Knock Off the Off Season

Well, it's officially time to stop eating frozen yogurt for dinner, beer for desert, and maybe getting up before 9... This week was my official first week back into "Structured Training."  It's a weird time of year that often has my emotions up, down, in, out, twisted, mixed and confused.  The levels of motivation and volume are extremely counter balanced and an equilibrium is hard to come by.  To give you a little insight on how this feels check out this video.

 I'm not sure about you, but my initial reaction is "okay, lets go do mile repeats at 5k pace and get fast as freaking possible right this instant." I watched this video about twenty times last weekend before my first, and hopefully not last cyclocross race of the year. Lets just say that video + a concentrated dose of caffeine via a french roast had me wired.  Back on topic, when I think of the winter season... I get excited I can't lie.  It's the time of year where I make friends with the pain that is indoor training.  Which, lately I've been referring to as "a date with Igor." I mean seriously, what endurance athlete Loveesss doing lunges and squats and anything with weights. NOT high intensity enough for me, I need the wind, the visual stimulus of being outside and seeing things go by quickly. No, indoor training isn't what excites me about the winter months, it's the prospect of fitness gains.  You get  extended periods of times with no races, no tapering, no nothin'! I like the idea of working hard, getting sore, and then continuing to get after it. So you can imagine my excitement after watching the above video, and starting training this week.  What was my huge painful schedule this week? 25hours of tough intense sessions each day? 100X100's on the 1:30 in the pool? Nope, just 8.5 measly hours of less than exciting swimming, biking and running.

This did not match the feeling I got after watching that video. 

Looking ahead, I don't see the volume start to spike any time soon either, what gives!?  Coach Liz is a smart cookie, I'm sure she knows me better than I actually realize.  She know's that If she gave me mile repeats right now, I'd eat them up, I'd LOVE it. You're thinking "He likes mile repeats, but think's a crunch is boring? What a weirdo."  I'm right there with ya on that one.  I always grew up thinking MORE is better especially with high school coaches urging you to squat the day before a race.  To a certain extent it's true more volume = more fitness.  How do we make time for MORE?  Usually by cutting out the easier work, and time for recovery.  I'm in my last year as an exercise science major and something that I've known for a while, but finally come to terms with is stress = stress. There is no magic workout that gets Craig Alexander able to run a 2:42 marathon at the back half of a Ironman.  What gets him there is recovery. Stress + recovery = adaptation - a common formula you'll see Bob Seebohar founder of Fuel4mance use.  I couldn't agree more, actually I think this is a better way to put it, Stress + (Recovery^2) = Adaptation.  Be smart about your workouts, and recover HARD and OFTEN, and you'll be healthy on race day and reach 90% of your potential, I can nearly guarantee it.

What can ruin a season is being greedy, I learned this first hand in the early months of the race season this year. All winter I had been CRUSHING my workouts, even though March - May I was running faster than I had in most races, during easy workout runs.  I was ready to cut 10 minutes from my Olympic distance times, NO PROBLEM.  The problem was I was being greedy, I was running too hard, when I should have been RECOVERING hard.  In June, I had started to see difficulty running paces that I just fell into earlier in the year. Aches and pains didn't go away in a couple days like they used to. Luckily I knew the symptoms of overtraining well enough to know what was going on, I relaxed a bit and was able to still have a good season.

Think of your season like any endurance race, 70.3, half marathon, marathon it's all the same.  In the early parts of your season (or the race) you want to feel good, know you can go faster but be confident in the fact that you DON'T need to.  This requires a good deal of patience, persistence, and optimism.  Three words that regularly cross my mind while racing for 4.5+ hours.  Leave it to the sprinters to not be patient, we are endurance athletes. Being patient is key, if you want to get "as fast as freaking possible this instant" you're going to have a short lived career.  It's not too often I start out the run of a 70.3 100%, and the same goes for any season.  Persistance is the back bone of all endurance racing and the key to consistency.  With training weeks nearly as long as the work week, how do we make it to the next rest day, or the next transition, or the finish line.  Persistence in training (which includes recovering) is how we keep the fitness gains rolling without plateaus or peaks.  Though some days you need to know when a rest day, or stopping and stretching is absolutely necessary, optimism through the rough patches of training or racing is how you continue you to reach your goals.