Olympic Trials Training: Week 1

Monday 12/9
In a wee emotion: cynical, sensitive, sensations of injustice. Anxiously aware of bulbs blooming against skin. A little feeling like where's the why? Mixed with bouts of inspiration. Wanting only to dig deep into books and bed and sip on things from various sized glasswares. 10 miles at lunch - brisk & fogged air. Stark smoke-like clouds of sharp breath on the parkway, caught, then disappeared. Glutes are tired. I've been translating Joyce's Finnegan's Wake for months. I thought it might help me speak better, with all these new words. That maybe M won't look at me like I'm an Eejit when I can't find the right ones, which are often simple ones. A second run after work, in the black. Testing out the new headlamp that looks something like Geordia La Forge. Despite low mood this run feels like floating on your back.

Miles for the day - 14.1

Tuesday 12/10 
I have a pkg to take to the post office, and the last thing I want to do is drive and interact at the p.o. so I hug the pkg like a swaddled baby and run the 2 miles in for drop off = strength training. Listened to Work Play Love and appreciated the honesty of LF when she describes the feeling of some older time, when a person might pack up and disappear despite all responsibilities. After the drop off I feel light and springy. Then, a wave of fatigue from midway on. Somehow the overall avg is swift. Ended it with 6x strides. It feels like I've forgotten how to raise my knees, already. 10 miles for the day. I reckon these moods and these waves of sprite are either hormonal and/or a build up of the mileage. I'll keep it soothing: hot shower, no wine, reading from Life Before Man by M. Atwood - prep for a big day tomorrow.

Miles for the day - 10 + strides

Wednesday 12/11
...little did she know, there would be wine. After all, I live with Bacchus. No bath. But definitely more refreshed after yesterday's single. Got my flu shot. Under a broody sky, ran to Civic; a little longer of a warm-up, then drills before 6x 1k (interval pace) with 2 min jogs + 4x 400 (rep pace) with 400 jogs. K's are not my favorite. I prefer 400's, 800's, 1600's. But today the K's felt conceivable, approachable. I think training for and racing the 50k really rejuvenated the notion of "short" v "long" for me.

K's = 3:19, 3:20, 3:19, 3:22, 3:16, 3:19
400's = 73, 73, 73, 73

Listened to a Macklemore's 2005 album for this one. What felt fluid? Leg extension, glutes, calves, push off/feet. What felt ew? A sharp shallow of breath which brought me right back to VO2 testing in Maxx's study. Post workout, grovelled in sausage & pasta. After work, a double with 2-Trains and Nikki before BDP strength class. Pissing rain, black, we hustled to get to class. An hour with Heath at JD Fitness. Nikki packed delicious beet smoothies which I pounded en route home. For dinner Bacchus laid out sushi, a small bottle of '16 Savigny les Beaune Domaine du Prieure Chardonnay on ice. B&J ice cream post.

Sleep was restless, but restful somehow. Must have been jacked on adrenaline or newly acquired testosterone from squats, lunges, russian twists. Kept telling Bacchus, "I exercised a lot today. I exercised a lot today."

Miles for the day - 17.8 + drills/strength

Thursday 12/12
Met Daddy D for 6@6. I tell myself this is my Atlanta training, by getting up early and running straight up Alabama Hill once a week (it's like 150 ft. in 3/4 of a mile? Is that right? Which sounds a little wiener, but feels more like 1k in vert). Albeit it's walking pace, I still feel like it's coins in the grit bank. I enjoy these mornings, although I do not enjoy waking up early. I like my 9-10 hours of sleep a night. However, Daddy D is a nice person to meet. And tends to send me gifs to encourage me to come, which is thoughtful. We tend to do more hills and he brings my average down way faster. He makes me better.

At lunch I got to run with Ber, in her first run back from CIM. My left adductor has been a little bitch all day, but it evens out a mile into the run. After dropping her off halfway through, I head back out to a shopping center of hell to purchase some last minute additions to the gift bags I'm compiling for the BDP Holiday Party this weekend.

When I get home I'm a whirling dervish. Which I am when Bacchus works late. Clean the house, yell at the cat, organize presents. This is why 6@6 is good, because I can get stuff done at night in the time I would have used for a night double. We've been really into Peaky Blinders. Which I distrusted for years because Cillian Murphy is too pretty, and also because "Peaky Blinders" sounded like some British comedy that I couldn't be bothered with. I was wrong. We watched 1-2 of these over our clutch ground turkey stir fry with sriracha and an incredible bottle of '17 Planeta chardonnay from Sicily. Squirted the cat. Bacchus says, "You're falling asleep so fast and so hard."

