm! I was feeling great! The birds were chirping! I was so happy to be alive! And then I got home and downloaded my Garmin data to see that this ride was a bit slower overall than my first batch of rides on the road last year. So….. what the heck did I buy a fluid trainer and do all those hard intervals all winter for??? Ugh. I mean, I was still happy to get out there, but it was kind of a bummer, especially at the end of the weekend.

Run: Twice, both on the road, for 12 miles in a bit less than 2 hours. This included a nice-until-I-ate-a-bug easy-ish run on the trail by my office, and a “long run” of 7 miles, my longest run so far this cycle, on Saturday. My average paces aren’t anything to write home about yet, but, my IT bands are holding up and I’m feeling like I’m getting closer to my groove with each run.

Weights: Ugh – only once after my weekend run, and only the first half of my upper body moves in about 20 minutes, before I started feeling lousy. I’m not sure if this was a blood sugar thing, a too-much-stress-during-the-week thing, a I-dressed-too-warmly-for-my-run-and-am-still-overheated thing, or some combination of the three. Sadly, I had stuff to do later that evening and I never did finish.

Yoga: Again, ugh – only once for 10 minutes before bed Sunday night, and that was kind of a rush job just to get some time logged.

Total: Eight sessions in about 8.5 hours, which, now that I’m actually looking at it, doesn’t seem that bad.

I’m not expecting much for the rest of this week. I played hooky last night, I have a work event tomorrow night, and I have that family party Sunday. So, things are going to be a bit discombobulated around here for a while. I’ll fit in what I can fit in, and try not to stress too much. Easier said than done for me, but I’ll try.