Tim Proctor Training diary update 9/16 |
As training for the marathon draws to a close, runners focus on two things - the last long run and the "taper". Stressing your body is part of training, it's what makes your body adapt, get stronger and develop endurance for the long event but it takes time to fully recover. 10-12 days is not unusual before all effects are lost after a strenuous training effort. This means that the last really hard workouts have to be timed appropriately to avoid starting the race in an already partly fatigued state. As I mentioned in my last update, this is further complicated by my plans to start racing Cyclocross at just the "wrong" time in the build up to the Mill Race Marathon.
My Cyclocross racing has gone very well, winning the first three races of the season in my category - however it had a much bigger impact on my running than I had planned when I crashed my bike whilst training with the Bicycle Station team in Mill Race Park. Fortunately I was with friends who did a great job of looking after me (and reassuring me that my bike was OK every time I asked about it) and they called Clare who came to my rescue! We ended up having a date night in the ER with a suspected concussion and I simply wasn't up to running the next day, when I had planned to do about 20 miles in total with 12-15 miles at race pace as I ran to & from work. Instead I got to suffer a sore neck, grazes on my face and arms as well as a head ache for most of Wednesday. Fortunately my legs weren't injured in any way so I was able to run on Thursday as preparation for the final long run.
My long run was on Saturday, two weeks before the race. I ran with a friend who's got similar ambitions to me in terms of race time and we ran 20 miles in total with 15 miles at race pace (which for me is 6:40/mile). It was such a relief to run in the cool weather and actually feel fast! The pace felt comfortable, we talked most of the way around (albeit a little breathlessly!) and even increased the pace for the final two miles just to see what was left. It was a truly encouraging way to hit a training milestone and so much better than the last time I did a workout of similar intensity in the hot & humid conditions of a few weeks ago.
The next (and final) challenge in the training is what runners call the "taper" - when you progressively reduce training volume to allow your body time to recover & gain strength ahead of the race. This is a period where a lot of people have difficulties, despite the rather pleasant description of "doing less", the difficulty is striking the right balance. To maintain good fitness and form for the race, you can't just stop running, it's important to maintain a good level of training. Equally, as recovery starts to take effect, you start to feel great every time you run and it's easy to run too fast, or too far putting additional stress on the body & delaying the critical recovery ahead of the big day.
My plan is to continue with my typical training routine keeping a speed workout at the track and a race pace run but to reduce the amount of work in each session - so instead of 4 miles total at the track, I'll do 3 miles and then 2.5 miles in the week immediately ahead of the race. My race pace run will similarly cut down to 8 miles and then 6 miles. Easy runs in between will mean my weekly mileage drops from around 50 to 35 and then only about 10-11 miles in the week preceding the race (obviously with 26.2 miles to finish the week off!).
My other priority is diet. I want to maintain the weight loss (yes, I did manage to lose 10 lbs!) - as I do less running, it's easy to over-eat simply because of the amount I've needed to consume in the last few weeks to fuel the training effort. So I'm counting calories and making a diet plan for the final week to ensure that I have a very high proportion of carbohydrates (I'm aiming for 70% of my calories as carbs) and minimizing the amount of fat I consume. This means I'll be consuming plenty of fresh fruit & vegetables, fish and chicken as well as rice, pasta, bread and some beer.
As I look forward to the Marathon, it's with a mixture of nervous anticipation and relief. I've enjoyed the training and the effect it's had on my body, I'm leaner and faster than I have ever been. I'm excited to try and reach my goal finishing time - if the weather is good, breaking 3 hours should be easily within my reach and I would hope to go under 2:55; if it's hot or humid then I will just focus on staying under 3 hours. I know that this will make me nervous the night before the race, I know I've got to concentrate hard on managing my pace throughout the race and I know that the last 6 miles are really going to hurt. Whilst there have been a lot of positives from this training, I'm also certain that this will be the last marathon I run in a long time. The training effort is very significant and has taken me away from my family more than I would have liked. It's also taken a toll on my body that cycling simply does not do no matter how much I train - my shin splints (in both legs) are manageable, but not fully recovered, my legs ache and I'm continuously worried about the slightest joint pain which seems to be amplified by the jolting impacts of running. I definitely haven't caught the "marathon bug" which gets some people motivated to run multiple marathons in the same year. Running is much harder on my body than I had appreciated, so I will stick to running half marathons and shorter races from now on and riding my bike.
