Difficult Perspectives: When training comes second

I can finally blog again! My life has been completely abducted by graduate school applications... even classes and training have had to take the backseat. It's difficult to knowingly let your hard work slip for a few weeks-- after gutting it out (and thoroughly enjoying) El Tour (made Gold, enjoyed pancake breakfast at mile 78, thrilled to draft at a speedy 32mph in a tight pack on the home stretch), I've lost about, shit, 3 weeks of training? I've literally been working on 11 different applications since October. But they are all completed and submitted.

As a very competitive individual, it's extremely difficult to consciously make the decision NOT to train, to knowingly sacrifice training hours and phyiscal ability for something with less-tangible rewards. But really, it was more important to set myself up well for grad school than to train hard and have mediocre applications. It is a challenge to maintain this perspective and not feel depressed about workout hours lost or how many minutes slower my time trials are.

This brings me to my winter break goals: to catch back up, to push harder than I necessarily want to, to not succumb to the temptation of sleeping late and being lazy all break, of splurging on holiday sweets and such.

No, no, no.

I will bundle. I will layer. I will freeze my toes off biking and running. I will suck it up and get in the pool-- even though I have to drive 7 miles out of the way and pay money to do so. I don't want to stop lifting because it makes me feel good, body tight and fit.

Tricats have a sort of challenge sheet to see who can log the most hours of genuine workouts (not limited to swim/bike/run/ing). And, I'm off to a slow start. But, not being able to take any competition lightly, I'll really have to work to catch up. Oh I will.

No races until January 1st.... applications definitely cleared my bank account. Got my eyes on another half marathon in February that I want to dominate. GRRR.