Friday, August 26, 2011

The week I needed....

Let's call it my yo-yo week.

After a cracking weekend consisting of a great ride with Jas & Brad and then backing that up with another great Sunday running the Bellarine Trail run with Scott, Adrian and Peter Whyte. This all seemed fantastic, however with Monday's swim, things turned (or the yo-yo fell). I really struggled to get through 3k....managed just 3.3k!

Monday night massage seemed all good and then by the time Tuesday rolled around, I was done. Stuffed, exhausted even after a recovery day. My mind wanted to, my body told me that I was kidding myself for trying. 3 consecutive nights in bed before 8pm, sleeping right through until 7am is unlike me....Something was not right.

As much as I wanted to train Tuesday, I just couldn't. So I took the day off training, hoping to recover from feeling so tired. After consecutive weeks of 20+hrs training, this was bound to happen...or was it?

When I look back at my weekend, and review my sessions compared to my program, I know why this happened. My Saturday was perfect, however my Sunday wasn't. My session was supposed to be an easy run which I intended it to be. Running with a few lads at 5min per k was ideal, perfect for what I have planned. 22k into the 34k run, I was feeling good and decided to have a bit of a dip. Why? Because I had my athlete hat on and as as athletes we like to have a dip every so often. Putting my coach's hat on....Silly Silly move.

So back to the athlete version. Feeling good, let's see how I am feeling. So for the remaining 12k, I was running 4min k pace for the first 2 of that and then ran the final 10k in 38.50min. Legs felt great, thinking all was great.

Come Tuesday I knew this is where things went wrong.

Enter Wednesday and my body was heading the right direction adn was able to put in some good training. Even managed a pb over a 1k TT in the pool....13min 20sec. Things back on track. Throw in a ride and some good running and I was confident that the yo-yo was on the way back up.

Yesterday proved that correct with all sessions going according to plan and the body feeling close to where I expect it to be. Ticking off the sessions was satisfying to say the least. Today is another easy day before a MONSTER weekend in front of me. One that I am really looking forward to for probably all the wrong reasons!!

Heading out for a 4hr ride in the morning with a race effort for 2hrs of that, followed by a run, then backing up for another 3hr ride in the afternoon with another run will just be the start of it.
Once I get through that, I will be greeted with a 2hr 50min hill run Sunday, followed by a 2hr 30min ride than capped of nicely with a recovery swim. How else would I rather spend the weekend now the weather has turned for the better??

In amongst that I cannot forget to enter IM Melbourne. An Ironman in my backyard....GOLD!! It will make my busy race schedule even busier, but I am sure that with continuing with the great coaching from Andrew, I will be able to punch out a solid performance.

Anyway, the sun is shining and the pool is calling.

For now...

X-Man

PS. The lesson learnt from this week has made me a more complete athlete, as at times we as athletes think we know better, however keep your trust in the coach as they take the emotion out of writing the program and write it logically for each person.

1 comment:

  1. Great Stuff X. Loving the training with you. if only I could ride as well.

    ReplyDelete