Week 16 - Tuesday

"Testing is an honest look at where you are at; you need confidence & guts to accept & do this so you know how to pace yourself. If you fear testing, you are not being honest with yourself."

I have done the testing. I accomplished a 1:28:00 half marathon and a miserable 5K at 0:19:30. I believe I have the discipline to train off the half marathon time for the next 16 weeks.

We arrived back in Georgia last night. The flight was uneventful which is always good especially when you travel with your family.

Since this is the start of training I wanted to get off on the right foot. Tuesday's & Thursday's will continue to be Master Swim. The alarm went off at 5AM this morning with only 6 hours of sleep and a day of travel. I would not be honest with myself is I said it was not difficult prying the tired body out from under the warm sheets and blankets this morning. But it was, very hard to get up.

For the last week I have not had a "set schedule" which is a ritual I suggest every athlete do a couple weeks a year. Sleep in, eat whenever, exercise when you feel like it and go to bed when you want. It recharges the batteries. The only part of this ritual is when we start up again it is a bear.

I was in the zone, the dead zone, this morning. Couldn't find the bathroom, couldn't find the closet, tripped on the chair downstairs and had to make 2 trips to the car to load my stuff.

With all these obstacles I was able to get to the pool in time for the workout. The fog in my head did not lift until I hit the water for the first time in the week. As soon as I was submerged (never touch the water first, it makes it harder) and a quick underwater scream I was on my way.

Coach Mike's Workout:

300M - EZ

150M- Kick

200M - Drills

10 X 100M on the 2's

4 X 300M on 4:40

2 X 400M on 7:30

1. Swim

2. Kick

3. IM

4. Pull

K.O. 25M's

Reduce one stroke on each 25M until the strokes can not be reduced anymore.

This became a little bit of a competition. Michelle, Seth, Brian, Jeremiah and myself kept knocking it down until we hit only 6 strokes per 25M. Michelle, the competitive one, wanted to push further and she got it down to 3 strokes.

It was a good workout that was needed from all the Christmas goodies and beer over the last week.

Tomorrow starts up the track workouts again. With training under the 1:28:00 time I know I am being honest with myself in what I can accomplish in the upcoming weeks. It is not going to be easy and will take a lot of dedication and sacrifice on my part to accomplish my goal.