nervous or blase?

My plan was to do a core workout tonight but I didn't. There was a bit of scurrying around the house, and although I didn't eat a big supper, it seemed to sit heavy. I didn't think that would make for a good core workout. In other words, I was a lazy slacker.

Chinook half iron is this coming weekend. I did it in 2008 and 2009, and neither was what you'd call a good day. I finished, and for 2008 that was just about the only goal. For 2009 I'd hoped to improve, and I didn't. Then 2010 I was doing IMC and the timing wasn't right. 2011 I was still helping my knee heal up. Now here we are at 2012.

I don't feel as ready as I'd like to be, but then, I haven't been as single minded about training as I was earlier. Even so, the workouts have gone fairly well. It has been wonderful to have consistently strong bike sessions, verified by wattage output readings that gradually got better and better. The change I've really noticed on outdoor rides is that I feel stronger on the hills, and I recover faster from them. I'm not really running much faster, but it seems to be taking less effort. The little Oly trial I did on the May long weekend gave me lots of confidence.

Still, I've learned to respect the Chinook course, especially the bike leg. Going 47 K into the teeth of a stiff wind can really take it out of you. While it's nice to be faster, and really nice to be lots faster, my goal is really to have a good solid effort day while having fun. In another sense, this working for a living is getting in the way of some of the house projects, and I can't help but think that I could spend Saturday doing things on my list. Heresy, I know.

As always, it's a struggle to keep the balance between maintaining and even improving my fitness, and not letting it consume my life. When I was being coach, I just did what I was told, as best I could. Obedient, that's me. Now I think about each workout, sometimes not knowing what I'm going to do until after I've started, or even wondering if I'm going to do it or something else.

On days like this it's easy to get out of the office at lunch time. I'm trying to make it a habit. Something I think I'd like to try is to get at least one photo of a building, or an event, or some juxtaposition that interests me. It might just be playing with a filter trying for a specific effect. Both these pics of iconic Calgary buildings have been tweaked slightly in Snapseed.