My worst nightmare and best dream all at the same time
Actually my worst nightmare is the zombie apocalypse.
But back to chocolate – I seriously can’t believe that there is any chocolate left in this Snowman. What restraint I have shown for 4 days! I even let my husband have the chocolate for day 1. It’s all about small changes.
I also recently read an article about someone who lost a lot of weight (about 40kgs) and they were talking about moderation. This is not a new concept of course, but it is something I struggle with. He also talked about making small changes to your diet. Now this is something that makes perfect sense, however, when that race is only a few weeks away my approach is to go cold turkey until race day is over.
He said to try having a mini size chocolate bar instead of the block. So perhaps the arrival of Temptation Snowman is timely.
It is also now ONE WEEK UNTIL RACE DAY. How did that happen?!
There are so many questions running through my head…am I ready?…will I do better than last time?..will I be able to run as fast as I would like?…has my swimming actually improved or have my shoulders gotten bigger for nothing!
I have had a hard couple of weeks training wise and work wise. It seemed that every run I did I need to run hard and fast. My coach was encouraging my to run at 4min/km pace. However, I just could not get there. Last Saturday was the last straw. I was tired from a hard week at work and was not in a good mental space to go out and tackle the wind on a 3hour bike and then try to run 45mins afterwards – 15mins at “race pace” and 20mins at 4min/km pace.
I actually packed a sad and spent the rest of the day in my room wondering what I was going to do come race day if I still felt like this. However, after talking it through with my coach I realised that one of the biggest challenges is remaining positive and I need to believe that I can do it.
I spent this week focusing on eating well and getting to bed early. After the first day I started to feel better. On Wednesday I had 3 x 1500m aiming for 4min/km pace. This was going to be a test, but I remained positive and told myself that all I needed to do was my best. I talked my husband into coming along so he could motivate me and help me maintain my pace. Even though it was a windy day we managed to get pretty close to 4min/km. I was so happy and it was a real confidence boost. I could do it!
The rest of the week was spent doing even more speed work before my taper. By Friday I had earned my massage and am ready for my taper, but I had enjoyed my week and am excited again about Taupo 70.3.
Next time you hear from me Taupo 70.3 will be done and dusted and I’m sure I will have learnt some more important life and training lessons.