BatSuit Worthy

Kona Camp 2013 is coming up next week... We had some custom swim suits made just for the occasion! Pictures coming next week but suffice to say when I pulled them out of the box, Scott commented that they look like Bat Suits. YES! Bad Ass Bat Suits!

My plan was to keep these suits under wraps until camp, but I must admit, I busted mine out for the last of the North Shore Swim Series races this morning. Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures! Let me explain.

So this past week has been stressful. Part of it is putting together last minute details for camp... If you've ever run a camp before you'll understand what I mean here. I just want it all to go well and I'm pretty much on my own when it comes to all the planning, etc so it's just a lot on my mind right now. More stressful than that was that I had no help with Moana this week. I know that should seem easy- just take care of your kid for the week- but yikes if keeping up with a 4yo doesn't take a ton of extra energy... The worst of it though has been the whole house hunting ordeal... Without going into details like the fact that the mango house we wanted had 3 offers for over asking, one of which was cash I'll just say it has taken up WAY more brain space than I have available... I didn't sleep well at all for like 3 nights in a row just up thinking about all this stuff and what are we going to do, etc...

The "Life Stress" and lack of sleep totally showed up in my training sessions this week too. Training was cut way down this week so I know my crap sessions were not about excess load or training fatigue... just the simple fact proven again that the more you have on your plate in life, the less training you can do. Or at least do well. Case in point... Thursday I tried to ride first thing and just had nothing. Tried to just let it go and not let it add to my emotional stress level... Just spun easy and tried to let the ride be a release of sorts. But it didn't work. Yesterday, after getting up at 2AM to get a bunch of work done (I find it hard to write training schedules and such while Moana is home so my only quiet time this week was in the middle of the night) I was trying to swim a short/hard set and I was KILLING myself on these 100's couldn't even hit t-pace for a single 100... tears filled my goggles... all of it. Was awful. Totally bailed on the main set and tried to just swim a 500 easy but cried the whole time so just got out and went home. Fwiw, I wasn't crying because I was swimming so poorly- I was crying because I felt so completely overwhelmed with everything going on and I just needed some SLEEP.

In good news, Moana also needed a nap yesterday afternoon so I got 4 solid hours of sleep while she napped/played on her own until I woke up. #BlessHer.

So this morning I had that ocean swim race and just really had no idea how it would go. The extra sleep I'd gotten helped for sure but that crap swim yesterday was on my mind and I kinda thought it was very possible that I was going to get my ass handed to me this morning. I thought that maybe I should leave the Bat Suit at home because what if I couldn't do it justice on its debut?? Dumb thought maybe but that's what I was thinking! Then I decided that I was going to just swim as hard as I could with what I had today and if I did that, as long as the EFFORT was Bat Suit Worthy, I'd be happy.

So that's what I did. And you know what? I think it helped! I had the thought several times during the race this morning- Is this effort Bat Suit Worthy? Most of the time, it was. :) I wouldn't say my swim was brilliant or anything, but it was solid, and good enough for 2nd in my age group and also 2nd for the series. And given how yesterday my goggles were filled with tears, I'd say it was another good lesson in the fact that a couple of crap training days means nothing in the big picture. During any bad streak, you just have to take a step back and assess why it's all going wrong and then figure out what you need to do to fix it and get back on track. Need to eat better? Sleep more? Reduce overall life stress? Fix that and your fitness will once again have the opportunity to shine through.

Riding home from the race... everything is back to normal... Until this condo sells and we have no place to live and I cry in my goggles again...