New day, new opportunities

I’m not going to lie, its been a rough couple of weeks between work, some injuries that required recovery, and a couple other things that have occurred. Sure, when things go wrong they can really go wrong but what are you going to do? What’s done is done and all that you can do is move on and try to do the best you can in the future. Whether that means being better about recovery after a lone training ride/run, improving on a task at work, or being more careful going about your daily activities in life. I can’t tell you how much I can beat myself up about stuff that has happened. This really does me no good, it just keeps me up at night and makes the next day tougher because I am tired and still dealing with things that are in the past. What’s done is done, I haven’t hurt anyone, i haven’t committed a crime...i get so worked up about many things and I just don’t need to be. Life is weird, life is tough...let’s just move on with it.

With that said, I had a great training "evening" last night. Since I didn't get back to Penn Yan until around 3:45, I set out on my bike for a 3hr ride around 4pm. I had a good two hours and 15 minutes in my zone 2 heart rate. This took me to Hammondsport going through the Branchport way. Obviously if your not from around the area these town names mean nothing to you and sound extremely strange, in fact I am guessing that you think I am making them up. However, they do exist and I did in fact ride my bike through them. I was in at about exactly the 1 hour mark. I turned around and then made my way back the same way I came. On the way back I took the turn coming out of Branchport onto part of the Keuka Lake Triathlon course. The part with the hill if you have raced there before. If not I will briefly explain that this part of the course takes your from about lake level 720ft to 1450ft at the top of the bluff. It's not a dead uphill climb but it is a gradual grind and can really tax the legs. Even when I was in the ea Hammondsport siest gear spinning at 85-90rpm's I was still pushing out over 300 watts a lot of the time..which for me is quite a substantial amount. Anywho, I made it to the turnaround point at the top of the bluff at about the 2 hour mark or thereabout..maybe it was more like 2:10. This left me with about 50 minutes and a LONG downhill section which is sweet..however I had 45 minutes of zone 3 hr biking left to do as well. Let me tell you something, and I am sure that if you are a cyclist you understand that when you are going downhill and your hardest gear becomes very easy...meaning like 100rpm easy...it becomes hard to push the same amount of watts as on a flat or keep your heart rate at a certain level, this meant that I had to put in a very good effort to keep my heart rate in my zone 3 or tempo zone. I am pleased to say that for the most part my HR was in zone 3 for the entire 45 minutes. I polished the downhill off in in no time and even hit about 41 mph on the way down. It's not a extremely steep hill but its very long and gradual so I think that speed is pretty respectable. The only bad part was that I was back in town with about 20 minutes to go...I started to circle the town taking corners and really trying to hammer the pedals on the way out of the turns to crank up the wattage. If anything it helped worked on some technical aspects of handling a tri bike. Then I mashed it on a straight away as I headed home to the Curbeau Realty office where I reside when I am in Penn Yan..here's a plug. Feel free to stop by the friendly curbeau realty offices whenever you are in town, you can talk shop with me about triathlon and/or talk shop with my mom about buying a house on the lake or in the beautiful finger lake town of PENN YAN. haha seriously though..buy from Curbeau Realty, my mom knows her stuff! After the bike ride I transitioned into my running gear (probably the longest transition ever since I took of my cycling bibs and put on my running shorts) and nailed my 30 minutes at a 7 minute pace. I even got to see my cousin TWICE as he as driving through town and when he was back at his house..I made my way through town as passed by his house on purpose to see if I could catch him. I didn't exactly catch him but he did comment on how fast I made it through town and to the other side..which was nice of him.

As for today, I woke up early had some coffee and went to Church with the family. After some much needed churchly atmosphere and enlightenment I feel good about the days ahead. Good things will happen, I just have to let them. :)

I had a nice easy 1 hr ride outside followed by a 1.5hr run. The ride was nice...very windy but nice. And the run was well...it was kinda brutal. I haven't run over 45 minutes in like 2 weeks due to injury and it definitely showed. After the biking and running yesterday the run today was kinda tough. I held like 7:30 miles but it wasn't as easy as normal and the achilles did give me some static. Its sore but I am icing and taking care of the little guy since it's so important. Hopefully a full day off tomorrow of everything will do it some good.

Gotta eat some lunch while its hot...my mom's yelling at me to eat..haha I love her.

Talk to you later folks..time to relax and recover.

And remember..life is crazy. Its not always nice and it makes the tough times really tough but when we work through the accidents and the detours and the injuries and the setbacks it only makes the achievements and the successes all the more worthwhile and fulfilling. The bad can get worse and the good can get great, the good can become bad and the bad can become good. Life has its peaks and valleys. I am trying to find the good in both the highs and lows because in both their is always a take-away, something worthwhile to learn. It's tough and I am sure you all can attest to that but if we don't try to improve ourselves in these situations then we will never grow. And growing makes us better more knowledgeable people. Growing will allow me to be fast triathlete. If only I could grow in height..I turn 24 in May...maybe I still have a growth spurt left..I'm not giving up hope until at least my 26th b-day.