I had such grand plans

So my original thought for today's post was to synthesize the comments and suggestions I received on my blog and detail the changes I plan to make as a result.  As one of my professor always says, you shouldn't ask for opinions if you're not going to do anything about them!

Unfortunately between today's two workouts and finance midterm, my 6am wake up tomorrow, 3 hours of commuting, 30 minute group presentation, and Thursday's 12 page paper to edit and Quality midterm to study for, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and drained. As such, while I agree with my professor, I also don't want to make promises I'm not sure I can keep yet!

So until I can get a handle on my life, we'll all just have to make due with the addition of the training totals tab & this selfie, just for Steve (which is also a shout out to him, so I guess I'm not so bad at responding to feedback after all)!

Holly helping me stretch after Sunday's run

***
Training plan - 29 minute run, 48 minute swim

Ok so, the training plan didn't actually call for 2 workouts today but it was the only way I could get these in!

My plan - I sketched out a plan for intervals this morning and planned to push myself with the run.  The plan called for 3 minutes fast and 2 minutes slow with 1.5% incline on the slower sections.  For the swimming portion of today's training I planned to do drills and work on technique instead of killing myself for 2 workouts!

Actual Running - I actually pushed myself a bit harder than I thought I could/would! I bumped up the speeds from my original plan and the incline as well.

MPH                      Min/Mile         Incline                      # of Minutes      Cumulative Minutes

 5.0                        12:00             0%                            2:00                   2:00

 5.5                        11:00             0%                            1:00                   3:00

 6.0                        10:00             0%                            1:00                   4:00

 6.3                         9:30              0%                            1:00                   5:00

 6.7                         8:57              0%                            3:00                   8:00

 6.3                         9:30              1.5%                         2:00                   10:00

 7.1                         8:30              0%                            3:00                   13:00

 6.7                         8:57              1.5%                         2:00                   15:00

 7.5                         8:00              0%                            3:00                   18:00

 6.3                         9:30              2.0%                         2:00                   20:00

 7.1                         8:30              1%                            3:00                   23:00

 6.3                         9:30              2.0%                         2:00                   25:00

 6.7                         8:57              1%                            3:00                   28:00

 6.0                         10:00            2.0%                         2:00                   30:00

With the 3 minute cool down I ran 3.46 miles, average 9:31/mile and felt great!

Actual Swimming - By the time I got to the pool at 11 I was running a bit behind and beginning to feel drained. I powered through my drills it was a struggle.

WARM UP

·       200 SWIM

·       50 KICK

·       50 SWIM

DRILLS

·       6 x 50 : 25m Thumb-to-Thigh drill, 25m swim

1      100m swim

·       6 x 50 : 25m Touch-and-Go drill, 25 yards swim. 

2      200m swim

·       5 x 100 : 25 yds kick, 25 yds Thumb-to-Thigh, 25 yds Touch-and-Go, 25 Swim·

COOL DOWN:

·        200 SWIM (more if needed for time)

         76 lengths total

Chicken Fajita Win

A few days ago my sister Paige "pinned"  recipe for Seared Chicken with Avocado because she knew it right up my alley.  Monday night I decided to make a batch of White Bean Chicken Chili to eat one night this week and freeze for nights when my classes run late. There was some overlap in ingredients I don't always keep on hand (avocados, cilantro, jalapeno) so I decided to make the chicken dish for dinner as well.

Or at least, I started out with that recipe.  I ended up with chicken fajitas. And they were awesome.

Blackened Chicken Fajitas with Guacamole
Adapted from: Seared Chicken with Avocado; Blackened Seasoning; & Alton Brown's Guacamole Recipe

Guacamole Ingredients:
1 avocado
1/2 lime
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp caynne
1/4 cup onion, diced
1/2 jalapeno
3 campari tomatoes diced
Lots of chopped cilantro
2-3 cloves of garlic

Blackened Chicken and Pepper & Onion Ingredients
7.5 ounce chicken breast
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 onion sliced
1 red pepper sliced
2 La Tortilla Factory Low Carb Tortillas
1/4 cup fat free sour cream


Blackened Seasoning Ingredients: (not 100% accurate/I'm never going to be able to recreate this)
heaping 1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp ground cayenne papper
a decent amount of black pepper
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp cumin

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375

Make the guacamole - scoop avocado into bowl, squeeze 1/2 lime on top, add remaining ingredients and stir to combine (without overly mashing avocado); set aside at room temperature for 1 hour

Gently squeeze 1/2 lime over chicken breast; top with blackening seasoning; bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes

Saute peppers & onions in olive oil

When chicken is done, let it rest for a few minutes; set aside peppers & onions and heat tortillas in the same skillet

Assemble fajitas, top with chopped cilantro and a squeeze of lime.

