Tuesday, January 31, 2012

I am still here

I somehow have zero motivation to blog. Probably because nothing exciting is going on.

I am still in Slovakia because I have not heard from the US/Germany ever since they asked me whether I can start job in Germany on Feb 1st. So I am still enjoying my time at home.
I should be less hard on being stuck at home because it is not that bad after all.

We went skiing this weekend. It was great, we had such a nice weather, cold but because it was sunny it was bearable.

This was downhill skiing on Saturday. I also fell once. I do not remember the last time I felt on skis. Oh well, I did not see some ice. Maybe I should wear glasses so I can actually where I am going:)





This is xc skiing at a completely different place. My parents have weekend house in this area so we went to go check it out and get rid of snow around the walls. My parents usually do not go there in winter because you cannot get there by car since there is no real road leading there and when there is 2 feet of snow you would need a tank to get there.





Training-wise things are going well. I went swimming with the team on Sunday, which was again mostly about swimming technique. I am totally slow. How can those people go that fast doing one-arm drills??? I am just slogging forward.

Yesterday marked the beginning of working with CH. We shall see where it leads.
I did 1.5h bike and 40min run yesterday.
40min run was pretty long and at first I did not feel super confident about that, however logic behind this is that if ITB is not prepared for running, then no matter how long I run it will start acting up.
So far so good.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Changing coaches and believing

You know that I have been looking for new a triathlon coach, although I love love love Michelle and her training philosophy. I also love love love PPC because her training seemed to be working for me.

Because I loved my previous coaches I am little worried about moving to a new coach. On paper, cH seems like the best choice - he went to a special training academy/school with emphasis on triathlon, he is a successfull athlete himself, he has some pretty good athletes, he has ambitious goals for himself and his athletes, he does very well in both short-course and long-course triathlon, he is dedicated to his athletes, his team (it is not a professional team or anything similar, it is more like a triathlon club but with organized practices under cH guidance) has some very good sponsors (like they pay all your triathlon entry fees in Slovakia, some IM entry fees, Kona trip if you qualify, discounts on gear, training camps etc), plus he is much cheaper than American coaches.

But I know that his training will be completely different from what BSC Michelle would make me do in training.
I think that people who have not experienced it cannot fully understand cultural training differences.
When I came to the US I hated the training I was doing there, I did not understand why I should run 60miles/week as a miler and why we were not doing any intervals. But after ~3 years I stopped being a stubborn idiot and I kind of got used to it and started to like high volume.
Therefore I loved the "more is better" tri training I was doing last year.

And I know that cH's training will be very very different. There will not be many 3h bike rides and I would do running drills even in IM training (if I ever train for IM).
He has never coached anyone with powermeter but he said that we would learn together. He sees most of his athletes couple times/week and not once a year. He is all about proper technique and movement economy. He does not know what ITB problem is and thus does not fully understand my problem (which actually might be a good thing. Maybe his "I do not have a clue how to train an athlete with ITB problem" training approach will help me.)

I am little worried that I will not trust his training. But I am more mature than I was at college so I will do whatever he tells me to do with full dedication, but it might take me some time to do it without any second-guessing. That's very bad for an athlete, isn't it? However, it is probably normal to compare present and past when you experience a change. So maybe it is natural to have some doubts especially when you have enjoyed the past.

But what I feel most uncomfortable about is a question of commitment to a person, not letting a person down, whether I should move away from coaches that I really liked and had zero problem with to someone who looks better on paper and is cheaper. I was determined to continue with BSC when my life situation calms down but then I found CH. But I really hate "letting people down" and I do not want to move from one coach to another after they put an effort to help me. You know what I mean? CH is giving me one month of free and no commitment coaching and I can call it quits afterwards (and beg BSC to take me back)...

Ok, I guess that I should do what is best for me and don't worry that it might "hurt" someone. Well, it is not really hurting someone, I am sure that a coach gets over loosing an athete pretty fast so it is not as tragic and I am not a bad person. But still, it is not fair to that other person and I do not like doing it. I am that kind of a person who turns down a job offer that is slightly better only because I have already commited to a different job. It is kind of stupid, but well, I do not like breaking my promises.

However, I have already told CH that I want him to coach me and I am meeting with him and his athletes tonight for a swim and then we will discuss my future tri goals and training plan in more detail. I will let you know how it went and what was decided.


