August 4th, 2017
Each week I’ll let you all in on the workouts I did for the week. So, for last week my training looked like this:
Monday: swim in the morning @ Riverbank State Park; bike in Central Park
Tuesday: strength training in the morning, run in the evening
Wednesday: yoga in the morning, swim at night
Thursday: strength train in the morning, run in the evening
Friday: REST DAY! (which includes some light stretching and foam rolling)
Saturday: Brick workout
Sunday: Long run in the morning and yoga in the evening
I realize that for some people looking at the above, it probably seems like a lot of workouts and all this may not be possible for everyone. For me this is all possible for a few reasons: I’m a morning person, so when the alarm goes off at 5:00 am, I’m instantly out of bed; I have fairly flexible work hours; my body is used to being very active and moving a lot – having been a dancer for a good part of my life and having 8- 10 hour days of classes and rehearsals, I respond fine to this training load.
I try to follow our plan in Training Peaks as much as possible, but sometimes I do tweak it here and there. I also try to keep it as consistent as possible, but, hey, sometimes life just gets in the way; and as Type A as I am, I’ve learned to let it go because, I’m not a professional athlete out there winning races (one can dream though, right?!)
I’m also going to try as much as possible to not talk about or mention specific times for any workouts. Why? Because I used to be that person who saw other people’s times/paces and would compare myself to them. Newsflash: I’m NOT them. I’m my own athlete with my own strengths and weaknesses and my own life circumstances that affect my training. What feels or looks slow for me one day, might be someone else’s fast, so it’s all relative.
So, speaking of paces, this past week’s training, I definitely kept up with what workouts I did, but as far as the intensity goes dialed it back a bit. I was sick for a few days last week and actually ended up taking the weekend off from all workouts. Getting over fatigue from being sick plus the horrendously hot temperatures – I do NOT do well in heat and humidity- I knew would be a recipe for disaster. So, I made the decision to give myself some extra recovery days (ok, I may also have had some pressuring from my boyfriend to take off and rest).
Mentally it was the hardest thing ever to take two days off, let alone two days of pretty key workouts in my training; but let me tell you, physically it was the best thing I could have done for my body. Once I got back into workouts, I literally felt like I had a whole new body and the freshest pair of legs ever!
I ended up having to do my speed work workout on Tuesday and that was where I really a noticed a difference. Having fresh legs meant I could have a quicker leg turnover. I also have to say that having come to triathlon-ing (I think I just made that word up) from being a marathoner, biking has also made such a huge difference in my running. Again, it’s taught me how to have a much quicker leg turnover. My swims this week also felt so much better in the sense that I wasn’t gasping for air after what had previously been not a real problem for me to get through.
So, moral of the story – as much as my Type A brain thinks taking a few days off is going to completely derail and undue all the training I’ve done, it is not going to. It actually helped me a lot- not only physically but mentally as well. Rather than push through tiredness and potentially just dig myself into a hole of over training, giving my body a break gave it the rest it needed to fully recover. Mentally, because I felt so good during the week’s workouts it gave me an extra confidence boost and has me looking forward to getting back to my normal intensity levels for next week’s workouts.
