The Brave Athlete

“Your physique, your responsiveness to training, and your personal records (PRs) have little to say about how brave you are.” - excerpt from The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion

I started a book club for my running team to get some camaraderie going on and to develop a way for us to connect further since we aren’t doing any in-person meetups for like....a long time. Hello Arizona hot spot for COVID. Reading is something I’ve been doing a heck of a lot more since quarantine started. Being unemployed really gives you a lot of unused time in your day so why not pick up a book? I’ve since started a new remote job but the weekends have literally been our heads in our books. Well, in our eReaders. We treated ourselves to new eReaders a little while ago. I’ll do a review on that in another entry. While I’m still old school and love the feeling of an actual book, this has been really nice to have. The library has been closed since April but with the use of OverDrive, I can check out electronic books and audiobooks. Definitely something to look into with your local library! I can even get books from my old library in Michigan. If you need some mental stability for your training and you want to know how the brain connects with all of this, I definitely suggest picking up “The Brave Athlete”. We’ve only read the first section and it’s as if I’m in anatomy class again but it’s actually interesting because it’s from an athlete’s perspective. 

Remember last week, when I was talking about how hard I was on myself from feeling like I’m losing hope in this training cycle? Well, after my Sunday rest day, I went into the new week feeling like a lioness ready to hunt anything in her path. My speed work on Tuesday (400x6, 100x6) was the strongest-feeling workout I’ve had in forever. The rest of the week seemed to dim down. Hill strides were lackluster and interrupted by people who can’t seem to stay on one side of the road. I was suppose to go to physical therapy to get fitted for new orthotics only for the appointment to be canceled because someone in the office contracted the virus. I do hope they will be ok and I’m glad it happened before I went. I ended up ordering some with recommendation from my coach, who also works in a running store, and they are literally the most comfy things my feet have touched aside from my Oofos. I had a double workout Friday (ride and run) and my feet felt like they were on supported clouds. We had an excessive heat warning from Friday morning through Monday night. I had contemplated biking indoors instead of doing my long run but my husband looked toward me and said, “What if race day is like this? Are you not going to run?”. I mean, he’s right. We got up a half hour earlier and set out. I had a 90 minute effort combining 9 rounds of easy efforts with pickups every 9th minute. Naturally, I went out too fast. I hit a lot of red lights. I was ready to send it in after 45 minutes. Once again, I felt defeated. I studied my data after the workout and noticed I ended up staying with in my range for almost the entire run but I was dead. It was as if someone took a sledgehammer and killed my stamina. Again, I taught myself to not complain. My coach told me that I’m still gaining fitness and she’s right. Sunday rolled around and as I sat in my epsom bath and meditated, I told myself, “this week is a new week”. It’s time to stop kidding myself and focus in on the task at hand. Run slow for recovery. Controlled paces on speed. Breath like a normal friggin’ person. I have early meetings all week so that’ll help get me out the door before it’s blazing hot outside. 

I tried a new thing this week: sun tea! Yeah, I’m way late to the game on this one. I drink about a gallon or more of water per day. I also pee a ton but that’s beside the point. Sometimes water gets boring. My mother-in-law was talking about sun tea and I asked how to make it. That was probably a dumb question but this is new to me. I filled up my big mason jar with filtered water, two tea bags, and set it outside in the sun for about 3 hours. You’ll want to use glass. Plastic is a big no-no, especially in the heat unless of course you want some BPA with that drink.

I had to wear hot mitts to bring it in because it got so hot! But the color change is a good indicator that it’s definitely steeped well. 

I took the tea bags out and put the jar in the fridge overnight. Now, I heard this step isn’t needed and some people just pour it over ice. That’s totally fine too. After about 24 hours, I sliced some lemon, put it in a glass with ice and we had some delicious iced tea. I ended up making this again for the next three days. It was so refreshing! 

This past week, I ended up taking the easy way out because it was literally 120 degrees outside and just warmed up my kettle and poured it over nice. We’ve been drinking a lot of herbal teas and what not. I’ve been 60 days alcohol free as of today. I don’t know when I’ll drink again (or if I will) but I’m pretty content doing these little fun activities.