Training Woes

Winter training. Spring training. Eating to train. Eating NOT to gain wait yet still keep the energy to train. Training in the dark. Training in the cold. Training with friends to beat boredom of training by oneself. Trying to gather friends to train (who equally have no time to train and some live too far from me!). Training hard. Training easy. Training moderately. Tracking training. Talking to dad about his horse training and how his training really is similar to my training. Amazing -- Chili training like a race horse. Core training. Stretching after training. Drinking wine after trainer. Yum. That's the best part. For someone who was so sick of training three years ago I didn't want to ever track another minute of training or calorie of food, I sure got myself into it this time - big time. This week is the first of 6 endurance weeks over the winter and the training plan has about 14.5 hours of bike hours for the week. I now remember why I got really, really sick of training. Working full time, commuting two hours a day, and coping with darkness at 5:30 makes it quite the challenge to get those hours in without taking a day of work off. Yesterday, I was super-fortunate to have Veterans day off and got an incredibly delightful 3 hour road ride under my belt for the week. Hubby joined me for half of it which made it even more delightful. Right now, the heart rate is to be between 60 and 70%, so its easy to ride with hubby. Today, I woke up feeling the accumulation of 4 days straight riding in my entire body. Luckily, today is core/stretching/walking day and I'm grateful. Tomorrow and Sunday are 6 more hours of riding and I'm adding 2 hours of paddling tomorrow too because I love my husband and miss paddling with him. Sooo... the week will end up with over 17 hours of training. And I'm loving every training second. I adore a challenge. Next week? Repeat. Bring it on baby!