Training Schedule, In Progress

    So I went out and got myself a large wall calender and a day planner to help solidify my training schedule for the next 7 months, the time remaining before my A Race, The Best in The West Half-Ironman. I have found my B and C races, added the Academy and drill nights, highlighted graduation day, and penciled in a few getaway weekends. Then I started counting back from The Race Day to see I have 31 weeks to get myself ready. In ascending order: Race Day, Race Week, Taper Week, Peak Week, 2 weeks of Race Specific Preparation, and two 3 week blocks of General Preparation aka Base Period. I have scheduled in a rest and recovery week every fourth week when my workout load will be greatly reduced. Now as I start getting more specific with my workout schedule I am feeling even more time strapped. There is so much I want/need to do to get myself ready, and yet life dictates that much of my day be spent on other endeavors. I was hoping that writing out a schedule would make me feel less stressed about lack of time, instead it is putting down in black and white just what an adventure this is going to be. I know that nothing truly worth having or doing comes without a price, and I willingly will pay the price in blood, sweat, and tears.
    I am only a few weeks into February with my specific schedule, and even so, I am sure that I will be cramming workouts in whenever the opportunity arises, scheduled or not. It does not help that I want to be incorporating some new, different training ideas into my weekly routine. My Spiderman Wall aka Traverse Wall, for example. And climbing rope. I think that right now, when my life is so busy and hectic, that it is best to keep forging ahead with my current training schedule, as it seems to be working well despite my serious lack of rest. I know I need to increase my running base, that is my number one priority between now and The Race. At the same time, I need to be mindful of my knees, feet, and ankles, and the osteoarthritis that lives there, pestering me, and waiting for an opportunity to launch a full-blown protest. I know I need to continue working on my overall fitness, strength, stamina, speed, and agility, just as I am doing currently. But I also know I will have to start adding more specific work before much longer.
    Why can't this be simpler? Why? Because I am not going to bonk this race. I will not feel like I am going to drown in the swim, burning precious energy. I will not exhaust myself on the bike trying to make up for time lost in the water. I will not have to walk the run because I have depleted my stores of strength and energy. I will Swim like a Selkie, Cycle like an Italian, and I will Run like Pheidippides. That is why this can't be simpler.

Need More Rest. Dammit.

    I never thought I would reach a point where my body feels as if I am over training. But that seems to be the best answer for how Body has felt lately. I am sure it is mostly lack of rest that is slowing my recovery and sapping my energy. 8 hours of sleep a night is a rarity these days, I am usually running on closer to 6. Not having my weekends free to catch up on sleep and rest is being more problematic than I had expected. I mean, shit, I am a strong, healthy female, I should be able to handle the physical stress like it was a walk in the park. Right? Right?! Apparently not. The more I research training schedules the more I stumble upon the sage advice that rest is a vital component to training. I guess I have just never before been living my life at such a frenetic pace that rest has become a commodity more precious than a Western Black Rhinoceros. My body is tired, and it hurts. I hurt from fingertips to toes, muscles, joints, even my bones ache. I have been told in the past that it is likely that I would be diagnosed with fibromyalgia if I were to go to my doctor and confess to all the pain, hyper-sensitivity, and weird-ass shit that plagues poor Body and Brain. But since I am inclined to disbelieve in fibromyalgia, and I wouldn't want to sound like a hypochondriac or whiner, my doctor will never know the whole truth. That being said, this last week I have been far more achy than usual, as well as sluggish, tired, and fuzzy brained. I wish I could sleep round the clock, just to feel like I have caught up a bit, but that will not happen. I don't have a day off for another 10 days, and then I am walking a half marathon, so it is not exactly a day of rest.
    Am I whining? Yeah, a little bit. The long and short of it is that I need to figure out how to incorporate a bit more sleep into my schedule. I am not sure how I can squeeze any more time out of my day, but I am beginning to think it is vital, not only to my training schedule, but to my quality of life. I need to get back on anti-inflammatory supplements as well, to try and knock back the joint and bone pain. Muscle fatigue is more manageable, I need to take one day of full rest every week, as much as I hate the idea. My diet is solid and healthy, chock-a-block full of whole grains, lean protein, and plenty of fruit and veggies. I know I am doing everything right, except the rest thing. Damn it, I don't have time to rest. I don't want to "take it easy." I want to keep charging through life at full speed, strong, healthy, vivacious, invincible. Rest? Sleep? I wish I could say earnestly that they are vastly over-rated, but I am learning the truth. Forcefully learning the truth about Body's need for rest. Damn it.

