ass whooping go go juice

Just because I was on the bike at 4am on Wednesday didn't mean everything was going to naturally and easily fall into place in training land. Quite the contrary. Sure the ride went fine, but how can an endurance ride go that bad?

It was the pool that gave me issues Wednesday morning. I feel that I have been swimming well. We've made a lot of adjustments to the front end of my stroke and with my consistent kick I am feeling great.

On my way to the pool I realized I forgot my water, but Dr. Les always brings a huge thing of water, so I would just use his. Turns out, I learned, that it was not water.

"Asss whopping go go juice." He said to me as he handed it over. I took a sip. I don't know what it was. Some dilute form of Gatorade. It would do the trick and while I was feeling tired, maybe it'd fire me up!

Not so much.

I have swum so long however that I don't worry about these days. When I am just not hitting intervals and feeling a bit tired I focus on my stroke, and do the best I can. I won't sacrifice form for speed, I won't push through a feeling I can't control...... but after a while I began to suspect it was the go go juice that was making me feel so bad.

This is called displacement. Placing blame on something else and in my opinion ignoring the real issue. I was tired. OH NO! Stop the world! Call in the crisis team!

We can't freak out about one bad workout. It didn't mean much of anything except I had a bad workout. We have good days, we have bad days, We have success and we have failure. Just like any day, any week, any month, any life.

One thing that didn't change was my desire and my passion. Those are front and center and strong. And they will be through this 5K this weekend. Because this isn't quite a race, it is a test. I am looking for the starting point and I am looking for the wall of which I can push off of.

Because once again (I totally hijack this quote and then change it).......

Behind the athlete I am today and behind the coaches that pushed me, is a little girl who fell in love with this sport.

Today I play for her.