Brrain and Fatigue Connection

I am very curious about the brain and fatigue connection...so I started looking around online to see what people are talking about. I found some interesting (but not scientific) articles that have given me a direction to start looking in....BCAA's, tryptophan and serotonin. :) Here is what I read. IM NOT SAYING ITS RIGHT OR THAT YOU SHOULD DO WHAT THE ARTICLES ARE SAYING!! I just wanted to share what I read in case you are interested in talking with a professional about it.

----------------------
In fatigue, it only feels like we’re going to die. The actual physiological risks that fatigue represents are essentially trivial.’’Fatigue, the researchers argue, is less an objective event than a subjective emotion — the brain’s clever, self-interested attempt to scare you into stopping. The way past fatigue, then, is to return the favor: to fool the brain by lying to it, distracting it or even provoking it.

http://hanscschmid.blogspot.com/2009/07/are-ultra-endurance-athletes-out-of.html

Muscle fatigue is caused by the brain. Here are 10 ways to train your brain to delay muscle fatigue.

You know the feeling. You’re two miles into a 5K road race when you begin to feel a burning sensation in your windpipe, a growing heaviness in your legs, and an intense desire to slow down in your mind. The discomfort becomes more intense with each stride. By the time you cross the finish line you have just plain had it. You can barely stand. What causes these intense feelings of discomfort that are always associated with fatigue during hard running (or any other form of exercise)? Sports scientists used to believe that muscle fatigue was caused primarily by acid buildup and energy depletion. But within the past several years a revolution has occurred in the scientific understanding of muscle fatigue. A growing number of experts now believe that muscle fatigue is actually caused primarily by the brain. That’s right: the brain. The best evidence that muscle fatigue starts in the brain comes from studies involving sensors that measure electrical activity in the muscles. The amount of electrical activity in the muscles is a direct indicator of how hard the brain is driving them to perform work. In a recent French study, researchers found that an involuntary drop in performance during repeated bicycling sprints was accompanied by a comparable decline in electrical activity in the muscles. These results clearly showed that fatigue was not caused by acid buildup or any other factor within the muscles themselves. Instead, it was caused by reduced drive from the brain. Why would your brain cause your muscles to stop working when there’s nothing actually wrong with them? Researchers speculate that it’s your brain’s way of preventing you from exercising to the point where you severely damage your muscles or other organs. For example, the muscles do become slightly more acidic during intense exercise, such as a 5K road race. If they became too acidic, however, some of your muscle cells would be destroyed. To prevent such a disaster from occurring, your brain constantly monitors chemical and electrical signals sent from the muscles and other organs. When one or more of these signals seems to warn of impending harm, your brain produces conscious feelings of discomfort and reduces electrical output to the muscles to keep you safe. It so happens that rising acidity activates pain receptors in the muscles, serving as one of those warning signs. So, what does all of this mean to you? The new understanding of exercise fatigue is leading to a new understanding of how to enhance athletic performance. If muscle fatigue originates in the brain, then the brain should be the primary target of our efforts to prevent fatigue.

Here are 10 ways to “train your brain” for better performance.
1. Increase your pain tolerance According to the new, brain-centered model of muscle fatigue, the feeling of fatigue itself limits performance as much as physical events in the muscles. This does not mean fatigue is an illusion. The pain and suffering of fatigue force every athlete to slow down eventually. But there is significant variation in the level of pain and suffering that ultimately causes performance to decline in individual athletes. Beginning athletes tend to have a lower pain tolerance, because the pain of extreme muscle fatigue is unfamiliar. The brain is always somewhat overprotective in dealing with unfamiliar “threats” to the health of the organism. Thus, if you’re a beginner, your brain will force you to slow down at a lower level of fatigue than is required to make an advanced athlete slow down. But when you manage to push through a few hard workouts without suffering any permanent harm, your brain will relax a bit and allow you to push deeper into fatigue before you bonk. Take advantage of this phenomenon by doing two or three very hard workouts each week. Your objective is to gradually increase your ability to push through the sensations of muscle fatigue. Training essentially becomes a process of recalibrating your brain’s response to fatigue.

