Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Busy(?) Week

I just wrote out my work to-do list for the rest of the week. It has five whole items on it for the next two and half days. Strangely enough, that's a lot for me. Work tends to come in spurts at my job and each task tends to vary greatly from the next. I'm rarely able to see five tasks into the future.

While I feel like I've been running myself ragged the last couple of weeks, I don't really think that it has as much to do with the amount of stuff that I have to do as it does the amount of weight I'm dragging behind me while I do it.

The root of the problem is that I had a very difficult office-mate move in when I was gone to the Lumberjack. I was warned about it ahead of time, but that still didn't make it any easier for me to accept not being there to control the situation or accept the situation at all. The blessing and the curse is that the arrangement is temporary and hopefully will be over by the end of July. The fact that it is temporary is good, but it also makes me rail against the situation even more. Eventually, I need to develop my grown up voice (say what you mean with confidence) and grown-up personality enough to deal with this type of interpersonal conflict better, but that's a matter I'll let lie for the moment.

More importantly, the constant tension, plus a bevy of other minor-to-moderate inconveniences that I'm dealing with lately are starting to weigh on me and I'm fighting the urge to shut down, roll up in a ball, and hide. That's pretty much what I did over the weekend, since Adam was gone to Muncie to hang out and be the mechanic for the Muncie Endurathon Half-Ironman. I managed to complete my workouts in a mediocre fashion, but was in full hermit mode otherwise.

I think it may be time for me to re-read the depression self-help book that I wrote for myself back in February called, "Whatever You Feel Like Doing, Do The Opposite". That's actually the whole book, not just the title. It's a very simple and effective strategy, but it's hard to force yourself to keep going to when that's the last thing you want to do. However, I've found the more you do the right thing, the easier it becomes.

Anyway, in the interest of not ending this on a bummer note, I will say that my return to meaty, make-me-fast training last week was a success. I had an excuse for my mediocre Saturday and Sunday rides, as I killed it during the week last week. My Wednesday 2 x 20 min. Sweet Spot Bursts yielded a new best 20 minute power on the first one with only a minor drop in my average for the second. On Thursday, I did 2 x 18 min. Tempo with numbers that rivaled some of my best Sweet Spot workouts.

Tonight is my first first Threshold Bursts workout, which seems a little weird since it's already the second half of the season, but I guess I got a late start. Hopefully, I've had enough days of rest and mediocrity that I'll be able to go out and kill it again tonight.

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