The will to win means nothing if you haven’t the will to prepare

Things are again looking up. After suffering through a few runs I finally had a good one. Tuesday night I set out to have what I thought would be a medium effort run but it felt so good that I had to just had to push. After looking over my previous times, it wasn't a PR but boy did it feel good. Runs like the one I had must be what people who love to run feel when they go out for their much faster runs. Today i'm sore in the right places and i'm really encouraged going into the rest of the week. Especially considering I did leg weights on lunch and I really pushed during that workout too.

Last week things were blah on the work out front. My right IT band tried it's best to convince me working out wasn't a good idea but, I fought through it and got the work I could get done. Someone posted a quote that was right on time for the motivating factor "The will to win means nothing if you haven’t the will to prepare”- Juma Ikangaa. I won't be winning any races no time soon, but I do have personal goals that aren't just going to magically become attainable without busting my ass. I shockingly even missed what looked to be the best birthday party of the year to get in a bike ride. I also finally splurged and bought myself a Garmin. I have to say so far there is no buyers remorse on this one. I like being able to see all the information it gives, especiailly in the charts and graphs. Here is what my training looked like last week (pre-Garmin):

• Monday- Weights on lunch, Monday night swim where I felt like I was dying


• Tuesday- Pilates on lunch, TNR 6.2 @ 9:59 (easy)


• Wednesday - Weights on lunch, Spin Class LT test (kicked my ass)


• Thursday- Bike Hill repeats (30 miles)


• Friday- Swim 2000m


• Saturday- long run 13 miles


• Sunday- Long bike ride 31 miles (Cartersville Ga was tougher than I expected can't believe it took so long for me to make it to one of these rides)

This week has been going good so far, hopefully me going so hard during the week won't have too much of a adverse effect on my first race this weekend, the John Tanner Sprint Triathlon. I'm not going to taper off my training for this race, since it's definitely a C race, but it will be nice to kick off the triathlon season with 40 people from my club. Let's hope i'm not #40 to cross the line, that would be a little embarassing. This race will be a good test of how to take off/swim in/everything else that goes a long with a wetsuit, before Gulf Coast Half Ironman in a couple of weeks (which i'm not even close to being prepared for.) Hope all is well, for everyone out there on the interwebs. Race report will soon follow.