Thursday, July 12, 2012

Mentally building yourself.

So there's this whole talk at a bulletin board about the mental aspect of training.  Going faster because you think you can.  The mind as opposed to the body being the limiter.  And I want so bad to post something but I'm not sure what because my gut instinct is that no, you can't just think yourself faster, but if it bothers me that much, is it because there is some truth to it?  So I've been mulling it over.

I mean, I went one day from five minutes ran to thirty just because I thought I could.  I was doing the couch to 5K program and got sick at the point of running five minutes straight then got better, someone posted something on FB that had nothing to do with that and I can't even remember what it was and I went and ran thirty minutes.  There's many instances where I've just done just that.  I did a marathon with no training.  Why can't I accept that I'm limiting myself now?  Is it because I know how painful the freeing process will be?

Had an interesting situation happen during weights this morning.  I've been feeling queasy all week, but not more than I usually feel queasy due to the dizziness, so not worse than normal.  I haven't been feeling the workouts this week, though.  Trainer session was particularly not fun, and if I have no fun during trainer session there's something physically wrong with me that day.  We've been having temperatures of over 110 degrees this week.  But anyway there I am towards the beginning of the weight session, about 20 minutes in, and I feel particularly queasy.  Now I'm not a big sweater.  I just don't sweat, I moist.  All of a sudden buckets of sweat start pouring down my arms and face, I'm dripping sweat standing still, shirt getting wet.  I walk around the indoor track once and feel ok enough to continue.  It's going to take a lot more than feeling like crap to stop me from finishing a workout :)  By the end of the hour I'm dry as usual.  Maybe it's time for a physical.

During trainer session yesterday though I tried to push myself harder.  The HR monitor seems to be malfunctioning and the cadence sensor was not pairing so I don't have data but I went by RPE and trued my hardest to go all out and I feel I barely touched the all out but at least I'm thinking about it now and did almost get there.  I recover quickly but I can't stay in a high level of intensity for too long, so that's what I have to work on, and that will happen during Trainer Tuesdays (I just came up with that ha) and Track Fridays (Fasttrack Fridays?  Yeah, no, that's reaching too much).

I'm so afraid of blowing up and not finishing a workout like it's the worst thing that could happen in the world that I don't really push myself.  But I think that's just a small part of that, I really think I'm not really pushing myself and I don't know why, so I'm going to consciously spend the next following weeks building up my mind.  I pushed during the 4 miler 10:04mm run today.  Inside track but I was still disappointed in those results, I thought I had 9:XX average for sure.  Heart rate 11X or so?  Don't think so.  Around 170 calories for four miles, something calculated off the average HR?  I think there's something wrong with the HR strap.  I have another one, will replace the battery and see if that one works any better.  I had the premium strap but can't find a screwdriver small enough so I've been using the standard one that you can open with a coin so easier to swap batteries but I'm just gonna go to Best Buy and have the Geek Squad open and close for me :)

So I think I'm finally getting the swimming (yeah, where have you heard that one before... but this time I really mean it....).  I started thinking of pulling myself to the other side by a rope.  And I started realizing that the harder I stroked the harder I went against the water to the point that it felt I was fighting the water and I started thinking that it just created more resistance instead of taking it away so I tried to swim "softer" so to speak, and glide instead of fight.  I did 10 X 100, the first five at 2:2X and the second five at 2:1X.  Those are awesome numbers for me.  Gonna see if I can recreate later today in swim.  So think ladder, soft, go easier to go faster (which seems counterintuitive doesn't it?).

Easy week this week but next week with the deluxe chest HR strap and a 50 miler or so, I'm going to push it hard on the bike.  Mental training has begun.

I'm off the supplements.  I can't take the pills.  So muscle gain won't  be optiman but I can live with that.  Getting me some gummy bear vitamins.  I was doing upwards of 27 pills in a day just with the multivitamins, vitamin D, fish oil, BCAAs, and Glutamine.  I just can't.

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