Suck It Up, Princess!

I haven't been blogging a whole lot lately. That's because I was in a serious funk. SERIOUS. Ever since the GI bleed I felt like total crap. No motivation, I gained 7 pounds, felt like garbage, tired, lethargic, crabby. The thing that I've hated the most is swimming. Friggin swimming! It's like the one thing I've always been able to do to make me feel better. So last Sunday I was in a funk again. I couldn't run because of my foot and I was crabby. I was scheduled to do a 3500 yard straight swim, last 600 race pace. I HATE these swims. There is just nothing in the world more boring than a 3500 straight swim in a 25 yard pool by yourself. So I started whining:

I hate swimming. I mean, this is so retarded. Why would I need to do 3500 straight? The IM is 4 months away. It's not like I lack confidence in the water. I can swim 2.4 miles in my sleep. This is retarded. Fine, I'll go but I'm not doing the workout. I'll do some 500's pull or something. Yeah, that's what I'll do.

So I went to the gym, got my pull buoy and jumped in the water to warm up. I thought about how I was going to post a bitchy blog about how I didn't know why I was doing this, how I just didn't want to do anything, just basically negative. 500 yards in I started thinking

Ya know, this isn't really that bad. I mean, look over in the lane next to you. See that guy who keeps pacing you on his 50 sprints. He's working way too hard. And check out the butch lady doing the militant breastroke with flip turns. And here you are, swimming smoothly and bitching about how tough your life is. Geez. Suck it up Princess!

And then it all turned around. At 1000 yards I decided to keep going. To make the time pass I alternated 10 lengths breathe every 4 strokes to the right, 10 lengths breathe every 4 strokes left, 10 lengths breathe every 3 strokes. Before I knew it, the 3500 was done.

So if you're ever in a funk and feeling sorry for yourself, just think about how much better you have it than everyone else at the gym. You're fit! You're training for something extraordinary! You're not doing the militant flip turning breastroke! And it will all turn around...

So as an update- My swims this week were phenomenal. My 100 time has come back down to right around 1:20, and I'm loving the pool again. The bike is still amazing and the fit is just wonderful. I did a 3 hour bike / 45 minute brick this morning with DaisyDuc and it was so fun. I've never had a 3 hour ride go by so fast. It literally felt like less than an hour. And my run is improving by leaps and bounds. My Zone 2 runs have come down to 9:30 miles, which is a speed I can live with. See, life is pretty damn good.

:-)