We are now 2 months since Mr. Tea went to the emergency room. We knew there would be many ups and downs during his recovery. Since then, his medicines have changed multiple times. He has been to the doctor for a variety of other tests. He has one more test to go through, but his system needs to be as "clean" as possible. That test will be in about two weeks. These tests have been for other health issues, unrelated to the pulmonary embolism. I haven't felt like talking about them all. (Weakened right ventricle, weakened arterial valve, liver problems---which is the next test).
The good news is that he is on the mend for the pulmonary embolism. For the other issues, he is on a medication plan. He is feeling better. He has also lost 60lbs so far.
One of our challenges is nutrition. We have completely different nutrition plans. We are kind of at the point where we need to make completely separate meals. They can be the same general meal, but they are prepared differently or with different ingredients. If I weren't an endurance athlete, I'd follow his plan. I am an endurance athlete. I need to fuel for different training efforts & recovery.
That's that.
In my last post, I mentioned that I'm doing a run focus this off season.
If I remember correctly, I've only done a run focus one other time.
It was nothing like what I'm doing now. I thought Liz would have me running a lot, no a TON, with sprints and repeats, etc.
NOPE. We are doing weird stuff. Training that I have never in my life done. In addition to this, she is augmenting this weird run focus with equally weird bike stuff.
And, I'm strength training a lot.
When I started this run focus, I was getting frustrated. I couldn't do it. In my head, I couldn't get it. It wasn't making sense.
Every day, I would go out there and go through the motions. I figured out at some point, it would all click.
Then, I was at Masters one day. Coach Andrew had given me a goal for an interval set. I was missing the goal. As I was swimming, I thought to myself, "what do I have to do to make this work?"
I figured it out and nailed the rest of the intervals.
When I was resting, Andrew came over and asked me how I did. I explained what happened.
He said, "Tea. That's why you are so fun to coach. When faced with a challenge, you ask yourself, 'what do I need to do'. You don't give up".
So, I go back to running; running these bizarre workouts. Yesterday, I had 10 sets of intervals. The first two didn't go really well. I was close, but I still missed them. I took the recovery period, and I thought, "What do I have to do to make this work"?
All of a sudden, it clicked. It made sense. I tried multiple things and then BOOM. It all came together.
During the cooldown, I realized that the combination of run focus, weird bike workouts, and strength training was starting to come together. For the first time, I understood the connection.
I, also, realized that I'm probably going to be sore for my entire off season.
When I did the bike focus earlier this year, I could immediately see the results in power output & watts to kg. I could see the improvements happening.
With the run, we are handling it completely differently. I'm doing things I've never done before. I can't see results on a weekly or monthly basis.
I don't know if what we are doing is working.
What I do know is that Liz has taken my racing to levels that I'd never experienced before.
I trust her system. I do the workouts.
I believe in her.