Death Sprints and Hypoxic Laps. Yeah, it's like that.

    Anyone who knows me will attest to my mildly (?) obsessive compulsive nature. I get very focused, to te point where I have difficulty prying Brain away from the current obsession. I have learned over the years to use this to my advantage. A current obsession is dialing in my training schedule and workouts. I know for fact that if I just continue on as I have in the past, doing hard workouts, but not expanding my range, or finding specific drills to improve my weaker areas. To this end, my OCD works to my benefit, I am an avid researcher. When I get focused on something, anything, I will research the hell out of it, reading everything I can get my hands on, finding the experts, picking out bits and pieces pertinent to me. I have found a great website: Active.com that has so many great articles on fitness, workouts, sport specific training, nutrition, race day tips, as well as an event calender. I spend copious amounts of my time there, perusing, gathering, gleaning, learning.
    With that being said, I am implementing a number of tweaks to my workouts to improve my fitness in very sport specific ways. Last night was swim night. I have been slowly adding drills to my regular swim. I know I can swim over 2 miles without stopping, so now I can focus on improving my ability to do open water swims without feeling like I am either going to sink to the bottom, or be grabbed by a tentacled monster, pulled into the weeds, and have my flesh sucked from my bones. Of course I know that it is imperative that I get into open water and swim, but before I do I am making sure that I am a strong, confident swimmer. Last night I added Hypoxic laps, and Death Sprints. Yeah, sounds freaking exciting, doesn't it?
    Hypoxic swimming teaches me to control my breathing. How? Instead of taking my standard breath every other right hand stroke, I increase the number of strokes between breaths. I focused on taking a breath every fifth or sixth right hand stroke, essentially tripling the number of strokes between breaths. Yes, I was swimming relaxed and easy, with long strokes. Funny thing, it is amazing how much smoother and more gracefully I can move through the water if I don't have to take a breath. I need to sprout gills. I did 3 sets of 5 laps of Hypoxic swimming. It felt great, and seemed to make my regular breathing all the better.
    Death Sprints are on the opposite end of the spectrum. I have incorporated sprints into my swims for a while now, usually spring 25 yards, race pace 75 yards, for 10 to 12 laps. With Death Sprints I swim as hard and fast as I can for as long as I am able. Last night that was 100 yards, or 2 full laps. This had me sucking wind a bit, and my shoulders felt the burn. My natural response is to want to either rest at the side of the pool, or roll onto my back for some easy backstroke and unrestricted breathing. Of course, that is not what I did. Instead, once the sprint was over, I returned to solid race pace and forced myself to regain control over my breathing. Yes, I felt a mild, rising panic as my lungs tried to convince me that we were not getting enough air, and we were going to drown. But Brain knew better. It was an interesting study in mind over matter. I did 3 sets of Death Sprints, and my ability to calmly recover while maintaining race pace improved with each set. This is a great lesson for me to learn. It is so easy in the washing machine effect of a triathlon swim start to feel rising panic and the inability to catch one's breath. Most who have ever entered a trathlon will attest to this. And in a sense, it does not get any better, at least in the sense that the swim start is chaotic, brutal, insane, and you are very likely to be kicked, bumped, swam over top of (yes, this has happened to me several times), and definitely splashed. It is utter chaos. So what I need to do is train my body to be less reactive to the chaos, to remain calm, control my breathing, and just swim. It is more difficult than it sounds.
    Death Sprints and Hypoxic Laps are a great way to train Body and Brain to understand that the adrenaline rush and chaos of the swim start is nothing to panic over, that it is all in a day's work, business as usual. Being able to stay relatively calm will save me vast amounts of energy and leave me in far better condition as I transition to the bike and run. I will keep adding specific drills to my workouts to refine my skills, build confidence, increase strength and stamina, and totally rock my race season.

