Zero Training Blues

so i pretty much never take time away from training besides the normal day off here and there. however in my last 1/2 marathon something on my knee cap popped in the second mile while going down a hill. i kept training all the way up until last weekend when i raced my first triathlon. i was in a lot of pain most of May and was not able to run as much as i usually do. so i decided to just get to the race and then take two weeks off to let the knee cap heal. this is the start of my second week off and i hate it!! i feel like crap everytime i eat cuz i haven't done anything. i'm dying to get back in the pool before work, and to ride or run after. unfortunately my knee doesn't seem to have improved all!!

i'm starting back monday regardless though. i have another race, olympic distance, on July 25th and that will only give me 6 weeks to prepare. i should come out of these two weeks pretty fresh and i don't expect to have lost to much of my cardio. next week will be a light week just to get the legs back up and running, then i'll build back up. my race is in a river so i need several more practice sessions in open water to get comfortable. the bike is 24.9 miles which is no big deal, as long as i don't crush it i should be good to run. the run is a 10k, 6.2 miles. that is a easy distance for me as a stand alone but will be a little more difficult after swimming nearly a mile and biking 24.9. i can't wait though. the course will be much more challenging than the sprint course i did in McMinnville. i know the run is in downtown Nashville and those hills are no joke at all, even on fresh legs. it will be a fun race and i'm sure i will have to push through some mental walls to finish but i don't go into a race i don't plan to finish strongly.

my July race will be my gauge to see if i want to attempt a half iron distance of 70.3 miles in September. that breaks down to 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run. i know i can do all three distances as stand alones, so putting them together will no doubt suck terribly!! sometimes i wonder why i put myself through this torture. then i remember the feeling i get after every workout and after crossing every finish line. the feeling that you took what the course threw at you and you mastered it. you took all the quit your body and mind gave you and you ignored it and pressed on. it truely is an amazing feeling to take the freakish distances and treat them like they are just another part of ordinary life. i remember when an 8 mile run seemed long and 15 mile ride seemed crazy. now i don't consider it a long run unless its over 12 and its not a long bike until i've gone at least 2 hours.

so for now heres to one more lazy week of zero training...next week it's back to the grind and some more interesting blogs on my thoughts while training. my mind wanders a lot when i train. you would think that i would think about what i'm doing...i don't haha.