The Beach and the Big Chainring

     Last night, I opened up my training schedule and my first thought was, "this can't be for me.  My coach must have put the wrong schedule up.  Maybe it's for one of his other athletes."  After going through my list of excuses for why this couldn't possibly be for me, I took a step back and realized, not one of those workouts is  that hard.  Sure some of them are going to be difficult but certainly not impossible.  And yes, there's a lot of running in there for someone who has recently been dealing with an overuse injury (yes, I'm working with a doctor, and no, this isn't me "running through" an injury).      But as I was dreading these workouts and processing my excuses, I realized something.  I was thinking of myself as the old me.  The me that had trouble running a mile. The girl that balked at the idea of any kind of activity short of sitting and watching TV. That girl. I hate this picture of me (left),  It was taken the weekend

     This week has brought no big revelations in training.  Just more running, biking, and a little bit of swimming.  Oh, and lots of focus on my nutrition.  It's amazing the difference focusing on your nutrition makes on your workout.  But, 5 days does not an expert make, nor does it even really give a true sense of whether the changes are sustainable (they seem like it, because they aren't HUGE changes...but again, it's been five days) and whether they will work long-term.  But I guess that's the nature of training.  Some weeks are great and are huge milestones, some weeks are awful and it seems unclear how everything will get done and every workout is a struggle to get through, and other weeks, like this week, you just put in the time, log the miles, and move on.        But this week I made time to do one of my favorite things in the world.  Take my dog for a run with me.  I usually try to take him on runs 1-2 times/week when my runs aren't too long.  But somet

     Nutrition.  That's a loaded word.  Well, it is for me.  And my lack of being concerned with anything having to do with that word is how I got started on this journey, but that's another story for another day.        In my training comments last week, I noted that a particular workout "felt pretty hard."  My coach's response?  Not exactly what I wanted to hear.  Dream world scenario he would have said "great!  Rosalyn, that means you are doing this exactly right."  What he really said:  "[this workout] should be challenging but not difficult...depending on the day. ... Your current state of fatigue from previous days of training plus rest, nutrition, hydration, motivation all come into play."  And all I kept thinking in my head is "my nutrition?  Well that explains it, since what I've been putting in my body recently (past month or so) is essentially anything but nutrition.  In fact, the best words I can think of to describe it:

     To be honest, to say my journey towards Ironman Florida begins today would be anything but the truth.  I remember, vividly, the first time I the thought of completing an Ironman crossed my mind.  I was sitting at my desk at work, just over two years ago, having just completed my first marathon and I read something about this elusive Ironman.  I knew that I didn't have it in me at the time, but said to myself "one day."      I decided that day would be November 2, 2013, on September 30, 2012.  I told myself I wouldn't even think about a full 140.6 until I completed my first 70.3.  That happened in September.  A week later, I was meeting with a coach.  He told me he thought Florida would be a great first race, and that was all I needed to hear.  I was on the computer, ready to hit the big green register button on Active as soon as registration opened.  But that was the easy part...     Now comes the part that makes or breaks you.  The training.  You only get on