stress

February was a very stressful month for me. I spent the entire month grading matriculation exams -- in addition to teaching and my private students. My body reacted accordingly and I got sick :-( Unfortunately, I managed to get sick just before my two 10ks. I took a day off from training and then a rest day before the Omer 10k and then, after going to one swim workout, I ended up taking off the entire next week until the Ein Gedi 10k. So I didn't get a lot of running in before my races. Stress and training do not go well together.

The stress took its toll on my tests at the end of the month, too. The swim test was the worst. I actually quit during the 400 meter test -- I only swam 300 meters. I just couldn't go any further. The 100 meter test was very slow -- 1:49 and the 50 meter test was even worse at :50. Those times were five seconds off the previous month's test times. And I quit my run test in the middle, too, mainly because I saw that my time was going to be bad -- I was already at 14:45 at 2.5 km. My bike test went well, though. I took three minutes off last month's time and finished the 20.2 km in very difficult conditions (dark, lots of turns, cars, potholes, etc.) in 45:49. At least something went right!

Race reports to follow in a separate post...