2. Obey the hard-easy rule Why not perform very hard workouts every day? The reason is that how hard you train is not the only thing that matters when it comes to recalibrating your brain’s response to fatigue. Your absolute performance level also matters. In other words, your workouts should serve not only to teach your brain that the pain of muscle fatigue won’t kill you, but should also to teach your brain that running at faster and faster speeds and/or for longer and longer distances won’t kill you either. In order to perform at a high level in your hardest workouts, you must not be fatigued already from prior training when you start them. That’s why you should not try to train hard every day. Doing at least one easy workout between hard workouts will help you perform better in your hard workouts and thereby gett a stronger “brain training” effect from them.

3. Do race-intensity workouts Brain training is essentially a matter of familiarizing your brain with the specific demands of competing. As a runner or other type of endurance athlete, you want your brain (and body) to be most familiar with race intensity. You should therefore do workouts involving race-intensity efforts throughout the training process. In the early stages of training, expose yourself to only small doses of race-intensity running (or whatever) while focusing on building a foundation to support peak race-specific fitness later with longer, slower efforts and shorter, faster efforts. Gradually increase the amount of race-pace running you do as you draw closer to your most important race. In the final weeks of training, do some highly specific workouts that are almost as hard as the race itself will be.

4. Don’t overtrain Hard workouts stimulate the release of cytokines, special immune system cells that coordinate the body’s response to the stress of exercise. One of these cytokines, IL-6, is known to enter the brain and cause fatigue. After a hard workout, cytokine levels remain elevated as they aid in the repair of exercise-related muscle damage. Cytokine levels remain chronically elevated in athletes who overtrain—who do too many hard workouts and do not rest enough between hard workouts. Many athletes assume that the muscle fatigue they experience during workouts is totally different from the fatigue of incomplete muscle recovery, but they are really the same. Both are brain-based self-protective mechanisms whose function is to prevent you from doing too much. It is important that you consistently monitor your recovery status and take measures to ensure that you do not allow yourself to enter the chronic fatigue state of overtraining.

5. Cross-Train Cross-training is any type of exercise besides running that you do for the sake of improving your running. There are three basic types of cross-training that have been proven beneficial to runners: resistance training, flexibility and mobility training, and non-impact cardiovascular training. Each type of cross-training has a brain training dimension. Resistance training improves communication between the brain and muscles in ways that enable you to run more efficiently and with less chance of injury. Flexibility and mobility training enhance running efficiency by training your neuromuscular system to eliminate unnecessary muscle tension from your stride. Non-impact cardiovascular training increases running efficiency and fatigue resistance by training neuromuscular patterns that are similar to but slightly different from those used in running. Your brain can then “transfer” some of these patterns back to running in ways that boost efficiency and fatigue resistance.

6. Work on your technique The motor center of your brain stores the information that controls your muscles during running and other sports actions in a manner that is similar to how a computer stores software programs. These movement programs are highly adaptive. Many endurance athletes, and especially runners, do not adequately appreciate their capacity to modify and improve these programs by actively working on their technique. As a runner, the best way to work on your technique is the same way athletes do in other sports, such as golf, that are recognized as technique-dominant: by imitating the best. Throughout every run you do you should consciously control you stride in one or more ways to make it more like the strides of elite runners. Concentrate on landing on the mid-foot with your foot underneath your hips, moving with prefect left-right symmetry, generating powering from the hips, minimizing ground contact time, and staying relaxed in your upper body.

7. Use protein power Sports drinks are known to enhance performance in running and other sports by limiting dehydration and supplying extra carbohydrate fuel to the muscles. Sports drinks containing carbohydrate and protein are proven to enhance performance more than conventional sports drinks containing only carbohydrate. They appear to do so in part by lowering perceived exertion, or how hard exercise feels at any given intensity.

8. Empty your gas tank The cytokine IL-6, mentioned above, not only causes fatigue during exercise but also helps coordinate some of the positive fitness adaptations that occur between workouts. These adaptations include improved fat burning efficiency and greater resistance to exercise-related muscle damage. The primary trigger for the release of IL-6 is depletion of muscle glycogen stores. The best way to deplete your muscle glycogen stores is to do a very long workout ending in near exhaustion. By doing this type of workout on a regular basis—once every week to ten days—you will maximize the rate at which fitness adaptations resulting from IL-6 circulation occur.

9. Visualize perfection The motor programs for running and other sports actions that are stored in your brain can be modified even when you’re at rest. When an athlete imagines himself running, he activates the same neurons (brain cells) that become active when he actually runs. You can take advantage of this phenomenon to improve your technique by imagining yourself moving with flawless technique during brief mental rehearsals. A good time to perform these rehearsals is at night, in bed, before you go to sleep. Just five minutes per night is adequate.

