Staying Fresh...

...well I'm open to suggestions on how to feel fresh. Here is what I've been doing so far: compression gear from Zensah, staying hydrated with water and GU Brew, rolling on my "Grid" from Trigger Point Therapy, eating clean and organic (that's been going well), sleep (I need to work on that a bit), "refueling" immediately after workouts with either organic chocolate soy milk, GU Brew Recovery (which is awesome!), or a whey protein smoothie, which is then quickly followed up with a meal when I get home, or to school (depending on the time of my workout). I do need to take more ice baths...but as you can imagine it's not the easiest thing to talk yourself into! I have some gift cards to get a massage, which I need to use once or twice a month. What other ideas do you have? I feel like I'm hitting pretty much everything...and I even took Sunday off of training.



Since I had taken Sunday off I felt great yesterday! Not that I felt bad before that, but it was a good time for a day off and I'm glad I did. I finished February with some solid totals and I'm happy with that. I started March off with an hour and a half on the trainer and 4200 yards in the pool, oh yea and I hit the weights again! I'm going to be in the weight room 3 times per week from here out. I know this will pay off in the long run and I love the way I feel when I'm done. At masters last night the coach had us swim a "timed" mile. Since I was swimming with Daryl and Todd (and we're all triathletes) she let us "paceline" for the mile where we each pulled 200 yards hard and then drafted the rest of the time. The draft helped, but we only came in 10 seconds faster at the 1000 checkpoint than what I could swim on my own, and honestly the time fell off a bit from there. We ended up swimming a 24:45 for 1650 yards, which ends up being a 1:30 pace. I'm alright with this right now, but I do want to improve upon it! I want to be in the low 1:20's by July, that's going to mean a lot of swimming between now and then!



Due to the time we swam there I did come up with a new goal for my half ironman swim time. I want to break 29:59 for the swim portion of the race. I figure by putting it out there someone here (probably Hillard and Chad) will taunt me until I hit that time.



This morning I was lucky enough to lead the computrainer class at Endure It because most of the crew is out in California for a training camp in Solvang. I'm jealous, but seeing as I can't leave for a week during this time of the year I'll have to have my own "training camp" here in Chicago. We had a motivated crew this morning, and had a nice workout:



Warm Up



Main Set:

5' @ 80%

2' @ 70%

4' @ 90%

1' @ 70%

3' @ AT

1' @ 70%

1' @ 110%

1' @ 70%

3' @ AT

1' @ 70%

4' @ 90%

2' @ 70%

5' @ 80%



Cool Down



The workout was solid, and rolling on the Trigger Point Therapy Grid after did wonders for my legs! Tomorrow's workout is going to be brutal. I'll try to post it tomorrow, but looking at it on paper...brutal!