Take pictures, text them to people to brag and then write a blog post about it.

***
Training plan - run 18 minutes

My plan - warm up 2 minutes; run 18 minutes, cool down 5 minutes; try to maintain at least 9:30 for the 18 minutes

Actual - Ended up pushing hard than I thought I would/could! Ended up running intervals with no interval slower than about a 9:00 mile and I added in some incline this time around. I felt pretty good while doing it as well!

MPH                      Min/Mile         Incline                      # of Minutes      Cumulative Minutes

 5.0                         12:00               0%                         0:30                   0:30

 6.0                         10:00               0%                         1:30                   2:00

 6.6                          9:05                0%                         3:00                   5:00

 7.5                          8:00                0%                         3:00                   8:00

 6.7                          8:57                1.5%                      3:00                   11:00

 7.5                          8:00                0%                         3:00                   14:00

 6.7                          8:57                1.5%                      3:00                   17:00

 7.5                          8:00                0%                         3:00                   20:00

Cool down             various              0%                         5:00                   25:00

Testing my resolve on Day 1

Day 1 of "official" triathlon training is finally here.  The plan calls for a 36 minute swim.  I had originally "scheduled" this workout to follow my class/meeting schedule for the day.  (Un?)fortunately my classes/meetings have been cancelled for the day due to (a complete lack of) serious weather conditions.

So now I have to fight against my every instinct and head to campus on a "snow" day so I can swim. I feel like this must break some kind of student rule/code/law?  I need to head out anyway so I can hit up the grocery store. For better or worse (worse, definitely worse), food will always get me out of the house and I might as well get a workout in, I guess.

I usually swim for more than 36 minutes and shoot for distance or a certain number of laps but stop every 30 laps for a 30 second break and usually swim 10 laps of breaststroke as a break for every 20 laps of freestyle.  I may shoot for swimming 36 minutes straight, all freestyle although that seems ambitious.

I'll report back.

Update:
Training plan - 36 minute swim, HR zone 1-2

My plan - swim only freestyle for as long as possible, see what happens

Actual - 36:28 minute swim, 68 lengths, avg HR 143 (74% max HR, zone 3 ish)

(PS - mere hours left on the Facebook update poll. If you haven't voted yet, please do!)

Bike ride to nowhere

So apparently winter decided to show up this year. I was so hoping it wouldn't...

On Tuesdays I have two classes, 1:00pm to 3:00pm and 5:00pm to 7:30pm.  I despise ending class at 7:30 but really love the 2 hour break between classes. It's just enough time to get to the gym, workout, shower, change and get back to class. Today I had initially thought to run but after my 7 mile run this weekend and some residual pain in my foot, I decided to bike.

I would much prefer running/biking outside but since it was about 20 degrees today, not including the wind chill, that was definitely out of the question.  I'm kind of conflicted about the whole gym biking situation.  Definitely nice to be out of the cold and I try to still challenge myself with the workout by choosing a relatively high intensity level and selecting a random or hill course.  At the same time I feel like it cannot possibly be as effective as a road biking workout.

On the other hand, I'm so busy right now (2 independent contractor consulting positions, a Graduate Assistant position, school, training, occasionally actually attempting a social life, etc) I like that the gym workouts allow me to multitask. Today I was able to get a decent amount of reading down.  But of course, I have to imagine when you're splitting your focus like that, it's only further taking away from the quality of the training.

Although, I just went back and looked at some of my past bike workouts and my average speed today was on par with previous, flatter, rides (12mph).

Who knew one workout could cause so many conflicting emotions??

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