10. Set higher goals When you run a race, you cover the race distance as fast as you can. But upon finishing, how do you know you’ve actually run as fast as you could? You simply feel that you ran as fast as you could. But this feeling is not 100% reliable. For example, studies have shown that runners run faster in races against matched competition than they do in solo time trials, despite the fact that they feel they are running as fast as they can in both circumstances. The brain always allows a safety buffer that prevents you from running truly as fast as you could and thus risking self-harm. The size of this buffer is influenced by various factors. Basically, the more motivated you are, the smaller the protective buffer you will, and the faster you will run. Competition is a motivational factor that shrinks the buffer. It is also influenced by goals. If you set an appropriate race time goal, you will be able to run races faster than you could if you ran strictly by feel without a number in mind. A race time goal is like an imaginary competitor to race against.
http://www.poweringmuscles.com/Article-68,10_Ways_To_Train_Your_Brain_For_Better_Performance.html

Endurance PerformanceGlutamine supplementation is most effective during those times of high-volume and/or high intensity training, particularly if you are in danger of OTS. Though glutamine may not offer a direct ergogenic performance enhancing effect, it will offer insurance for the maintenance of skeletal muscle and immune function. It’s anti-catabolic and immuno-stimulant properties are critical during times of heavy training. There is also evidence supporting the use of glutamine to enhance glucose replenishment. Using glutamine in conjunction with carbohydrates and proteins further improves glycogen re-synthesis. Sustaining adequate glutamine levels may also help modulate the damaging effects of cortisol. Supplementation with 6 - 8 grams/day of BCAA and glutamine has been shown to decrease protein degradation during ultra-distance triathlon competition; decrease exercise induced muscle damage after prolonged running, and improve 40K cycling time trial performance.
Although the direct physiological association and mechanism between glutamine and endurance performance is still a bit unclear in the scientific community, the consistent increases and decreases of plasma glutamine experienced in different athletes participating in different modes of exercise, duration and intensity make it a valuable blood marker monitoring tool for both positive and negative adaptations to training.
Studies have investigated the effect of BCAA supplementation immediately before, during, and after endurance exercise. There is some evidence to support BCAA supplementation during endurance exercise but it has been criticized due to methodological errors and lack of control (Davis et al., 2000). It is difficult to separate the effect of carbohydrate and BCAA’s on the brain and muscle, but data does exist to support a beneficial role of the two combined on central fatigue during endurance exercise. The evidence is stronger to support supplementation of BCAA’s during recovery of endurance exercise and to reduce incidence of infection.
However, new evidence supports that oral ingestion of BCAA’s during exercise can have an anti-catabolic effect on skeletal muscle. Specifically, leucine can stimulate muscle protein synthesis (Lynch, 2003). When combined with carbohydrate feeding during exercise, BCAA’s stimulate protein synthesis and maintain whole body protein balance better than carbohydrates alone (Koopman, 2005). When BCAA’s were consumed during resistance training Shimomura et al. (2006) found a significant reduction in delayed onset muscle soreness (a.k.a. DOMS). Additionally, when swimmers consumed 12 grams of BCAA’s they had reduced post-exercise urinary protein metabolites suggesting that they experienced reduced protein turnover (Tang, 2006).
In another, more recent study (Matsumoto, 2007), the consumption of a 16-ounce beverage containing 2 grams of BCAA’s with 0.5 grams of arginine and 20 grams of carbohydrate at the beginning of a one-hour moderate (50% of maximal work intensity) exercise session, suppressed skeletal muscle protein breakdown. Previous studies have shown that higher doses of BCAA’s produce a positive effect but this study provided evidence that even a low amount of BCAA’s can be beneficial in preventing muscle protein breakdown which is seen in moderate to intense exercise.
http://blog.firstendurance.com/2009/07/amino-acids-their-role-in-endurance-training/

The mental choreography of fatigue is intricate, involving messages sent not only from the brain to the straining muscles but also to various areas within the mind as well. Data from some recent brainwave studies of athletes showed that during long, hard exercise, there’s often a moment when portions of the brain become “de-aroused,” Foster says. “It’s similar to depression,” he adds, and plays out in motivation. You begin to wonder why in the world you’re running, swimming or pedaling so hard. You slow down.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/going-all-out/

Boulder Long Course (70.3) Race Report

I wrote this to my coach, so it might sound like I am talking to him..I was.