Btw, I have not heard back from Germany yet. So I probably won't start on Feb 1st. Phew:) I just hope that I will start sometime!

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

One week to do zillion things

I have received an email today which contained only one sentence: Can you start in Germany on Feb 1st?

Sure, of course, why not...

I do not even know which city in Germany. I do not know anything actually.
It will be pretty interesting if they really want me there one week from today.

How am I going to get there? Where am I going to live? How does it work when I want to go work in Germany? How much and who is going to pay me?

What an exciting life I lead, don't you think? Oh well, I have almost one week to figure it out.

Too bad I told my advisor that I will send her my thesis by Feb 1st. I better stop playing on internet and go do something useful:)

But before I have learnt that I have zillion things to do in next week I did bike/run/swim today.
1h bike with 20min w/up, 10x1min hard, 1min easy, 20min steady. I almost died, I better get serious about training because it is getting urgent! Not urgent, but you know...
20min easy run again working on my technique.
50min swim drills, working on my technique. Again.

Monday, January 23, 2012

On dedication, self-discipline, determination, athlete's guilt

You might know that I am very dedicated, have a pretty good self-discipline (but not about eating) and determined.
(I think that there might be one word that compresses all these qualities in an athlete but it does not come to mind, thus such a long title and introductionary sentence.)

You give me a training plan and do it. Even when I prepare a training plan for myself I do it, I do not need anyone to keep me accountable.

But if I do not have a training plan I am a complete slacker because I do not know what to do. Or I start a workout and keep changing it every 5minutes.

I wanted to create myself a plan but it does not make much sense at this point because my dad/grandparents/pool people keep changing their plans and my plans go out the window. Plus I am lazy, I admit it. I sometimes prefer watching TV. And I do not like working out when my parents are at home because my dad calls me nuts and my mom takes pictures of me. Grrr.

But I got in some exercise. Let's see. I did not do anything on Saturday.
On Sunday I did 2h bike (P 149, C 76, HR 146, horrible, just horrible) on a balcony and then I went to the pool with cH team. It was 50m indoor pool, pretty cool. Too bad it is too far from my parents place (it is around 18miles, which is a lot here and would be too expensive to go there by car often. Gas costs around 1.50Eur/liter, which is like $8/gallon. And those idiots from EU decided to place mebargo on gas from Iran so of course it will go up and up now). There were 9 of us in one lane and I again basically spent 1.5hours doing drills. But cH said that it looks pretty good. He asked me whether I want to learn butterfly....maybe next time. I was one of the slowest and sometimes I had to idea what I was supposed to do because I do not know Slovak terms for all those exercises and drills so cH had to explain a lot to me. But it was good, I liked it. I am going to another team training on Friday to continue working on my technique and then we shall see whether I can join his real swimming workouts.

I did 1h bike today (20min easy HR 140-150, 10min ~190W, 10min ~200+W, 20min easy 140-150) and then I went running. 20min slowly working on my technique. It was little awkward, I am trying to land under my center of gravity but I am not used to this new movement and I feel like I am lifting my knees way too high and taking very little steps. But it needs to be done!

Ok, I need to be better about my training, create a plan and get into a routine!!!!! Athlete's guilt is killing me!

Friday, January 20, 2012

Techniques

I met with coach Hottie for running and swimming so he can have a look at my technique.

By the way, it is unbelievable how fast a guy descends on "hot scale" when you learn that he has a girlfriend:)

So running: we did 5k. On a road. Very slow. Stupid stupid stupid. Which confirms one of these things: 1, either noone but me and PPC can coach me in next few months because the others have no idea how to deal with my ITB, 2, or I am way too cautious regarding my ITB and I can in fact do more than I think.
ITB did not hurt at all, we shall see how it feel tomorrow.

Now about technique. He said that it is very rare, that he in fact never saw it but I am running way too much on my toes. I do not even touch the ground with my heel!!! I even extend my lower leg/feet forward to touch with my toes. He said that it very bad for calves. That's probably why my calves are killing me often when I run.
I think that I am so much on my toes because I am trying to decrease the impact on my knee.
Also I touch the ground little before my center of gravity. So he showed me when to touch the ground because it is more economical/efficient for long distances. Once I master that I should work on my step frequency because mine is too slow. I am not very effient runner, I am using raw muscle power to propel me forward. It is common among middle-distance runners.

