Doh
So, apparently Coach totally screwed up my training over the past week or so. Like royally f'ed up... last week was a rest week, but I didn't arrive at this week very refreshed, made it halfway through the week's workouts before falling apart yesterday and barely making it up and down the pool with fins on this morning.
Coach is in big trubs.
The thing is, Coach is actually Me. Clearly I am not the best coach in the whole world, ready to take an athlete to levels beyond her wildest dreams. I just fit into my own price range pretty well, and after 4 years of bike racing I figured I could bumble along on my own this year without being too much the worse for wear. Having a resident swim expert is helpful too!
But I am not firing myself. I think I just got a bit overenthusiastic with how good I was feeling (up until this week that is), and forgot that I can't train at 6,400' the same way I would at sea level. I think this is particularly true of a rest week, when I used to keep my intensity and just back off of the volume - for a cycle of two weeks on/one off at sea level, this worked well for me. I am thinking that was my primary mistake last week - I felt good so I ran and rode hard, just not for too long. But on Monday I felt sluggish, figured it was just because it was Monday, Tuesday sucked worse, Wednesday I muscled my way through a tough trainer workout, hoping my legs would come around even though the effort felt harder than it did a week and a half ago at the very end of my block, and that was pretty much my last gasp.
All just theorization of course. I am open to other analyses, for example "if you'd stop blogging about your cat/fish/mom/cleverness maybe your training would be more focused".
Now it's time for some hard-core relaxation (as if I had a choice! The SRM won't let me lie about the inefficacy of my legs, and the pool and treadmill are equally unforgiving). Maybe I'll even read a book (gasp!). Better to lose a few days now than a few weeks or months later on in the year...
Coach is in big trubs.
The thing is, Coach is actually Me. Clearly I am not the best coach in the whole world, ready to take an athlete to levels beyond her wildest dreams. I just fit into my own price range pretty well, and after 4 years of bike racing I figured I could bumble along on my own this year without being too much the worse for wear. Having a resident swim expert is helpful too!
But I am not firing myself. I think I just got a bit overenthusiastic with how good I was feeling (up until this week that is), and forgot that I can't train at 6,400' the same way I would at sea level. I think this is particularly true of a rest week, when I used to keep my intensity and just back off of the volume - for a cycle of two weeks on/one off at sea level, this worked well for me. I am thinking that was my primary mistake last week - I felt good so I ran and rode hard, just not for too long. But on Monday I felt sluggish, figured it was just because it was Monday, Tuesday sucked worse, Wednesday I muscled my way through a tough trainer workout, hoping my legs would come around even though the effort felt harder than it did a week and a half ago at the very end of my block, and that was pretty much my last gasp.
All just theorization of course. I am open to other analyses, for example "if you'd stop blogging about your cat/fish/mom/cleverness maybe your training would be more focused".
Now it's time for some hard-core relaxation (as if I had a choice! The SRM won't let me lie about the inefficacy of my legs, and the pool and treadmill are equally unforgiving). Maybe I'll even read a book (gasp!). Better to lose a few days now than a few weeks or months later on in the year...
Labels: enjoy the blog, freakout, lisa i'm HUNGRY do you have any food, tahoe
posted by Courtenay at 3/07/2008
5 Comments:
I just wrote a whole comment to you and then accidentally deleted it. It was sympathetic and had some advice. Then I said that I'd really like a lobster or a marco polo league at my pool. Feel free to send your training to me (loren@pink-media.com) and I'll have some opinions from some people for you. If not, I'll see you at the 2nd buoy at Tinley's.
Funny that you keep your intensity up on down weeks when that's the first thing to go for me. But then, I'm older than you. And I'm referring to when I'm not pregnant. Obviously, these days, intensity is more descriptive of my silly hormonal emotional responses to the silliest things. I don't really have any advice except that I learned that I can't do more than 16 day builds without needing an easy 5 days for recovery. And by easy 5 days, I mean not much of anything and none of it remotely intense. I CAN barrel through into week 3, but it gets ugly by mid week and takes longer to recover. Just not worth it. But that's me and I live near sea level, so what do I know?
You look BAD ASS in that picture of you facing away from the camera!
i know nothing about training for triathlons, but it sounds to me like walking a block at 6400' would be enough for me!
lol.
keep it up, courts! hopefully i will see you at the races soon :)
Hang in there! My problem with training is that I always second guess myself and then add on MORE volume, MORE intensity - which is the last thing I need. Sometimes quality is quantity (like training for IM or 1/2 IM or long distance road cycling), but also quality is just as important to keep in mind. Anyway - I don't trust myself enough to be able to plan my workouts... so I figure if I'm going to spend the money on races/equipment/etc/misc items, a coach or someone who can tell me what to do is pretty good. You've got a good deal going with your resident swim genius (yeah greg!), and you know a lot about cycling and running - obviously. Seriously - its probably just a few tweaks, will take a bit of expiramentation to figure things out - and then KAPOW - you'll be rock solid like the rock star you are!
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