Smarter, Not Harder

Back in February when I wrote out my six month goals, one of them was to work smarter, not harder or longer. Today at Milan- San Remo was a perfect example of putting that into action.  

This is the longest one-day race of the year and that played a major decision into how I organized my time and planned my approach. Additionally, it's probably the biggest single day for the team of the year. So my race aim was to maximize that potential and I managed to do it in the easiest way possible. To be honest, this was by far my easiest (and favorite) Milan-San Remo to date.  

In the past, I drove the many hours from Milan to San Remo. After the race, I drove again to Nice. This meant I spent probably 6-7 hours in the car driving stressful Italian roads. I was exhausted by the end and far from the sharpest me. 

This year, I split up duties and assigned tasks to other people. Basically, the thought was 'how can they support me from afar?' I simply left from the start and drove 30 minutes to a decent but basic airport hotel that had solid wifi. I was able to be productive from start to finish. No time was lost driving a car or fighting with Italian wifi and I feel I was able to achieve even more professionally.  

Little pat on my back for thinking outside of the box and figuring out ways to be smarter. And now sleep. Super early tomorrow, I'm hopping on a plane for the USA.  

No Sleep For Me

I'm not exactly sure what happened last night, but I woke up probably 15 times during the night and then was wide awake at 4:45am. I'm sure a lot had to do with the fact my hotel room was 28C (!!!!) and even with the windows open, it remained sweltering. I laid in bed until about 5:30am willing myself to go back to sleep and then I just gave up.

There is something to be said for feeling like you've already worked a full day before 11am, especially when it is a crazy week like Milan-San Remo. Instead of feeling frustrated with my lack of zzzzs, I told myself that I could nap later if I needed, but why not go ahead and get moving. I eased into the day with a little journaling, meditating and then work. I got thru a ton of emails and general work duties that had been pushed to the back burner and set an alarm for 7am. Then I stopped working and squeezed in a workout: 30-minute strength training and then a solid 45-minute walk. I think that walk ended up being the best part of my day; I got away from the hotel and actually into what resembled the country. It was foggy, still a little chilly and simply peaceful.

By 8am, I think I had gotten in what would end up being 85% of my step count. The rest of the day went by in a blur of interviews, driving around Milan center to pick up race credentials, chopping down on maybe one too many RXBars, losing my parking ticket, banking loads of video interviews and tackling even more emails and reports.

It might be St. Patty's day for some, but for me, it's Milan-San Remo eve. That means it's 9:15pm and I'm crawling into bed and hoping for a much more restful night. Tomorrow is the longest day in bike racing and I've got a new plan of attack that's different from previous years. I'm a bit excited to see how it all unfolds....

(and I never napped.)

Milan-San Remo Monday

This week is full gas; one of those weeks that the whole calendar is based off of. I knew all weekend today would be big; I woke up this morning feeling blah, feeling overwhelmed. I felt like my to-do list was so long that it couldn't be tackled. I felt defeated before starting. And it was only 7:30 am. 

I spent the weekend thinking about this. I knew feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and buried wasn't how I wanted to start the week. I tried to avoid it and here it was. So I took a few moments to slow down and make the conscious decision to approach everything better.

instead of feeling buried by that massive to-do list, I told myself I would get it done. I'm not lazy and checking boxes would be enough. There was no need to approach it like it was anything bigger than a list. Step-by-step. 

But more importantly, I decided to find a happy, positive and good mental place to approach it all from. Instead of being buried, I tackled it.  

Guess what. It's after 10:30 pm and I worked until now. I never saw this coming. But I'm okay. It was all for the greater good and I'm excited about things to come. I smiled throughout the day, grabbed moments where I could and basically just went with things. Do I want to work this late? No. I have pretty strict boundaries I try to keep. Yet sometimes it's worth it and for the next two weeks, this might be more my norm than my exception. If I can keep approaching it from a positive, calm place, I feel pretty confident I can weather it (there better be some relaxing at the end of this!!!!) 

Con Brio!!!