6 juli and counting

I got a short run in this evening. I'm feeling challenged by the last couple weeks of training & being very busy at work. I need 24 hrs to recover from intense interval work (which I've been doing in the evening), then I feel tired in the morning, so sleep instead of train, busy at work, so don't train at lunch, then get home at 7:30 pm with a dilemma - eat vs train.

So I got home a little earlier tonight and enjoyed a run, feeling good and feeling that what I could do this evening was good enough.  Odie gave me a great teaching opportunity when he lunged at a police horse.  Down! Then we practiced walking calmly back and forth around the horse, and then he spied the other horse and lunged at that one too. Repeated the "calm submissive" exercise. And then we continued our run. I did "informal" speed work - running up the stairs to a big tower and running up and down the ramp to the beach. All of 100m ascent.

I've been focusing on "mental" training - look at my thoughts, re-framing fears, visualizing a successful, enjoyable day.  I found some fun training videos on You-tube - like how to avoid panic in an open water swim start.  (A good idea, in my book).

I have a race on Saturday where I am on a team, doing the swim leg for 1500m.  I hope I make them proud - they've got the harder legs, in my opinion.  I'm volunteering afterwards at T2 to help the cyclists back into the transition zone. I'm excited about this.

And of course my mind is drifting out to events in Aug (a sea swim & run race) and October (Amsterdam marathon? more likely the half-marathon? ).  Thankfully the Berlin marathon is already sold out, so it's not an option.  And there's a fun off-road triathlon in the fall. Another half-ironman is on my schedule, but it really conflicts with some work deadlines (as in I have a major project due the Monday after the Sunday race, so that's likely a no-go.  I'll keep dreaming.