Swimming. I basically spend 1.5h doing one arm drills. But since I have mostly learnt from youtube videos, it is not too bad.
I turn hips way to early. He told me to turn later in the stroke, when my hand is closer to my hips. And I hold head too low. I used to hold it too high, now I am too low. Plus I did quite a lot of finger tips drill, he said that I am recovering with my forearm leading whereas I should go more with my elbow. This way my recovery is little too wide. But he said that it probably caused by my rotation and once I correct that also my arm recovery would be better.
He said to come one more time to this technique session where he has more time to address issues and then I can join his "advanced" team because I do not need a lot od technique work.
He also told me that I have bigger tights muscles than he does. Must be all that biking.

So that's it. I like the guy. He seems to know what he is talking about. He has ben doing tris for 20 years. And he has a huge poster in his bedroom showing times he needs for 1500m, 10k bike, 10k run to get to Rio. I like that.
We also talked about Rio. Apparently it is not that bad for women as it is for men.
I think that I will start working with him. I think that he would be the best coach choice for me for Oly dist tris.
But I need to start earning money first.


We talked about IMs and training and such and it is all quite interesting. There is such a difference between training philosophy/approach between Europe and US. I will write another short post about it later.
Let me just start with this: guess what we ate after our run? Candy bars. Ok, our run was really slow so we have not cause a lot of muscle damage but still. He is a professional triathlete and he eats candy bar as a post-workout meal...

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Biking, grrrr

After 7 days of not even seeing a bike I did 1h easy ride followed by 3x1min one legged drills.

Biking is killing me, as usual!
The ride itself was pretty good actually, I was surprised. P 156, C 76, HR 146. Pretty good.
Plus all bruises, scratches etc I caused to myself doing those long rides without any butt crean have healed themselves in past 7 days so that was great:)

But my hip flexors are totally sore and tight now. It is unbelievable. I was making sure that I pull up and on the top and bottom of the pedal stroke. And ouch!!! The left one is worse than the right one, and I really need to do some extra exercises to solve this.

I also went swimming in the morning and it was not too bad (except for the fact that I had to pay for it). There were not many people and I was actually able to swim. Unfortunately I do not know where I put my stopwatch so doing any fast intervals did not make any sense. I did 600m w/up, 10x100 steady w/~10sec rest, 5x (100m bands, 100m drills), 400m c/d. Total 3k. Not too bad.
At first I was little scared that I will swim hard into the wall and die but after a while I got a feeling how long it takes me to get there so I did not have to lift my head every few seconds.
There were two guys in a lane next to me and there was a person in my lane so I was swimming close to that floating thing than divides lanes. The guy close to me was swimming free style (only me and him were swimming free) and his recovery with left arm was so wide that he actually hit me couple times. His left arm was completely parallel to water during recovery. Interesting.

Ok, I am going to stretch my hip flexors.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Hm, what can I say

I have not even seen a bike since last Wednesday and went swimming twice in last 7 days. It is all going downhill with me when I am not alone and when I do not have my lame routine.

I went to visit my grandparents and you know what happens when I am there. My grandmother feeds me as if I were a duck two weeks before Xmas dinner. Because of course she and my mom think that I need to gain weight (although in fact I need to loose weight).
I went swimming on Th, which was very slow flop because it was an unorganized chaos as usual.
I did not do anything on Friday.
Skiing ~3.5h on Sat.
XC skiing ~3.5h on Sunday.
Swimming on Monday. This was actually pretty good, there was only one other person. And that pool is pretty good, it has lines marked on the bottom. But there is no paceclock and I did not have watch, so I did only 600m w/up, 2x (6x100 steady with ~8sec rest) with pitstop break between sets. 100m c/d. It was pretty hard because at the beginning I felt quite uncoordinated.
I did not do anything today because I was travelling back to my parents' place and I am plain lazy.

Can you tell that I do not like being here at all! I need to leave and start living alone again. That's much better for my training.

On Friday I am meeting with coach Hottie for running. He is going to have a look at my running technique, maybe it is also part of my ITB problem. I was planning on trying to run this week so Friday it is. Keep you fingers crossed.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Am I an idiot or what? I'm babbling here about a hottie I met today and I totally forgot about my training "log".