I am excited to be taking part in this event, and I'm excited by the impact it's had on the community - it doesn't seem to matter what the weather, or time of day, I see so many people running on the people trails & running around the parks & streets of the city. The influence of the race is really incredible. I know that everyone participating will learn something new about themselves, about what an amazing gift their body is to them and what incredible things it can do - that's the reward everyone gets for turning up to the start line, no matter if you place first or last.
Training plan for the last week:
Monday - Track workout - 2 miles warm up 200, 400, 800, 1200, 800, 400, 200 @ 6 min/mile pace; 2 miles cool down
Tuesday - Cyclocross training (hopefully not ending up in the ER again!)
Wednesday - Easy 5 miles
Thursday - off - Quaff ON! Race Team pasta dinner
Friday - 3 miles easy in the morning
Saturday - 26.2 miles @ 6:40 pace
Sunday - Lie in, enjoy a family Sunday without running!
Tim Proctor Training diary update 9/16 |
As training for the marathon draws to a close, runners focus on two things - the last long run and the "taper". Stressing your body is part of training, it's what makes your body adapt, get stronger and develop endurance for the long event but it takes time to fully recover. 10-12 days is not unusual before all effects are lost after a strenuous training effort. This means that the last really hard workouts have to be timed appropriately to avoid starting the race in an already partly fatigued state. As I mentioned in my last update, this is further complicated by my plans to start racing Cyclocross at just the "wrong" time in the build up to the Mill Race Marathon.
My Cyclocross racing has gone very well, winning the first three races of the season in my category - however it had a much bigger impact on my running than I had planned when I crashed my bike whilst training with the Bicycle Station team in Mill Race Park. Fortunately I was with friends who did a great job of looking after me (and reassuring me that my bike was OK every time I asked about it) and they called Clare who came to my rescue! We ended up having a date night in the ER with a suspected concussion and I simply wasn't up to running the next day, when I had planned to do about 20 miles in total with 12-15 miles at race pace as I ran to & from work. Instead I got to suffer a sore neck, grazes on my face and arms as well as a head ache for most of Wednesday. Fortunately my legs weren't injured in any way so I was able to run on Thursday as preparation for the final long run.
My long run was on Saturday, two weeks before the race. I ran with a friend who's got similar ambitions to me in terms of race time and we ran 20 miles in total with 15 miles at race pace (which for me is 6:40/mile). It was such a relief to run in the cool weather and actually feel fast! The pace felt comfortable, we talked most of the way around (albeit a little breathlessly!) and even increased the pace for the final two miles just to see what was left. It was a truly encouraging way to hit a training milestone and so much better than the last time I did a workout of similar intensity in the hot & humid conditions of a few weeks ago.
The next (and final) challenge in the training is what runners call the "taper" - when you progressively reduce training volume to allow your body time to recover & gain strength ahead of the race. This is a period where a lot of people have difficulties, despite the rather pleasant description of "doing less", the difficulty is striking the right balance. To maintain good fitness and form for the race, you can't just stop running, it's important to maintain a good level of training. Equally, as recovery starts to take effect, you start to feel great every time you run and it's easy to run too fast, or too far putting additional stress on the body & delaying the critical recovery ahead of the big day.
My plan is to continue with my typical training routine keeping a speed workout at the track and a race pace run but to reduce the amount of work in each session - so instead of 4 miles total at the track, I'll do 3 miles and then 2.5 miles in the week immediately ahead of the race. My race pace run will similarly cut down to 8 miles and then 6 miles. Easy runs in between will mean my weekly mileage drops from around 50 to 35 and then only about 10-11 miles in the week preceding the race (obviously with 26.2 miles to finish the week off!).
My other priority is diet. I want to maintain the weight loss (yes, I did manage to lose 10 lbs!) - as I do less running, it's easy to over-eat simply because of the amount I've needed to consume in the last few weeks to fuel the training effort. So I'm counting calories and making a diet plan for the final week to ensure that I have a very high proportion of carbohydrates (I'm aiming for 70% of my calories as carbs) and minimizing the amount of fat I consume. This means I'll be consuming plenty of fresh fruit & vegetables, fish and chicken as well as rice, pasta, bread and some beer.
