coming out of the fog

This past week I finally got back into the swing of training but still felt kind of off. I got all my work outs in I'm just struggling when it comes to the hard efforts and it takes me about 30 min to warm up. In masters swim I had to use my flippers to keep up and had to break up some of the hard efforts. On the bike and run i just felt kind of putsy and struggled with my breathing at the higher zones. I started weezing while running hill repeats on Wednesday night.
Most of the week my confidence has been almost nonexistent especially when I realized that Clearwater is less than a month away and I don't feel 100%. I mean I really only have another week to train and then it is taper time. I know I can finish but I would like to have a good day and right now I don't feel stellar. Honestly it is hard to feel completely confident about the race when I have been feeling fatigued and operating at half speed.

However Friday things started to get a bit better. I slept in and instead of going to masters swim I swam after work. I actually felt pretty good in the water and was able to get most of my 100s down below 1:50 which I am happy with.
I felt even more like myself on Saturday. Kyle and I went for along run out on the Snoqualmie River Trail out in Carnation. For some reason it always seems to be raining when we run out there. As usual it took a good 30 min to warm up and get in a good rhythm but once I did I felt great. I also managed to not focus on the rain and thought about what I might want to do for races the next year or two. It is amazing once I find something positive to think about the miles/time just breeze by. I ran for 2 hours a which felt completely comfortable and I staid with in zone 2 almost the entire way. The best part is that I was able to get about 14 miles in that time which is back to my usual pace :)

Today I slept in and puttered around the house till about 11a and then got on my bike for a 2 hour ride with some tempos and fallowed that up with a 40 min run. I just did the lake Sammamish loop and took it easy for the first 45 min while I road west lake sammamish road - which is a horrible road to ride on - it is so bumpy and uneven I had acelerade splashing out all over te place. It did not help that last night we had the 1st wind storm of the fall/winter and there was derby everywhere. Then once I was on east lake Sammamish I started the to focus and did two 30 min at Olympic pace. I was surprised I actually felt pretty good. My legs were a bit heavy from running yesterday but in all I felt good. I took my time transitioning to the run but I knew I would overheat if I did not change out of capris and a jacket. For the run I went easy the first 20 min then with super heavy legs had to turn it up to a a zone 3/ harder effort. It was really hard but I found something to repeat over and over and managed to almost relax and ignore my legs and pick up the pace. I passed my house at 35 min and almost stopped and called it quits but talked myself into finishing what I stated and ran another 5 min.

So now after the weekend of training I feel better about where I stand. I don't feel perfect but better. Hopefully this coming week will help me some more with my confidence. Really who know the mental piece is always my greatest weakness - even more than the swim. But I'm optimistic that Kainoa will have me as well prepared as I can hope to be.. and as she keeps telling me "I'm stronger than I think". Time to break out some mental training and all the mind games that go along with it...