I did easy 45min bike and a swim in the evening. Pool is as bad in the evenings as it is in the afternoons:(
I'm not sure how far I swam but I did a lot of single arm drills because that all I could do. However the last ~10 min I was the only one in the pool so I tried a few faster 100s. Oh geez, it's not going to be pretty if I won't be able to do quality workouts!!!!

Wow!

You know that Slovak coach I contacted and I said I can't afford him but I will meet with him because he is cute.
I met with him today and I must say that he is even cuter live than in pictures:) Seriously! He is a real hottie.
Plus he is shooting for Rio 2016, so he is almost a perfect husband. I wonder what he would say to using heart rate monitor in bed. I am interested to see whether sex HR is more like biking HR or running HR. But don't tell me, I want to try it myself. You know, that's a very important quality, it's on my "husband standards" list.

I have also learnt that I need to change my 2016 plan because I would have to start collecting points now to get to the racing circuit that allow collecting point for 2016. Well, I am not good enought to start racing now, so let's change to a 8-year plan.

I will actually join his team next Friday for a swim and maybe I will be joining them more often if I like it. Unfortunately it is in a different city and it takes me over 1h by bus to get there. But Fridays are for beginners and maybe if I make to more advanced swimmers and then they have swims on different days and there are also people from the city where my parents live so we could carpool.
I will see how it goes.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Quantifying my suffering

I borrowed the title from Michelle who is waiting for her Powertap so she can quantify her suffering:)

In indeed was suffering. I did exactly the same workout 3 weeks ago and I think that it was easier then than now. Maybe because I did 2 workouts in two days before today? Who knows, probably.

It was FTP workout, 6x10min w/ 2' easy and 4' easy btw. And it was indeed hard! But I liked it. In retrospective, of course:)
I again did in on a balcony and some neighbors saw me, they probably think that some nutcase has moved in.

Today:
210-220: P 214, C 85, HR 172
220-230: 224, 87, 176
210-220: 216, 86, 177
220-230: 226, 90, 181
210-220: 218, 87, 177
220-230: 229, 89, 182

Dec 21:
210-220: P 215, C 85, HR 163
220-230: 227, 86, 172
210-220: 216, 85, 172
220-230: 227, 87, 176
210-220: 217, 86, 173
220-230: 229, 86, 176

HR was higher, which is not surprising since I was more tired. Those 3 days sitting on my butt and eating Starbursts probably decreased my fitness because even easy rides on Sun and Mon were kind of hard.

I also went to the pool today. I hate that pool. Hate.
Maybe I was just lucky with my MI pool because most of the time I was there alone and I could do all my workouts without any lane issues.
But this pool here, it is horrible. It was crowded, horribly crowded (20+ people) and all but 3!!!! were swimming breaststroke, chilling at the walls or in the middle ofthe lane etc. There is no way I can do intervals there.
Plus there are no lines at the bottom and nothing to see that I am approaching the wall. The wall is the same color as the bottom and it is very hard to see that you are approaching it, I had some very close calls and doing fast intervals will be kind of dangerous until I get the feel of how long it should feel to swim one lenght.

Good thing is that I can get in for free because my mom works for the city, but only in the afternoon. Maybe I will try to go there tomorrow late in the evening, maybe less people will be there...
I can also try in the morning (there should be less people because people are at work) but then I cannot get there for free.

Maybe I can try to do some hard intervals in the morning 2x/week and then easy flop swims rest of the days in the afternoons for free. I will see tomorrow how it goes in the evening.

I did 100m w/up, 3x500m with bands, 100m c/d.
1500m with bands, not too shabby:)

Monday, January 9, 2012

Can salted Coke do the trick?

I was in a grocery store today and wanted to see whether they have any sport drinks. They had arround 4-5 kinds and I was surprised to see Gatorade. And even more surprised to see that 500ml (17oz) bottle costed 1.69 Euros!!!!!! What a rip off.

I guess that I will be fueling my rides with salted Coke:)

My new bike set-up





My room has a balcony and since winter is very mild (but still cold to ride outside) doing a trainer ride on a balcony is doable:)

I do not have to worry about neighbors or wooden floors or being too hot and sweaty in my room. Nasty.

The only problem (apart from the fact that my toes were getting cold by the end) was that balconies are on every other floor thus when it started raining there was not much shelter above me and it rained on me.
But still much better than being inside.

Did 1h easy hour with 4x1min one leg drills.

No swimming today because pool is closed on Mondays.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Back to it

I have been a major slacker in last few days. I did bike workout on Wednesday then travelled on Th and Fr.

