Saturday, December 28, 2013

Christmas in Cali. JFR, then JFB, and NFS!

Wellll, the self-imposed JFT105 challenge was a bust about 3 weeks in. I really should've known better than to go from a couple weeks of barely any activity to working out every single day. BUT, my all-or-nothing personality still needs to learn how to find that in-between sweet spot before going ovaries to the wall. It was also not a great idea to try this around the holidays and when work stress happened to pick up too. I knew it was time to throw the towel in when I would stubbornly get on the trainer at 9pm for 30mins, just for the sake of checking off a day of "training."

So, I think I'll scale back and first be able to do 5 days of solid training each week (not just half-assed 30min training sessions) consistently before I have another go at the JFT105.

In the meantime, I'm actually back in California again as I write this, for a last-minute mini Christmas vacation sans Kevin. I'll bring him back next time. We did Christmas Eve with his family in Delaware and then I was put on a plane to do Christmas with my own family for the first time in 3 years! It's been very chill here and has involved sleeping a lot, eating a lot of Asian food (Chinese, Burmese, Japanese, Thai oh my), running a lot (especially on trails by the beach of my picturesque hometown), hanging out with the family and Guinness the dog, and catching up with old friends, especially the ones I missed last month.

Yup, I've been running in shorts & t-shirts along these beach trails every day.

Really, I "sleep in" until 7am (which is 10am on the East Coast!) and hang out in my pajamas all morning while catching up on blogs (writing and reading), go for a run around lunch time and then meet up with some peeps at night. Not a bad existence for a few days! It's been really good to decompress after a solid year of working at the "new" job.

It's also been a great time to reflect on the past year and start planning for the 2014 race season. Oh boy!

Here is an awesome link to an article about saving money on racing and triathlons in 2014, which I'm all about: The Broke Ass Triathlete’s Guide to Planning a Cheaper Race Season. (If the prose sounds familiar, well, you'll figure it out.)

I'm actually doing a 35km trail running "race" tomorrow at Huddart Park in Woodside (because I'm here this weekend...and it's WARM) and have already signed up for a couple of 50km trail ultras in February and March. I was really inspired last month watching one of my Team RWB friends do a 50-miler, and am thinking after this year's lukewarm ultra experience, which was mostly in the dark and on pavement (whereupon I swore not to do an ultra ever again), I may need to just make sure I do ones that are on fun trails. And in the daylight! I always did like monster runs with my trusty Camelbak.

Initial thoughts are to do some winter ultras, rolling into that crazy ultra solo bike ride that me and badass Amy and the infamous Maggs are also doing in early April. I'm seriously contemplating the JFK 50-miler (not to be confused with the JFT105 training regimen) which is in late November. It's a very popular ultra, the oldest in the US, and a big Team RWB race (they are one of the beneficieries and about 100 RWBers run it).

In between, I'll do some Olympic triathlon racing over the summer, anywhere from 3 to 5 of them, try to get some speed in the legs and have a go at Nationals in August. I did start out with a much bigger list (7 Oly's with a potential half IM) and had to remind myself that I only had the time and motivation to train for ONE triathlon this year. Work is still keeping me fairly busy and that's not going to change any time soon. So I need to set my expectations accordingly.

So now, the next 6 weeks will be "JFR"--just freakin' run, transitioning to "JFB"--just freakin' bike, and I don't think I'll get into a swimming pool until after the crazy 263-mile Gulf Coast bike ride. We'll call it "NFS"--no freakin' swims. Because I'll still have 8 weeks of triathlon training before my most likely season opener--the Rock Hall Olympic tri on May 31st. Which I shall sign up for in the next couple days. I originally planned to open with the Monticelloman Olympic on May 4th, but I think I'll give myself 4 extra weeks of triathlon training. I.e. 4 extra weeks of not swimming yet. HAHA!

Hope y'all had a Merry Christmas!