Few days leading up to race: hydrated really well with plenty of electrolytes. Didn't work too much. Slept pretty well. Tried to stay calm as much as possible. Made lists of everything I needed. Finished packing with my lists the night before.

Night before: Slept pretty well, considering. Went to bed at 8:30pm and had taken a nap earlier in the day.

Day of: got up, ate some ground turkey, a banana, and hydrated. Took another banana and ate before the swim.

Warm up: fine.

Swim: wasn't prepared for the mass start. That was my first co-ed mass start. A little hectic. Need to be more aggressive. Had a hard time sighting due to the sun, but tried to follow the others while looking for the red bouys. Didn't take for granted that anyone else knew where the hell they were going. My googles didn't fog up, but they leaked. They didn't leak when I tried them in the pool. Had to stop a few times when they were too full (in the right eye). Kept bumping in to people. Had to stop and look for a path between people. Kicked someone in the stomach. Ouch. Didn't realize the last yellow bouy was a TURN bouy--thought it was the end. "Sprinted" to the yellow--then learned I still had a ways to go to the beach. Need to know the course better before starting. The swim itself was ok. I was a little choppy and wasn't quite sure what was going on a few times. Need to be more confident in the path. Also need to get stronger. Not sure I can hold that pace for 2.4 miles!

T1: uh.....slow as hell. Not sure why. I felt a little dazed and found myself kind of standing there trying to figure out what was going on. Never felt that way before. Also haven't raced that distance or that fast. Is it normal to be out of it? Before I left I did a little mental check--bike, helmet, glasses, watch, food.....took WAY too much time. Need to get a better routine. When I came out of T1--I was 1)turning my watch on to get the 15 minute interval beep to remember to eat (didn't think to do that before I got in the water), 2) was trying to get my Garmin to turn on (Julia told me today that I can turn it on BEFORE the swim and it will be ready when I get there)...I also got lost on one of the menus. It'll be fine once I get that sequence right. And 3) I was trying to get my bike computer turned on in case my garmin failed. Now that I trust the Garmin, won't need the bike computer. So yes, I screwed up using it this race and lost some time, but now I know--and no, you can't have it! :-p That's why I was fucking around with all the buttons. Unprepared. I just didn't know. :)

Bike troubles: When you saw me and helped me out of transition...My bike was FINE earlier in the morning...but I took it out and then put it back in the rack and it might have back pedaled and the chain fell off. I honestly don't know. It WAS fine when I put it in there. So I finally manage to get on the bike (which I have forever had a hell of a time doing when people are watching--must practice!! ) and started off. Still wasn't clipped in right. Tried to clip right foot in--and my foot got caught at a weird angle. Almost took myself and another biker out. FINALLY made it out of the res.....and was going UP a hiill. I shifted gears and the chain fell off again. Scrambled because I was in the wrong gear, clipped in to bike, falling over. Got unclipped, put bike on ground, fixed chain....stood up to get back on bike..couldn't get bike to go....too tough of a gear. Shit! Tried again, almost fell over. Tried again, did fall over. Tried again...still can't get in the pedals and up the hill. Said fuck it and ran my bike 100 ft to the top of the hill...and rode away. I believe my watch said 11:07. SHIT--I had lost so much time! Oh well....this is triathlon and I am challenged.

Bike ride was awesome. I felt great. Felt strong. Took the hills easier than ever. Pace was faster than normal and much easier. Felt good. Knew it was 12 miles to St. Vrain--then it was FLYING time. :) Heartrate was in the mid to high 170s up the hill. Not sure what it was going down--didn't look. Was hanging on for dear life. :) Stopped at two of the three water stations. YES--I said STOPPED. I don't know how to grab water from a volunterr and get it in my waterbottle holder. So I didn't attempt it--it would have been sudden death. At four of the six (total) water stations I stopped my bike, opened the water bottle, poured it in my aerobar holder, and then left the aid station.

For the ride I made a bottle with EIGHT scoopes of perpetuem and 8 endurolytes. I made enough nutrition for 4 hours--just in case. I finished almost the entire bottle by the time I had 30 minutes left (I read it is best to not eat for 30 minutes before running so it's not sloshing around.) I did drink, though. In total I'm pretty sure I had 24 oz of water and 8 oz of perpetuem each hour...which is 32 oz of water--well above what it recommended. On the first loop--a fucking bug flew around my glasses and into my eye. I almost fell off the bike again--because I couldnt see--it was burning like crazy and I had to stop on the side of 119. Luckily noone was behind me. I rode with a bug leg in my eye for a bit though. The last five miles I held back a bit. There was a girl in front of me...and I wanted to pass her...but I wasn't sure that was the best thing...she was going the pace I WANTED to go...and I didn't want to have to go faster to stay out of her way...so I stayed back. I knew I was already ahead of my "planned" time, so I didn't worry about it.