Training Schedule

    I am finding an inordinate amount of my Brain space is being occupied by Training Schedule strategies. It is far more complex than on might wish. But I have vowed to myself that I will not take a haphazard or lackadaisical approach to preparing myself physically and mentally for an ass-kicking race. I want to kick ass, not have my ass kicked. There have been times in my past when I trained very hard for my sport only to fall flat when the main event came around (not racing, a previous sport). It was devastating on a very deep, psychological level. From what I know now about training, peaking, tapering, and nutrition I can see where I have made mistakes in the past. Last season I think my main failure, besides not quite enough training, was managing my race day nutrition, and that will be an ongoing experiment.
    I know that scheduling is not a precision, do or die endeavor. There is a lot of wiggle room to tweak as I go. With my A Race, and B Races on the calender I can begin moving in reverse to look at maximizing my Peak and Taper, and my over all training schedule. I am scheduling in several long runs during the racing season, trail half marathons, to give me running goals, targets, and situations in which I know I will push myself harder than in training. It is always easier to push myself when I am surrounded by lithe, lean, gazelle-like runners. These races will encourage me to add endurance, strength, and stamina to my running, which is undeniably my weakest discipline. Yes, open water swimming has been my nemesis, but that is mind over matter. I know I can swim 2 miles, but running half a marathon? Yikes. Having my A race in early September also gives me ample opportunity to practice open water swimming, so that the day of the race I will have no more difficulty than lap swimming at the pool.
    Brain is so full of all the information that it is currently jumbled and chaotic. I know it will all sort out in time. I am beginning to put it all down on paper. There is no real rush, I have a solid 7 months now to prepare Body, Mind, and Spirit. A few days early on to make a serious plan of attack will pay off tenfold on the day that I toe that start line, shivering in the cold morning, waiting the horn to signal the start of the swim. I am excited already.
   

My Ultimate "A" Race

    So many races it boggles the mind! I could race twice every weekend between now and December. Okay, that isn't totally true, there is an odd dearth of races in August. BUT I have found my half-Ironman: The Best In The West, September 7th, about 2 hours from home. I have been searching relentlessly. I was interested in the Pacific Crest Tri the last weekend of June, but it is at high elevation and I knew I would have trouble fitting in high elevation training to get acclimated beforehand. Then I looked at the Rev3 Half Rev in mid-July, but despite what all my schedule links say, I don't think it is happening this year. The Best In The West has the bonus of 2 more months to dial in my running, with ample opportunity to run some long distance events between now and then.
    With my ultimate A Race on the calender I can now start building my training and race schedules. This makes me more excited than you might imagine. The key to a successful A Race is to plan ahead, build and taper appropriately. I can schedule B and C races to hone skills, and build endurance and confidence. It will also allow me plenty of time for open water swims. I think my wetsuit will be a constant companion once the weather warms and I can find good water. I may even try a few ocean swims.... and then there is Scuba diving on the agenda, the ultimate open water swimming.
     I feel a shivering excitement, as well as a sense of relief. I feel as if a burden has been lifted, now that I know when and where I will be testing my mettle. There is also the reassurance that I will now have ample time to train so that I won't be going into this ill-prepared. That had been weighing heavily on my mind. With firefighter academy taking up so much of what little spare time I have, I knew I wouldn't be able to get into serious training until nearly May. And with winter weather, and the short winter days, training outside is very sketchy right now. Now I have the entire summer to swim, run and bike to my heart's content. I will have time do some longer trail runs as well as at least one half-marathon. I plan on doing several 5K and 10K races as training races, because I know I am far more likely to push myself in a race than I am on my own, it is human nature.
    Finally, let the scheduling commence! Training can begin in earnest. Shit's about to get real (again).