As I look forward to the Marathon, it's with a mixture of nervous anticipation and relief. I've enjoyed the training and the effect it's had on my body, I'm leaner and faster than I have ever been. I'm excited to try and reach my goal finishing time - if the weather is good, breaking 3 hours should be easily within my reach and I would hope to go under 2:55; if it's hot or humid then I will just focus on staying under 3 hours. I know that this will make me nervous the night before the race, I know I've got to concentrate hard on managing my pace throughout the race and I know that the last 6 miles are really going to hurt. Whilst there have been a lot of positives from this training, I'm also certain that this will be the last marathon I run in a long time. The training effort is very significant and has taken me away from my family more than I would have liked. It's also taken a toll on my body that cycling simply does not do no matter how much I train - my shin splints (in both legs) are manageable, but not fully recovered, my legs ache and I'm continuously worried about the slightest joint pain which seems to be amplified by the jolting impacts of running. I definitely haven't caught the "marathon bug" which gets some people motivated to run multiple marathons in the same year. Running is much harder on my body than I had appreciated, so I will stick to running half marathons and shorter races from now on and riding my bike.
I am excited to be taking part in this event, and I'm excited by the impact it's had on the community - it doesn't seem to matter what the weather, or time of day, I see so many people running on the people trails & running around the parks & streets of the city. The influence of the race is really incredible. I know that everyone participating will learn something new about themselves, about what an amazing gift their body is to them and what incredible things it can do - that's the reward everyone gets for turning up to the start line, no matter if you place first or last.
Training plan for the last week:
Monday - Track workout - 2 miles warm up 200, 400, 800, 1200, 800, 400, 200 @ 6 min/mile pace; 2 miles cool down
Tuesday - Cyclocross training (hopefully not ending up in the ER again!)
Wednesday - Easy 5 miles
Thursday - off - Quaff ON! Race Team pasta dinner
Friday - 3 miles easy in the morning
Saturday - 26.2 miles @ 6:40 pace
Sunday - Lie in, enjoy a family Sunday without running!
Tim Proctor training diary update 9/1 |
Pedicure - Yes! All this running has increased the amount of hard, dead skin on my feet and this has led to blisters. I've started using Clare's foot file to eliminate the hard skin and this has solved the blister problem. Clare is horrified that I'm using her pedicure equipment and bought a new foot file, so I now have my own (albeit second hand)!
Disney Princess Band-Aids (well Band-Aids...) - running for a long time, especially in the high humidity with the resulting wet clothes causes chaffing in many locations. Most of these problems are addressed with cremes applied before running (I use Chamois Buttr because of my cycling background, but many runners use Bodyglide). However, nothing has prevented sore nipples except band-aids applied before the run to protect this sensitive area of skin. With two small kids, our first aid kit is filled with super hero and Disney princess band-aids so I routinely run with some childhood icon stuck to my chest! This solution is completely effective and I have not had a problem unless the band-aids come off with all the sweating.
Shaving my legs - as a cyclist I've never succumbed to leg shaving - professional cyclists always shave their legs to help with skin healing after crashes (less dirt in the wounds) and to make regular massages more effective. Having never planned to crash that often, or had the luxury of regular massages, I never saw the point. Since my shin splint issues, I've been using Kineseo tape to help with my lower leg muscle pains and it simply will not stick to hairy legs, so I've had to shave the areas where I need to apply tape.
Monday - Track workout & run home - 10 miles total
Tuesday - Cyclocross practice
Wednesday - Run to work 12 miles with 9 miles at race pace; 5 miles at lunchtime (close to race pace); 5 miles easy run home - 22 miles total
Thursday - Swimming cross training
Friday - 6-7 miles at a slow pace
Saturday - 10 miles with the last 4 miles faster than race pace
Sunday - Cyclocross in Bloomington IN; Recovery run 5-6 miles in the evening
Tim Proctor Training Diary Update 8/18 |
Injury; light changes.
In my time as a runner, I've been very lucky and have avoided many of the storied injuries such as "black toe nail", I.T. band (nothing to do with the internet!) and shin splints, however, since my last update I have been dealing with an injury. Runners sometimes get a pain which is called "shin splint" - this typically covers a multitude of running related injuries from minor muscle aches all the way to stress fractures in the lower leg - these are all normally associated with a sudden increase in training volume.
I started to get some serious pain on the front of my right leg after finishing my 20 mile long run - in particular, when trying to swim the kicking action really hurt and wearing heavy shoes made walking painful. Of course I was worried, I'd heard stories from other runners of injuries lasting months with no running possible, the impact on any marathon training plan was hard to imagine.