I thought I did a great job on nutrition, but the run said differently--and so did my doctor today. Also, I DID NOT have any gels, which was probably a mistake. I could have used some more calories probably. I took in 1040 calories and probably burned more than that. Oops. Probably need more calories, more endurloytes and more water. Did notice a little headache a few times on the bike, come to think of it....that should have been my first warning. Damn.

T2: Much faster...not dazed and confused. Didn't think as much.

Run: First off--I ran out of perpetuem the night before when I was getting my stuff ready. I looked around at the stores around and noone carried it, that I could see from the internet. So..I made my water belt bottles with HEED. Not ideal--for me. I train with perpetuem on my long runs--not HEED. I was a tad bit concerned. I have never LIKED HEED. Now I know why! It doesn't work. :)

I also couldn't find my bottle of endurolytes the night before (the ones I had bought that day--what a fucking scatterbrain!)---so used all but three of the pills I had in a container to carry with me to put in the perpetuem and HEED bottles. Only had three pills on me. Thought I woulnd't need them. BIG F-ING MISTAKE!

So I start running--hear you tell me it's getting hot--put ice on my head. Running, running, running---look down at Garmin--9:30 miles--WTF? That's WAY TOO fast to start out with! That's faster than my average OLYMPIC time. Gotta slow down. Easier said than done. Body wants to go. Brain is screaming--WHAT ARE YOU DOING? ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY? SLOW DOWN! Then I remember your article. First three miles are the slowest, last three are the fastest. OK, SLOW THE FUCK DOWN, BRANDY. Heartrate---NOT in my magic number zone. Didn't EXPECT it to be, though. If I wanted it to come down, I was going to have to walk the 13 miles. So, I went off of my breathing. Tried to keep that under control. Worked off and on. The hills really got me--physically but mostly mentally. Hit mile 1--WHERE IS THE FUCKING AID STATION I say outloud. It's up over the hill and around the bend, on the way to grandmothers house. WTF? I thought they were EVERY mile??? They weren't on the same mile system that I was on. Frustrating!

Run a mile--walk a minute. Did this EVERY mile. Also ended up walking alot more than the plan. I just could not make myself WANT to go...especially up the hills. Walked a lot of the hills--espcially second loop. Heartrate never came down. When I walked for more than a minute one time, it got down to 163. The rest of the time, even though I was trying to run at a steady pace (9:50-11:30 pace), it was usually in the mid 170s. Too high, I know---but that's where it was...and it was not going to come down unless I stopped and stood still for a while, then crawled the half marathon. I was not going to do that. I don't know what the right thing to do was. So I kept going, took a lot of breaks, tried to relax......You were in my head the whole time. One time I looked down and someone had written "suck it up buttercup" with chalk in the middle of the road.....and I smiled---it was like you were there!

Mile 4-ish--was given a frozen sponge. Oh my god--the best thing in the world. I kept it. My favorite part of the race besides finishing. Second loop I got two. Couldn't get the ice to stay on my head--so put ICE WATER on my head. VERY refreshing! I lived for each aid station and every mile marker. The HEED made me feel too sugary, but I kept drinking becuase it had the endurlolytes. Oh---almost forgot to tell you--almost every single step on the half marathon was a half cramp--either in my quad or hammie or calf muscle. My leg would start to cramp, then stop. EVERY SINGLE FREAKING STEP!! I bent over a few times to stretch and my legs went to seize up--so I stopped that. I just hoped and hoped and hoped that I would not find myself on the ground. If lifting my leg made it worse...I didn't lift it very high. If anything made it worse, I stopped doing it.I was a slave to cramps. The doc today said it was because I was dehydrated. I don't know how---32 oz on the bike, water bottles galore on me..stopped at ALL of the aid stations and poured water on me and down my throat (except for a few--but I had my water bottles on the belt). Had one gel on the course. Should have skipped the HEED and had gels.

