hoping for a...

When I was in high school, my dad always begged me to get a C or two on my report card. I was a solid A/B student working my tail off to get those grades so I never really understood why he was asking me to achieve less. When I got older, I realized it was his way of saying a few things:

1) "I won't love you any less if you get a C"

2) "all work and no play makes Elizabeth a dull girl"

3) "don't kill yourself aiming for perfection...there's more to life"

Well, Dad, this week of my training is for you - I'm aiming to be a solid C student! In our training plans, there are three options (well, lots more, too, if you want to combine plans but for the sake of simplicity I'll speak of the three plans!): A, B, and C.

Most of the folks that I train with the most consistently are on the C plan...I think?! Some folks are working off of the A and B plans but there's just no way I could do that and keep my job and stay in touch with friends and family and sleep and keep smiling...oh, and eat and clean the house, etc... The differences in the plans look something like this - this week, those on the A plan will train 20 hours, those on the B plan will train 17 hours, and those on the C plan will train 14 hours. To my surprise though, many weeks so far, I've been a C+/B- student (maybe sometimes even a B student!) because I've snuck in an extra spin class, swim, run, or core workout. My little spreadsheet tells me how many hours I need to train and how many hours over my training I've gone. I can't really count the actual hours most weeks simply because it takes me a long time to complete those rides and runs on the weekends...if I were going by that, I'd be on the A plan! I'm no statistician but I give myself an overall B/B- for my training thus far - supposedly on the C plan but reaching a little higher. (My curse in life!)

But I'm willing to let this week bring down my overall average. No sneaking in one extra workout just because I can. No feeling guilty for not doing extra. It's my own little experiment with myself to see if it won't leave me with some more energy at the end of the week and some more time to sleep during the week. It's really easy to get caught up in the mentality of "more is always better" and sometimes in our training - and in life? - it's just not (not always...not for everything). And I'm trying to remind myself of that this week.

I often joke with friends that in my next life I'd like to come back as a "slacker" for just a few days to see what it feels like... Mind you, training for an Ironman on ANY plan is not something for slackers, but it's all relative and this might be my little stint of being a "slacker" in this lifetime...or at least in this training cycle.
So here's to a week of hitting my C plan on the mark...that's another way to look at it! Yep...I will ace being a C plan student. Putting it out there for everyone (who reads this blog) to see so that I can be held accountable. (Thank you, in advance...I clearly need sensible people to save me from myself from time to time!) Report card to be printed at the end of the week...
P.S. The last time I aimed for a C on a report card was in a history class in college where I remember thinking that I would throw a party for a C...and to tell you the truth, I can't remember what I did end up getting in that class. Lesson learned there, too - sometimes the things that seem so big in the present moment won't be anything we can even remember in the future.