Want to hear my "no fee for a bike or second baggage" story? Ok, so I flew with Air Canada, apparently the first flight was operated by United and then AC and the last one Lufthansa.
I had a regular suitcase and then a case with bike. I have Aerus case, people say that sometimes you can "cheat" the check in person that you are not carrying a bike because the case does not look like bike case. I do not think that it is true, it totally looks like a bike case and check-in person in both Detroit and Frankfurt knew immediatelly that it is bike.

So check-in lady in Detroit told me that I have to pay extra fee for bike but then she checked me in and never asked for my credit card or send me anywhere to pay for it. Of course I have not said anything. Somehow she was not able to check me and my baggage in all the way to Hungary, she checked me in only to Germany and then I had to re-check myself again there.
I went to check in in Germany and my fears came true. I was told that I had to pay Lyfthansa bike fee, which although it was not 250 as it is for trans-Atlantic flights, but only 70Euros for inter-European flights.
And this is where you have to be smart and pay your cards right!
I asked her how it works, why would someone have to pay twice when booking was for all flights together (I did not tell her that I already paid I only asked in very confusing tricky way). She said that it is Detroit check-in fault and she gave me a bill for a bike fee. She said that I should go to AirCanada people and ask for a receipt that I have already paid one bike fee and then go to Lufthansa and show them the receipt. If I do not get the receipt then I should pay the fee. However, she checked my baggage in and I had a bordning pass from check-in kiosk. So no way I was going to pay the fee, I am not stupid.
I have decided to see how it goes and pray that my luggage shows up in Hungary with me. And it did!

Then me and my dad put the bike together on Sat but I could not do anything because I needed something to put underneath the bike/trainer because my parents have wooded floors so I could not put it there just like that. I did not go swimming neither:( Slacker indeed:)

But I bought 2 door mats today so I was able to bike today. But my parents live in an apartment building and their neighbors below are little crazy so I was not sure whether they will stop by our appartment very soon to yell at me. But they were either not home or my trainer is not too loud because they have not showed up:)
It was also funny because at first my mom came in to take a picture of me (you wonder why I am not too keen on living here?:)), then my dad checking on whether I am not destrying the floors, then my mom again for something else, then my dad. Grrr, oh well.

I did 1 hour: 30min easy, 3x (2min 180-190W, 6min 200-210, 2min 220+). However, my set-up is not great yet and my front wheel kept falling off the pile of books I was using and I had to get down and "repair" it and it was annoying. Then I fell again 10sec into the last 2min 220+ so I called it quits.

I need to set it all up much better. Tomorrow. I will go check out the pool tomorrow as well.

Friday, January 6, 2012

I made it

I surprisingly made it without any drama!

Of course they wanted to charge me for the bike in Frankfurt when I wentto recheck it but I'm a genius and thus not only I avoided the bike fee but also the fee for my second baggage! Hihihi. I will share the story tomorrow.

My dad was super "excited" when he put the bike to the car and the car's value doubled.

Ok, I haven't slept for ~30 hours so I might go to bed now.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Airport randomness

I am at the airport in Toronto and am BORED. I have 6 hours between flights and I have already been sitting here for 5+. Fortunately Toronto airport has free wifi!!!
I will have couple hours in Frankfurt as well. Not sure whether they have free internet there and even if they had I do not have US/EU plug adjustor for my computer so it will run out of battery anyway. So that would be a nightmare.
I wished I lived somewhere in big Western European city, that way I would take one non-stop flight and be home in no time. Now I have to fly Detroit-Toronto-Frankfurt-Budapest and then 3hours in a car from Budapest. (But still better than Providence-New York-Frankfurt-Prague and then 6hours on a bus Prague-Bratislava (that's Slovak capital in case you are wondering) and then 2h in a car to get home. I had like 5hours to kill in Prague so I stored my baggage at the bus station and went to have pizza in the city. Of course I was dead by the time I finally got home and told my parents that if they ever want to see me again they better buy me a first-class ticket fr my next trans-Atlantic flight. Of course it has not happened:))

I am little scared what will happen to me in Frankfurt because they check my bike as a bike (I was trying to smuggle it as a regular luggage but they were not fooled and asked me whether it was a bike and well, I cannot lie) and the lady at the check-in desk told me I have to pay a fee but she never asked for my credit card nor sent me somewhere to pay for it, plus it was my second baggage and you are allowed only 1. AirCanada charges only $50 for a bike (therefore I chose to fly with them) but I was checking in with United (although it never says so anywhere on my itinerary and United charges a lot for bikes) and I need to re-check with luggage again in Frankfurt (lady in the US was not able to check me in althought she tried) and that is with Lufthansa and they charge 250 for a bike. So now I am scared that they are going to charge me 250 for the bike, maybe even twice! Oh well, no reason to stress about it now, I will see once I get there.