I don't believe that I hit the wall physically--although maybe--and I just didn't realize it--if I was truly dehydrated. But mentally--oh my goodness. There were times I didn't want to take another step on that run course. Three times I actually stopped in the middle of the road and just stood there for a minute. That felt good. Having the garmin helped--I could see when I only had .20 miles to make it to a mile marker--then I could run there. The last .6 miles of the race was the hardest. I was SOOO close...and I was soo close to finishing under 6:30! I told my legs to run, but they (or my brain) said nope--let's walk. We're tired. Part of me was like: "We're so fucking close and seriously--what is .60 miles after doing 70??? GO GO GO! Nope. So I ran a few steps, walked a few steps..on and on. Finally, got to the crowd and used them as a means of energy to run the last .2 miles...even though I truly didn't WANT to run it.

It was cool to hear my name over the loud speaker. Very cool to see so many of my friends and family. :) Eric told me right away that you and Julia were over at awards--and that she took second. I got over there as fast as I could. I was totally out of it....but Duane said I said (upon finishing) that I need a LOT more training. Yes, indeed. Bring the training. I will train, train, train.....whatever it takes to get across that finish line at 140.6. Because not training enough and training too much would be torture.

So that was my race.

I feel a bit different as a person today, but I can't explain it. I'm not jumping up and down, but for once I am really proud of myself, despite wanting to tear the race apart and find all the flaws. I guess it's still hard to believe I did it....

Looking back, the swim and the bike were FUN....like a nice long training day that was going really well. When the run came, that's when reality hit..hard. On a pain scale, I felt the same as I did at the olympic....it all turns to mental shit on the run at the res. I HATE that run course. Of course, I will do it again next year--but I'll probably still hate it.

Times:
Swim: time was ok--with a few fixes, I can get better.
Bike: being more prepared and better at riding will drastically improve my time. I also want to get a hellava lot faster. Cycling is way cool and I love it. I have improved leaps and bounds this season already! I can't wait to see what I can do in Arizona! My girl parts are STILL tingly..and not in a good way.
Run: story speaks for itself. It was absolutely my WORST half marathon time ever. I'd like to be able to hold 10 mins/mile. Maybe that will take a while.

Heartrate: Hmmmm..not sure what we are going to do about this. 153-158 is just not going to work for racing. Maybe on a flatter course. I don't know.

Days away from 70.3

I can't blog with earphones in my ears. Is that the same thing as trying to skip and chew gum at the same time?

T minus one week until my first 70.3. In a way, doing this particular course is like giving my virginity, that I've saved for 32 years, to a really ugly ex-boyfriend. I've been there, done that, hated it, and now I'm going back to give myself over to it again, to live in my memory forever and ever. The swim and bike are fine (if you like 12 miles of uphill each loop), but the run course leaves MUCH to be desired...if it is what I think it is. In fact, it is what I think it is because Jess and I have been out there to do that loop. Boulder Rez is open, treeless, and very very dirty--and not in the good dirty way--the BAD dirty way. The kind of dirty that gets in your skin and your beautiful new $130 running shoes and stays there forever---so that every time you look at yourself or put on your shoes, you remember the pain and suffering. And it's supposed to be hot. Like 95 degrees hot. Water on head for the bike, ice on head for the run. I think I will put ice down my shirt, actually. Save the ta-tas from overheating. They have feelings too.

Today I went to a 3000 person all female triathlon--Tri for the Cure. My friend Kelly did her first tri. I was sooo excited to be there to support her and see what the experience is like as a spectator. It was really cool. I teared up a few times, thinking about what she was accomplishing, knowing how much she was hurting. In reality she made it look easy. Which made me set a new goal. My new goal is to ALWAYS come through the finish line with a smile. Not the usual: "Am I still alive?" scowl. GOOD JOB, KELLY!

Now it's 6:43pm on Sunday. I still have time to work on an application for a leadership program I'm trying to get in to, do laundry and plan my week, day by day, preparing for this race. Coach Pete said that I need QUIET FOCUS--watch a movie, read a book, meditate. Maybe I will buy a new book and do just that--read. Calm. Serene. Meditative.

I feel pretty good. I got two weeks of taper. Not sure why, but Pete does, do I didn't ask. He knew he gave it to me. I am enjoying it. Takes some stress off of me in ways. Other ways I worry if I am getting out shape. Again, I"m not the coach, so I try not to worry.

I'm really tired. Maybe I'll just go to bed. :)

Later gaters.