On Sunday I set out for a short, easy exploratory run. My legs ached a bit from the previous day, but my shin was really sore, after about a mile it seemed to warm up a bit & became an ache not a pain so I carried on and finished my 3 mile loop back home - at the end of the run, I found that if I ran faster, the pain got less which was interesting. I reached for the runner's standard treatment for all issues - ice and Ibuprofen, which certainly helped - I also found to my relief that there was no pain when riding a bike so I was able to race on Sunday afternoon in Seymour at a local time trial - this was especially important to me as a fellow bike rider from the club in Seymour had recently been seriously injured whilst riding in Michigan and this was the first time we all got together - we raced with "Liz" stickers on our bikes which was cool.
Over the years I've had people ask me about their injuries and I've always given them the advice to listen to your body, don't push through injury pain because it's likely to make things worse - I discovered that it's much easier to say this to others than follow your own advice! I took Monday and Tuesday completely off, no running at all - by Wednesday I was convinced that this lack of activity would mean complete disaster in the Marathon - how could I possibly meet my objectives if I took all this time off? So I took an easy run on Wednesday lunchtime with some friends at work and after some initial discomfort, it felt OK and (foolishly) I extended the run further than originally planned - it felt great to be running again! My body was telling me otherwise, and Wednesday evening it was sore again, repeated icing and some Ibuprofen helped but I took Thursday off and resolved to get some professional opinion on the matter. I made a appointment with Mandy Wyant at Family Chiropractic and Wellness - Mandy is a runner and treats many of the local Columbus runners - but the earliest I could see her was Monday so I'd have to get through the weekend with only the advice of friends & my own nagging doubts about how badly this was going to impact my marathon performance. I ran on Friday, raced the bike section of the Tipton Lakes Triathlon for my Quaff ON! team and then ran Sunday - my weekly mileage was down to 23 miles from over 50 the previous two weeks - One of my team mates said "you can always cope with a down week in training" but I was still really worried about how I'd cope if I faced another week like this.
On Monday I saw Mandy and was relieved when she confirmed that it wasn't a stress fracture, but muscle damage and that I could keep running. After some (quite frankly) painful manipulation of my hip, leg and shin I went back to work with much less pain from just normal walking around so I ran home from work. The first mile or so was really painful to the point I considered turning back, but it subsided to more of an ache & by the end of 6 miles was actually feeling pretty good. More ice & Ibuprofen! I saw Mandy two more times in the week and the swelling has reduced, the manipulation of the muscles has got less painful and I've managed to increase the running again - to complete 49 miles this week including a 16.5 mile long run.
I am very thankful that this injury has (so far) been manageable, I have a friend who's suffering from a very similar problem, but has not been able to resume running and is having to seriously adjust training and goals for the marathon - it seems like I've had luck on my side and I just hope I can continue to steer around obstacles like this right up to the race at the end of September.
One of the most exciting things which has taken my mind off my sore leg has been Angus' build up & participation in his first youth triathlon. Jen Shavers at FFY has put on two great youth triathlons in Columbus this year - in June, Angus and I volunteered as marshals on the course to keep the participants safe. He was motivated to actually do a race and the second event was on Saturday August 17th. Being 7, he raced the shortest distance, two lengths of Donner pool, a 2 mile bike ride around Donner park and a half mile run in Donner park. It was great to see him motivated and excited about the race - when he came back to the transition area after the bike ride he gave us the biggest smile and immediately set off on his run. It was so great to see so many kids (50 in total) getting active and enjoying the challenge of triathlon racing. Pumped up from this experience, we now have one more youth tri on the calendar this year, in Fishers, a couple of weeks before the Mill Race Marathon. I'm really enjoying mixing my training with his, I've run along whilst he bikes, we've run and biked together and had some good times at the pool (although I think he'll be a better swimmer than me very quickly!).
One of the things that I enjoy most about training outside is the enhanced awareness of nature around me. On my early morning runs, the progression to the shorter days of Fall is already clear - In the early mornings I always run with a red flashing light to help drivers see me, but the difference in my ability to see where I am going is really noticeable, it's past 6am now before I can run without a head light when only a couple of weeks ago a run starting at 5:45am needed no light at all. The fire-flies have now all but gone and the young deer are growing quickly. We are too easily anesthetized within cars from the temperature of the air, the quality of the light and the signs of nature as the seasons turn - getting outside and feeling it happen, day by day, is one of the greatest privileges of being an athlete in training.