I have 4 Canadian dollars so I was trying to buy something at the airport but unfortunately you cannot but anything at the airport for 4 bucks. So I am going to have 4 Canadian dollars as a souvenir from good times:)

I also got my lSAT score yesterday and it is trully a disaster. Worse than I expected. Now it would be a miracle if I got accepted to any of those schools I have applied to. I wish I could re-take it because I can do much better but I cannot. Oh well, let's hope I find a job.

Ok, they are going to board the plane, so off I am. There are some pretty nasty trees and houses-demolishing winds in Europe, hope it won't effect my flights.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Smell ya later USA

My last night in the US. Wee-wee! (what's the onomatopoeia for crying?)

l did an hour ride, easy one, this morning, then did some shopping (stocked up on Starbursts for my 24h trip, blah) and then I packed my bike. I'm little worried about how it will make it on an airplane. I hope it will be ok. I packed bike and everything bike related plus one extra wheel so it is little heavy. We shall see how it goes tomorrow. Hopefully the fee won't be too high.

Ok, let's see whether I get stuck somewhere at the airport for few days or something similar. See you on the other side of the pond!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

I have found my limit

My bike/distance/temperature limit.

Today was the coldest day of the winter so far, 20F (or -6C if you want) and I had to bring the mountain bike to a colleague. I knew that it will be miserable and it indeed was. I had 3 pairs of socks, 4 layers on upper body, 2 on legs, 2 pairs of gloves, 3 hats, scarf and hand warmers in case I need them.
14 miles. It took my around 80min on that crapy bike on sidewalks in occasional snowstorm. The last 2.5miles were the worst because by that point my fingers and toes were totally frozen, my nose was running and I turned into terrible headwind. Blah.
So that's it. My bike/temp/dist limit. 20F and 80min.

Then I had to get back of course. I added the 5th layer and off I went. Thankfully I was supposed to meet with a friend to say bye to her so I got to spend some time in a heated room after 2hours of walking. I somehow defrosted myself, added the 6th layer and I continue my journey. I took my around 4 hours total to walk back.
My fingers are still little cold.

It was a good training! :)

Sunday, January 1, 2012

20 hours

Today ended my first ever 20h training week. And I LOVED it. Honestly, it did not feel any different from my other 11h training weeks.
It is either because I am just that super fit or because I did not do anything else than training (no work or school) so I could take enough rest between effords. I am sure that it was a combination but naturally I am leaning towards the first explanation:)

The week went like this:
Mon: 1h swim
Tue: 2h bike & 1h swim
Wed: 2.25h bike & 1h swim
Th: 1h swim
Fri: 0.75 swim & 1.25 swim
Sat: 4h bike & 1 swim
Sun: 3h bike
+ strength training

Swim: 7h
Bike: 11.25h
Strength: cca 2h

Not too bad considering that it does not involve any running.

I was supposed to go swmming today as well, which will get me over 20h but I cannot get to the pool from my friend's house.

I can definitelly get used to this type of training. I liked it. Even 7 hours on a bike trainer in less than 24 hours were not that bad:) I actually liked it. I see my bike fitness improving, which is great.
But doing 3 swims in less than 24 hours was not pretty, my poor arms. They were trashed.

I think that I get used to training like this:) Train, then do nothing for a few hours, then train again etc. Although it is quite boring.
Maybe train, then go to school/work for few hours, then train again would be more interesting/fulfilling. Or maybe training for 30+h/week and do nothing else would work:)

Anyway, I am taking next week easy because I cannot really get to the pool and I am travelling on Thursday and Friday and then visiting my grandparets on weekend. That should be good because it will help to recover and come back stronger! I will still try to do something though because otherwise I will start loosing all the gained fitness.

Some people might ask, why the hell am I doing 20h training week at the end of December. Well, because I like it! :)