Recover to Reward

Recover to Reward

 

It’s been a while since writing a blog, but I have a feeling this is going to be another PR season so I wanted to share my thoughts from the start and compare to the season end.  The last few seasons I’ve struggled with staying motivated and trying to maintain a consistent training schedule without getting burnt out.  I’ve tried different trends in training from the beginning and during but through all variety I noticed that I can sustain 6 months of great training before I mentally start caving in.  I’ve had different thoughts thinking it could be my not so great nutrition, training consistency, mental instability or trying to spread out races to stay focused.  This year I’m taking a whole new approach converging my training and main races into a 6 month window and see how I do. 

 

The last few years I would start heaving training November or December of the prior year and noticed around May I would hit my peak and start to wear off after.  I thought maybe if I planned an A race around May or June and another around September or October that I could do a quick recovery mid-summer, but that hasn’t worked.  After racing my first Half Iron distance June 2013 I didn’t want to break in worry of not getting back on the horse. I continued to train as normal, but when I raced Age Group Nationals in Milwaukee in August I didn’t feel motivated or have any gas left in the tank.  I gave it some serious thought and realized how I enjoy balancing triathlon with normal life activities and was like, “I’m going to drink and watch football this off season” and that’s exactly what I did. 

 

After Age Group Nationals I thought a lot about how I wanted to pursue 2014 and so I decided to continue base training and keep the muscles going, but nothing serious or overbearing.  My longest run consisted of 6 miles and some 4 milers here and there along with some bike trainer sessions.  My decision was to have fun and completely recover until the first of January and give it everything for 6 months and see how I do.  I had a feeling and so far it’s proven to be true that I figured the start of training would be rough and yes it has been as my legs are toasted!  As much as that doesn’t feel good I’m glad to know that I didn’t push to hard over the off season and fully recovered.  I’m anxious to see how my recovery will affect my upcoming season in regards to speed, endurance and if my body will stay motivated longer than 6 months.  I’m really hoping this theory works as I’ve tried different strategies and none have been successful so we shall see.

 

I’m still undecided as to take my revenge on the half iron distance or push for my true passion of racing Sprint Nationals in hopes of trying to qualify for Worlds.  Next blog post……..