Rest, Coffee, and Exclamation Points!!!

I'm feeling so proud of myself... I actually started to clean my house tonight. I know. Weird. But seriously, I did three loads of laundry and all the clothes are folded and put away. Even the socks. There's only one explanation for that. Mama had a recovery week.

I know it's kind of an odd time to take a recovery week... 4 weeks out from Kona... but it was completely necessary. I was a zombie. Last week was kind of a half-assed recovery week but that didn't quite cut it. But in good news, we got it right this time and today I actually caught myself singing along to the radio in my car. And my Training Peaks notes about my bike ride this morning said something like, "On the Peppy Scale of 1-10, where 1 is how I felt last Friday and 10 is 'OMG somebody tell that obnoxiously giddy girl to shut the hell up', I'm at least a 7 today. Maybe an 8."

So that's good. I've missed feeling like this! And now I will use lots of exclamation points!!! Lol. Dork.

And as is coach's favorite way to end a recovery week, I was assigned a swim test today. My heart pretty much dropped when I saw that last night because I totally fail swim tests. Write the word 'test' in the workout and I just completely choke. So I actually told Tim that I wasn't going to 'test', but I would go swim as fast as I could and see what happened. ;) I prepared by sleeping a full 8 hours last night and then kept drinking shots of espresso this morning until I started shaking and then I went to the pool and kicked the shit out of those 300's. Yay me! So that made me happy.

Speaking of espresso and good news, I'll share this with you too... Coffees of Hawaii just released a new special roast called 100% Chrissie. How cool is that? Queen of the Ka'ahumanu... They'll be selling this in Kona of course (stop by the COH tent in front of Basil's on Ali'i Dr while you're there!) but you can also order it online starting today. I've got a couple bags of this stuff on their way to me right now and can't wait to try it... I'm sure it's awesome, but whatever, who cares what it tastes like!?! The placebo effect of knowing that I am drinking the same coffee as Chrissie on race morning is the key here. If you're in FOMO, use promo code SMILES for 20% off!

QUEEN KA'AHUMANU COFFEE - ESPRESSO Hawaiian history - past and present - is alive with female achievement. From Queen Ka'ahumanu in the 18th Century, to today's Chrissie Wellington, multiple-time World Champion triathlete. Read more about the similarities here. This coffee reflects Chrissie’s custom cupping profile that is stronger and brighter than our normal line. Intense and punchy, it’s dark roasted and makes a bold statement to start the day. A portion of the sale of this coffee will be donated to two great charities that Chrissie supports:The Blazeman Foundation for ALS Girls Education Nepal