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September 26, 2004
Start to a busy weekend!
On Friday morning I met Alison for a pool run. Unfortunately, the life guard did not show up. It turned out to be ok because we were able to ride the stationary bike for an hour. It was really fun to bike with Alison. We talked the entire time and the workout was really fun. When I bike I try to keep the rpm's between 90 and 100 and I managed to do this for the workout. I am looking forward to doing more runs with Alison so I can get to know the area a little better. I am also excited because of Alison's focus with regards to her training. Her long term training is to be able to run a fast marathon, which I know she will easily be able to do when the time comes along. I too, would like to run a fast marathon. I however, get so easily distracted and tend to be disorganized with my training and run, bike, swim whenever I can fit it in or whenever anyone asks me to join along. It's hard for me to say no because I usually always have a good time. Yet, I know ultimately, the best way for me to be able to reach my potential is to set some goals for myself and make a plan and go for it. Spending time with Alison has inspired me to sit down and write a schedule for myself. I have not done the schedule yet because my weekend has been absolutely crazy. Yet, I know what I will include. I want to spend about 4-6 weeks working on my base training, strength and focusing on working out the knot in my quad on a daily basis. I then want to begin to incorporate some speed into my schedule and assess my fitness level and begin to plan some races into my schedule. My sister's wedding is next weekend so I am not sure I'll have a schedule written out before that time but hopefully over the next two weeks I can come up with a reasonable schedule to follow.
Friday afternoon I ran three miles with the team. They were doing a pre-meet run. The run was nice and easy. We ran along a trail that follows a stream along the side of the campus. I felt pretty good and had some great conversations with the women on the team. After the workout I went to the gym and did an hours worth of lifting.
Friday evening I killed my weekend. I stayed up until 3 a.m. working on a take home exam for one of my classes. I had started to work out in during the day Friday but did not get much finished. I decided I would try to finish the exam Friday so my weekend would be free from that assignment. The exam was very frustrating because is required us to quote sentences from many different articles that we have read. The class is called Seminar in Skill Acquisitions and much of the literature we have read for the class is very detail oriented. We have read articles from scientific journals which describe research that has been done by exercise physiologists to explain the neurological and physiological aspects of athletic training. Some of the articles are very pertinent and some are very hard to apply to coaching itself. I had no idea how quickly time flew by while I was working on the exam. I was very focused and by the time I looked up from my work it was 2 a.m. I was really surprised and a bit frustrated because I had to be up early the next day to leave for our cross country race in Boston. I only had five questions to go so I finished those and by the time my head hit the pillow it was 3 a.m. I was pessimistic about the reality of me being able to wake up at 6 a.m. for my morning run. However, I did set the alarm optimistically.
Posted by mary at September 26, 2004 6:36 PM