I'm officially back on schedule with my coach. There are other small goals along the way, but my main focus this year is Placid. But with a (FINGERS CROSSED!) potential move in the cards, which would bring a new commute, as well as my new work schedule, the plan is to race a bit less this year. A few races are on the schedule to dust off the cobwebs, but the only thing set in stone is an early season olympic.
I was (I AM!) excited to get back on schedule. I had a great talk with coach last week, and waited in anticipation for my schedule to start February 1st. However, when I finally got the email with my daily workouts through February 20th I had a minor freakout. My running is staying the focus through mid-March, and I'm slowly adding in 3x bikes and 2-3x swims per week. I wasn't overwhelmed by the volume, and was excited to see the VO2 max running intervals and race-pace miles. But I just wasn't that excited about the rest of it.
So the plan for the next three weeks: Make a valid attempt at each workout. If I'm not feeling it - calling it quits isn't failing. But I need to at least make the attempt. Once I'm on the trainer - banging out 55 minutes of strength really isn't so bad. The worst part of swimming is simply getting in the damn water - once you're in, what's the difference between 1500 and 3000 yards?
Another change I am making this year (and I spent A LOT of time thinking about this on my long run this morning to take my mind off my frozen fingers and painfully cold ears) is focusing on getting the work DONE in the moment and not overanalyzing the data afterwards. In the past, I have been tedious about logging my workouts, writing down my paces and heart rate and exact mileage and comparing workouts and looking at my progress. I think it has served me well in the past, but I learned a lot about myself as an athlete last year, and I think one of my main takeaways when it came down to my confidence going into Ironman was to just get the damn work done and then move on.
The last change (for now) - no more Training Peaks. It's not a tool my coach uses - however last summer I continued to log my hours just so I could see my Monday-Sunday totals. But now that I've been through an ironman training block with my coach I have learned - when you work with a coach that creates a schedule in 10 or 12 day blocks, total hours per week means absolutely nothing. All it did was let me compare myself to what everyone else was doing - and in the end, it's only about what I'm doing to get me to the start of the race happy and healthy.
I was (I AM!) excited to get back on schedule. I had a great talk with coach last week, and waited in anticipation for my schedule to start February 1st. However, when I finally got the email with my daily workouts through February 20th I had a minor freakout. My running is staying the focus through mid-March, and I'm slowly adding in 3x bikes and 2-3x swims per week. I wasn't overwhelmed by the volume, and was excited to see the VO2 max running intervals and race-pace miles. But I just wasn't that excited about the rest of it.
So the plan for the next three weeks: Make a valid attempt at each workout. If I'm not feeling it - calling it quits isn't failing. But I need to at least make the attempt. Once I'm on the trainer - banging out 55 minutes of strength really isn't so bad. The worst part of swimming is simply getting in the damn water - once you're in, what's the difference between 1500 and 3000 yards?
Another change I am making this year (and I spent A LOT of time thinking about this on my long run this morning to take my mind off my frozen fingers and painfully cold ears) is focusing on getting the work DONE in the moment and not overanalyzing the data afterwards. In the past, I have been tedious about logging my workouts, writing down my paces and heart rate and exact mileage and comparing workouts and looking at my progress. I think it has served me well in the past, but I learned a lot about myself as an athlete last year, and I think one of my main takeaways when it came down to my confidence going into Ironman was to just get the damn work done and then move on.
The last change (for now) - no more Training Peaks. It's not a tool my coach uses - however last summer I continued to log my hours just so I could see my Monday-Sunday totals. But now that I've been through an ironman training block with my coach I have learned - when you work with a coach that creates a schedule in 10 or 12 day blocks, total hours per week means absolutely nothing. All it did was let me compare myself to what everyone else was doing - and in the end, it's only about what I'm doing to get me to the start of the race happy and healthy.
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