Miles for the day - 13.1

Friday 12/13
Today my core hurts from strength 2 days ago. At work I moonlight on art projects, painting acrylic on canvas. Try to dissect a few more pages in FW. Spend the majority of my hours wrapping presents for the hospital's gift drive, which brings me a lot more pleasure than actually working. The run - it's a sandwich of rain that refreshes instead of gathers madness. We ran out of wrapping paper, so I run to the Salvation Army for some more and run it back. December is generally me running packages places and me purchasing things and running back with them. Supplemental strength but, usually, with form compromised. After work I snack before yoga with Nikki. Already it feels as if all I'm eating is bread. Cruelly, at yoga we do boat pose to Moby's Flowers. It feels like glass crunching between my flabby abby's.

Miles for the day - 9.25 + yoga

Saturday 12/14
This morning I got to sleep in. Bacchus is playing golf in the rain. I eat toast with coffee and read Life Before Man. There's a line I need to highlight, "'It' and 'all' are words that have, however, retained their abstractness. She hasn't yet found either of them." It's both pleasurable and difficult to laze about in the morning, a run put off too long feels like an easy unraveling. I get over this by getting physically active in the garage, dismantling the thousand cardboard wine boxes we have collected. Laundry. The domestic urge transforms into the run, which I've written out to be 8 mi E + 4T + 8 mi E. It seems simple, something not too taxing at play against an accumulation of mileage. Wrong. It becomes one of the hardest LR's of my LR life. It's pissing, which is fine because of a sweet jacket that actually works. I've got snacks and water in my pockets. My bluetoothers die midrun, so I run back home for headphones and wool gloves. This is all fine. The T is also fine, a nice cutdown range from 5:40's to 5:28's. I've decided Clif's Strawberry Gu is legit. Listen to Lizzo. It's after the T that I feel all power diminishing, loose range of motion. It causes me to moan aloud the rest of the evening, laying in a robe and Bacchus basically refuels me by hand as if I'm a little old woman; oh the nourishment he brings to my life! Tomato soup with hot sauce, slices of baguette thickly buttered, twice-baked  potatoes, a protein bar, coffee, sparkling water. Imagine: I'm worthless. Moaning. With a please-don't-touch-me attitude, and still, he says, "Have I told you today how beautiful I find you?" and I moan. We watch Moonraker with lethargy before dressing up and heading to celebrate our dear friend's Grad graduation. I'm fisting Lays chips and creamy dips and bleu cheese and double stacked cookies and champagne, and at the afterparty, a margarita, and Bacchus says, "I ordered you waffle fries, you're welcome." It's a great time.

Miles for the day - 20

Sunday, 12/15 
I kept waking up craving orange juice. Like many times, and desperately. What does this mean? We meet at the Goat, a few of us BDP women, to run the old thoughtless, beloved out-and-back. It's nice and ez, and I'm surprised by what regeneration has occurred in the last 20 hours. This run is a good run because it's a soaker. Kennedy, who ran an OTQ at CIM last weekend is with us, and I'm loving hearing all about it. I'm also realizing that when I'm around younger people I like, I get a little High School Courtney, and say really awkward things. Hopefully only I'm noticing, but, like, I think I'm loosing touch with youth. To be fair, I'm loosing touch with everything. Later in the evening we have our BDP Holiday Party; every time we get together as a group I always come away inspired.

Miles for the day - 11.4

Analysis - I started out feeling a lot of feelings and whining a lot, but it dissipated early on in the week (the feelings not the whining) and transcended into humor and a can-do attitude. I feel like organizing, cleaning, donating, and working on the Christmas Drive lifted me up. The running caught up to me a little, so I'll take an easy week next. The Ks/400s were super solid and a bit better than what I tend to do. Running the LR/WO combo was challenging, but happily only after the important work was done, so I feel good about what I can do on tired legs, thus far. Looks like I'm getting a bit more vert these past few weeks than usual, so thank you Alabama Hill & Daddy D. I'm digging writing these little snips each days - it roots me in the present.

Miles for the Week = 95.8