Hardest and most unexpected PB I ever set...

It was a tame New Years Eve last night, it was just Alice, Alyssa, Reid and I and we barbecued up some steaks for dinner. Later on in the evening Barb and Jamie came over for some drinks and Jamie and I smoked cigars. Alyssa's boyfriend, Naz, also came over.

I found out that Alyssa and Naz decided to train for a 5 km race and they even started a blog called www.trainingsidebyside.blogspot.com, which is pretty cool. Nice graphics and I'm impressed with Alyssa's writing style. Now I can track their progress. Shortly after midnight I fell asleep and Alice stayed up listening to her iPod. What a way to "rock" in the New Year.

It was good news, bad news yesterday. The good news was that I only had 10 beers, the bad news was that I ate 5770 calories. It started after I got home from my run, depressed about my injury. I started eating some potato chips. Then later on it became chocolates, cookies, cake and pizza. If I haven't been keeping track of my calorie consumption, I'd never have thought I ate that much. No wonder I haven't been losing weight. It really hurts having to enter what I ate after the fact and see the calorie totals.

I did get a great sleep last night, twelve hours. I guess my body went into a coma to digest all that food. I started the day off with great resolve to lose weight. My noon time breakfast was poached eggs on rye toast and snacks have been fruit.

I think eating well helps injury prevention and recovery. When you eat a lot of food your bodies first priority is to digest the food. All other functions like detoxing or muscle rebuilding gets less energy and attention until the food is digested. By cutting down on eating it reduces the amount of energy your body spends on digestion and allows it to focus on detoxing and repairing body damage. I read about this theory in the book "Fit for Life" and it makes sense to me.

I went for my swim today and it was a tough one. It started with frustration. I took my SwiMP3 player and it was working, but the music was so faint that I couldn't hear it when I went fast. The volume was at the maximum and I was trying it in all positions and it still didn't help. I finally gave up and put it back in my swim bag.

At the 1050 meter mark I gave up on my swim. I was supposed to do 3000 meters. I got out of the pool, took off my goggles and cap and started drying off. A girl in the other lane got out as well and said "boy you've been doing lots of laps". I said "nah, I cut it short". She then asked me if I did Ironmans? We talked for a little while and she left. I didn't leave. I stood looking at the pool and with great resistance, put my cap and goggles back on and jumped back in.

It was a tempo workout and I was just starting the first set of 100's. I absolutely did not want to do this swim. Before I got started again, I rested at the end of the pool and asked myself "if this was the beginning of the end of my Iron Will?". I already have to take some running rest days due to the injury, I can't allow myself to slide on my swimming. Then I thought of having to write that I was too mentally fatigued to finish my swim in my blog. My first swim of the New Year. Many people tell me they are inspired by my blog and I thought, quitting isn't very inspiring.

I felt like I had no core strength. Perhaps it was from eating too much and smoking cigars last night. I took a deep breath and took off doing my first 100 meters hard. I got to the wall and finished it in 1:28. WOW!!!!! It was my fastest 100 ever!!!!! It's a MAJOR accomplishment for anyone!!! Breaking 1:30 says your not bad. I had a total of 12 x 100's and I was able hit 1:28 three times and the rest were in the 1:30 - 1:32 range. I think I had one or two around 1:34 -1:36. Three years ago, when I started my triathlon comeback, by the end of that first year my pace was 2:25 per 100.

Make no mistake, every 100 hurt and every set I had to SUI big time. I didn't want to leave that wall. I wanted to leave the pool after every 100. I just focused on putting one swim stroke in front of the other. I finally finished my 3000 meters. Then, for good measure, I decided to do an extra 500. I wanted to teach that session a lesson. It wasn't going to defeat me.

My hamstring is still bothering me and yesterday I started taking high powered prescription anti-inflammatory pills. I got them last Summer when I had a stress fracture. The only downside is that they cause me to retain lots of water and I get puffy looking. Plus their hard on my liver. My plan is to eat well, take the pills, ice, eat lots of protein to help build muscle, take vitamins, light stretching and lay off the running until Tuesday. I think I may move my long ride from tomorrow to Sunday as well.

Tempo Swim - 1:29:15 / 3500 meters

December 2009 Totals

Swim - 22.51 km / 13.96 miles

Bike - 869.62 km / 539.16 miles

Run - 177.03 km / 109.76 miles

Walk 3.12 km / 1.93 miles

Weights - 7 session

Total - 1068.77 kms / 662.64 miles

48, 458 calorie

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