If at first you don't succeed. . . try harder

Yes, back to a blog about training, sweating, and overcoming pain to become a stronger, faster, and leaner triathlete!
"Piss poor planning" has been the theme of my failed workouts as of late:

A couple of weeks ago, I had to swing by the Circle K to fill up my water bottle because it had slipped my mind that I was running in JULY! Lovely woman cleaning the bathroom apologized and said I could use the toilet. I was embarrassed to say I only needed to get some water. I was actually embarrassed that I didn't need to pee. Peeing isn't the result of poor planning. It is the result of being well hydrated, or having a weak bladder. What I needed was life-giving water because I thought I could run 8 miles on 24 ounces of H2O. Well, lesson learned. I would not be trying to run more than 6 miles without taking my fuel belt.

This weekend had some challenges that I would not have predicted. My 20 mile run ended at mile 6 due to soaking wet running shoes. I'm not above running in wet sneakers for a race, but for training, i'll just schedule a long run when I can complete it blister free thank you very much. My run started out well, I woke up from a nap (sleep was, by the way, the theme for the weekend), and I started off strong, felt like 20 miles would be a snap. Well, 2 miles in, a few drops of rain. Ah, that's refreshing! No need to worry, a little lightning in the distance, but I couldn't hear thunder, so I'm sure I'll be okay. The winds started picking up, and I hit mile 3- the furthest from home that I could be - and then the rain took things up a notch. I was no longer running through a friendly drizzle. There was a genuine worry that I might drown before I finished the 3 mile route home. My t-shirt was soaked in seconds. My glasses needed little wipers, though I had not had them installed yet (poor planning). Not gonna lie, the rain made me feel like a badass. The thunder which was now very loud and pretty much in synch with the flashes of lightning, made me wish I'd bothered to check weather.com before starting this adventure (I know it is monsoon season, what was I thinking?). I returned safely home, but as previously discussed, my shoes were soaked. I thought about finishing up the run on the treadmill, but poor planning sabotaged me again! I forgot to bring headphones, and running felt too much like the chores I was trying to avoid by going running, and so I did the laundry and cleaned the house instead. At least the house looks better :-).

The next fail was my long ride. I tried to do this at midnight, having lost a bit of sleep the night before due to appointments in the afternoon and being too cool for a nap. My fail occured at 16 miles our of 80. I thought I was going to fall asleep on my bike. That happens more often than you'd think. I think it is because my body doesn't know when I want it to be awake anymore (body, here's a hint, if we are wearing a helmet, I want you awake!). I went home and crashed. . .woke up to eat. . .crashed. . .answered text messages. . .crashed. . .woke up to eat. . . crashed. 18 hours of z's later, and I was ready to try that ride again. I hopped on my bike at midnight again, and blasted through 100 miles as if to say, "All I needed was a short coma".

So, the take-away lesson here is that if at first you don't succeed, tack 20 miles onto your initial goal, and then give it another go :-).