Training plan for the next week:
Monday - Track workout 4 x 1 mile @ 6:00 min pace (total 6-8 miles running)
Tuesday - Cross train - bike 35 miles
Wednesday - morning run - Race pace - 11 miles with 8 miles at race pace (6:40 / mile)
Wednesday - lunchtime - run with friends at work - 5-6 miles
Thursday - Easy 6-7 miles at 7:30-8:00 pace
Friday - Off
Saturday - Long run - 22 miles with 15 miles at race pace
Sunday - Easy 5-6 miles
Training diary update 8/3 |
I am now in the 4th week of training seriously for the marathon. My weekly miles have been increasing from 35 to nearly 60 miles as well as the longest run distance growing from 15 to 20 miles. The workout routine of 3 quality sessions focusing on speed, pace, distance is tiring and my legs ache more or less the whole time. I can feel this making an impact on me - I'm stronger both physically and mentally, becoming more used to controlling the pace and the monotony of long runs on my own.
One of the results of running more is needing to eat more - I'm burning more calories than normal and without compensating with more food, I would run out of energy quickly. However, part of the plan is to lose about 10 pounds over the next month because it makes me run faster. There is quite a lot of scientific data which shows every pound lost saves about 2 sec per mile. 10 pounds would be 20 sec per mile, over a marathon distance, that's over 8 minutes! The real results might not be as big as this, but I know I can use all the help I can get!
Managing to lose weight the right way whilst training hard is difficult - it's easy to under-eat to a level which will impact my ability to train so I have started tracking my calorie intake with a food diary and balance it against my calories going out. I've been using Training Peaks which is a website with a free food diary feature, it has most common foods in a lookup table so you just log what you eat & it adds up the calories. My Garmin watch estimates calories burned during exercise from my heart rate and Training Peaks also takes that data so I get a easy to use "balance" summary at the end of each day - I just need to end up with less going in than I burn during the day and I'll lose weight. The trick is learning how much less my body can cope with, so far I lost about 4 pounds and it's easy to get excited by the progress - to keep starving myself a little bit more. I've been OK sustaining a 400-600 calorie deficit but this week I cut back more and had two days where I ate 800 calories less than I burned. I didn't feel bad immediately but Thursday it really hit me - feeling hungry the whole day, tired with no energy especially by the evening when I was supposed to go out training. I managed to do the training run (with the encouragement of a friend & team-mate) but I now know where my limit is and I have plenty of snacks on hand to ensure I don't go below the 400 calorie level.
Not all calories are equal - energy from fat is harder for the body to use in exercise, carbohydrates (carbs) are muscle energy - easy for my body to use to fuel the exercise. Having plenty of them available in my body is important, so tracking my food intake is beneficial as it makes me think about what I'm eating and I am making a conscious effort to reduce my fat intake and increase the proportion of my diet containing carbohydrates.
I was really pleased with my 20 mile long run this weekend. It's the furthest I've run (ever!) and I felt comfortable the whole time and I was able to pick up the pace for the final 7 miles without feeling completely exhausted. My legs feel fine after this effort, however, I'm nursing a sore shin. Regular icing is helping but it might mean I cut out some of the training this next week to make sure it recovers - training schedules are necessary but I've learned that it's most important to remain flexible & listen to my body.
One of the things I get to reflect on whilst out training is how lucky I am - Clare and the kids supporting me, my crazy schedule of runs early morning an in the evenings when I could be with them. I have great friends and team mates who continue to join me on some of my runs as well as pushing me, holding me accountable to hit the training schedule. August is a tough month of training to build strength and endurance - I know I'll need every bit of this support!
Training schedule for this week;
Sunday - Bike race (20km time trial)
Monday - Track work out with 8 miles warm up / cool down - 11-12 miles total
Tuesday - Bike ride 35 miles with 9 miles race effort
Wednesday - Race pace run - 10 miles at target race pace - 12 miles total
Thursday - Rest
Friday - Long run 17-18 miles with 10 miles at race pace
Saturday - Tipton Lakes Triathlon bike section with Quaff ON! racing team
Tim Proctor training diary update 7/4 |
Too much racing, hurts training....
