coaching

I'm really lucky to have had so many incredible coaches over the years that I've attempted triathlon. The first year I decided to get into shape, I just started running. From those days to today, my endurance and speed has improved tremedously.

Saturday = spin day. My bike coach has always pushed me, knowing my abilities and always bringing about a competitiveness in me; all of this while telling me to smile. No, its not because I'm popular, or the fact that her son wanted to be held by me the first time I ever met him at the ripe age of 1? Apparently I get pretty ugly when I'm going hard, and I should put that energy into my legs as opposed to my face. hahaa. Anyway I got a good push in when we did 5x(2min > rp, 6min=rp, 2min ez) and kept a good 160bpm race pace effort which is higher than usual. I was pretty happy. I was supposed to weights right afterwards but kept getting distracted watching the women race the 5,000m. And of course, seeing Clara Hughes win gold brought a tear to my eye. She is one of the very few athletes who has gotten a medal in both summer and winter games. Its incredible that she's been in games spanning ten years and she's still going strong. Its a determination that I truly admire.

Sunday I woke up suuuper sore and groggy even though I had slept a good 8hrs, even Aki was behaving and purring and sleeping on my chest. I got to the pool and for some bizzare reason I was first on deck (ever since I moved I've succumed to the "people living closest are always late" syndrome.) but I was one of the last ones into the water. I reallly didn't want to swim fast so I jumped into a slower lane - and, I was slower than the other person during warm up. Then the coach tells us our main set: test set of 10x100... ugg... and then our coach put up our goal times. 1:35 on 2:10 for me. Oh man. The last time I remember doing 100's off the board I was hitting 1:30's... But for some reason I managed: 1.32, 1.33, 1.33, etc. ending with a 1.28. I felt a little bad since the guy I was sharing the lane with was less experienced than I so he tried to follow me on the first one but went waaay too fast for him (he was supposed to be on 1:50's he later told me hahaha). Anyway, it was one of those goals that I thought would be impossible but it was do-able and I felt really good about doing it. Its always great when the coach knows your abilities to the second. The afternoon had some great x-country skiing on mt.royal. AND there were quite a few beginner skiers! Worse than me! yay!

Monday swim felt like crap. Why were there more 5x100 sets? anyway...