It only takes one good day

How I have felt during every workout this week.

We have all heard the phrase, "When it rains, it pours..."  This phrase can be applied to a variety of things, some good, some bad.  As many people have also experienced, whenever one thing in your life goes wrong, it seems that everything else piles on at the same time. 

Your boss is riding you at work, then you get sick, then your friend decides that he/she has a problem that they need you to deal with, then your dog takes a crap in the middle of the kitchen floor...

You begin to find yourself so overwhelmed with everything that you feel the need to crawl into a hole and hide. 

However, then one thing goes right, and then another and then another.  And now before you know it, you are happy and everything is back to normal. 

This may not always happen as quickly or in exactly the way that you want it to, but more often then not, it does ultimately happen.  I believe that it only takes one good thing to turn everything around.  To make a string of bad times, good times.  To turn a string of bad days into a string of great days.  One good thing can make you truly forget about the string of bad that got you to the dark place you were in the first place. 

I believe that this can happen in every situation, including multisport.

This week was one of those weeks for me.  I will not go into detail of the personal struggles that led to this downward spiral for me, but one part of my life that it was affecting was my ability to put together a good workout which is normally a good release for me and normally puts me in a good mood.  Something that was a major contributor to this was the fact that I caught a sickness mid-week.  My coach was smart enough to give me good rest after I told her and worked me back slowly.  However, I was still frustrated with the numbers that I was putting out.

On top of that, I had to drive 14 hours this weekend to go recruiting in Kansas City.  The combination of prior sickness, travel, and lack of sleep led to another string of poor workouts and performances.  However, I was doing them. I was getting them done and sometimes that is the most important thing.

On the days when I have bad workouts or performances, I still truly believe that I am improving in some way.  Even if physically, I am not getting stronger, maybe pushing through will make me mentally stronger.  Maybe, I will be able to look back during a race to this time and think that if I can get through that, why is running on this flat course when I have been well rested tough?

Well anyways, the purpose of this blog is not to talk about how crappy a week can be, but rather to talk about how one good thing or one good workout can make you forget about all the bad ones. 

I finally got home today and had a 2 hour CompuTrainer ride on the schedule with a lot of Threshold work.  More work than I had done up to this point, pretty much ever on a Trainer.  Whether it was me finally getting over the sickness and other things that had been building on me or I was properly fueled(No Coffee today) or something else entirely, I had one of the best bike workouts to date. 


What I probably looked like mid-bike
and How I felt after

The workout called for:

Warm Up:

30 minutes in zones 1 - 2
10 minutes build in zone 2
3 x 1 minute "up tempo", 1-2 minutes easy

Main Set:

6 x 4 minutes “on” (as below) followed by 2 minutes “off” (easy spinning):
1 minute @ 110% bike test watts
2 minutes @ 92-95% bike test watts
1 minute @ 110% bike test watts

Cool Down:
40 minutes in zones 1 - 2

The description that my coach gave, "This will be tough..."

However, I hit the number I wanted and felt better about my ability to do well in this sport and accomplish the ambitious goals I set forth.  I was able to forget about all the bad that happened this week and move on. 

I am excited to see what tomorrows workouts will bring and have a renewed vigor.

It truly only takes one good thing to make you forget all the bad.  Sometimes it comes right away, sometimes it takes a bit longer.  I need to learn to be patient and wait for it to come.

Time to let it pour in a positive direction.