I competed in the Brown County YMCA Firetower 15.3 duathlon (run - bike - trail run), this was a hard race and I was pleased with my result but in the week afterwards I felt the impact in my legs for a long time. I did run the day after the race, but my legs were heavy and I was tired, this feeling continued through the start of the week and it was Wednesday before I really felt able to do any useful training effort. I started to realize that hard race efforts take a long time to recover and as I start to take the marathon training requirements seriously, I can't afford to be out of action for nearly half the week. This is going to need a different approach from me if I'm going to be successful at the marathon!
In the past I've mostly competed in lots of relatively short races (5k runs, 1 hour bike races and sprint triathlons) these races have made me stronger and were almost enough training in their own right so it didn't matter much if I couldn't make a serious training effort through the week, I literally raced myself fit. The marathon requires dedicated and specific training to adapt my body for running longer, much longer, than it has been used to. This is traditionally achieved through a combination of long, slow runs, shorter "tempo" runs at the target marathon race pace and "speed work", short but hard efforts repeated several time with recovery between each effort. Danny Fisher's marathon training program for the Mill Race event is exactly modelled on this philosophy. What I realized this week is that if I race every weekend I won't tick any of the boxes for marathon training, the races aren't hard enough to count as speed work, they're too hard for the marathon pace, and they certainly don't get me to run for 2-3 hours! Worse than that, with tired legs the rest of the week I will likely not be able to put in the right amount of effort in the rest of the workouts.
Less racing, more training.....
This doesn't mean that I will stop racing altogether but I will have to approach it in a different way and make it part of my overall training plan - so I started my next week with a new mind-set; On Saturday morning I ran 10 miles at my slow run pace, I finished the run at the start of the Tipton Lakes Firecracker 5km race (at the marina) and signed-up to run the race. With 10 miles already done, I knew that I couldn't race as hard as I normally would so I ran a pace which matched my "tempo" target speed and then ran home after the race at a slow pace. In all, I completed 16 miles and felt really good with legs that still worked on Sunday! On Sunday instead of going to Muskatatuk for a mountain bike race, I did a relatively easy 2 hour bike ride with a buddy (dodging the rain showers!) which meant that Monday I still felt fresh and able to do more training work - a 9 mile run around Grandview lake - Tuesday a 30 mile bike ride which included a 20 minute hard race effort - Wednesday a 5.5 mile tempo pace run at lunchtime with two colleagues from work - Thursday a 5km race in Franklin for Independence day. With the exception of the race on Thursday, all these sessions have fit well with the marathon training objectives and I've successfully built up miles over the week without having the "dead legs" feeling I got after my duathlon race effort.
I've also started to change plans for the rest of the summer - I was going to race the Tipton Lakes / FFY triathlon as a solo entry, but to reduce the impact of the race effort on my training, I'm going to race as part of a team with my Quaff ON Racing team mates (I'm doing the bike section); I've pulled out of another team relay running race in September and reduced the amount of mountain bike racing I have planned. These are all a little frustrating for me, because I love racing - it always makes me dig deeper and find strength in myself that I didn't know I had - I love the comradery as well, there's something perversely enjoyable about suffering with others in a common venture, it doesn't matter how fast people are running or riding, in a race, everyone is putting it all on the line, doing their best and it's great to be a part of. However, in order to give myself the chance to meet my objectives for the marathon, and to not come out of it injured, these are changes I need to make so I can do the right work.
My family has been in the UK on vacation, so I was able to spend time thinking about this, look carefully at my plans and also be a bit selfish in the schedule I set for the last week - I'm travelling to meet up with them now and I'm really looking forward to being reunited, the house has been eerily quiet without Angus & Violet's energy! I hope that the weather will defy the stereotype for England and give us some great family days at the beach and exploring Cornwall. There are plenty of coastal paths to run on and I already contacted a cycle club in the area we are staying so I plan to run each day and ride my bike with my father-in-law. I have Angus' running shoes in my luggage so that we can do some running together as well.
This point in time was always when I planned to kick-off serious marathon training. I hadn't anticipated how much I had to learn about myself and my race-race-race mind-set, the duathlon race and it's impact was a lucky coincidence - I'm sure there's much more yet to learn and more changes to my plans will be inevitable, for the moment I feel pretty energized by the changes I've made and look forward to hitting the training objectives, even if that means putting racing in second place for a while.
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