Life On The Run

    Too much to think about. Race schedule. Training schedule. My "A Race," the half-Ironman. My B and C Races gearing up to the A Race. Fitting in Trail Runs and Adventure Races for my own personal pleasure. Tonight I am buying several calenders and a Day Planner. Who could have, or would have thought that deciding to run a triathlon for fun would have led to 13 events last summer, and even more this year? And the need for a Day Planner fer chrissake! A Day Planner!! I have never felt the need for such precision scheduling in my entire life. All for sport. I guess that is far better than needing a day planner for something as banal and tedious as work. But Brain is absolutely reeling today with the immensity of trying to accomplish all that I dream of doing this year. Maybe that is why I am tweaking on my race and training schedule, it lets me pull my mind away from the bigger picture for a few moments. Away from the Grand Adventures that are fomenting. Scuba diving in Belize? Yes, please. Escaping the tedium of my soul sucking job, with the help and encouragement of my bosom buddy and compatriot? Most definitely. Graduation as a firefighter? Oh. hell yes. Glorious changes are in the wind. So potentially epic that it boggles the mind. I narrow my focus to a race schedule, something on paper to help map out my year, plan a few weekends of competition between weekends of adventure,to help me dial in Brain to a manageable level, instead of a rampant spaz attack. I will get a Day Planner. I will fill it with doodles, scribbles, and schedules. Life on the run.

A Mission Statement

   What is a Mission Statement? It is why we do what we do. It is the motivation behind arduous effort. It is the kick in the ass we need when we "just don't feel like it." The Idea of having a Mission Statement in black and white is new to me. I have always been a bit of a seat-of-the-pants kind of flyer. This is not to say that my workout regimen lacks focus. To the contrary, my workout schedule is like a religion to me, scheduled into life with obsessive regularity, and always pushing, pushing, pushing. But why? Why do I push myself? In the past I worked out mostly for the sake of remaining relatively fit, and to dodge the worst effects of depression and insomnia. A year ago all this changed with the idea that I was a runner, and could enter races. I took this up a significant notch when I decided I wanted to do triathlons. This narrowed my training focus a bit, or broadened it really, adding in cycling, swimming and running to my weight training, cardio, and pilates/yoga. Last year my goal was to compete in several triathlons without dying in the process. Oddly, this led me to entering other races, and finding a love of trail running. Yes, my training is focused, I am a hard taskmaster, I do not slack. I am self-motivated and driven. So why would I need a Mission Statement? Because I am moving up the food chain. I will increase my level of athleticism this year, finish higher up in the standings, race longer distances, push my limits. I need to refine my approach to the racing year. Especially if I am to survive a half-Ironman.
   A Mission Statement is to give a clear understanding of why you train and compete, whatever the reasons. So, here goes... how to create a Mission Statement.
Step One: Brainstorm. Make a list of words that pertain to the sport(s) of choice, in my case triathlon, trail running, adventure racing. The whys, hows, reasons. Why is this a passion worth all the time and energy? Fitness, fun, facing fears, beating back the hands of time, competition, strength, power, self-confidence, self-esteem, endurance, no excuses, pushing my limits, living life, spice, excitement, metamorphosis, athleticism, freedom, goals set and achieved, ignoring "can't" and "shouldn't," blowing away "age appropriate," adventurous, belief in myself.
    So many reasons. So many excellent reasons to continue on this path. But in reality they boil down to Belief in Self. Knowing I can set my sights high, reach for the stars, ignore conventional wisdom and rely on my own perseverance and stubbornness. The older I get, the more I realize just how short life is. We do not have time to waste on mediocrity, boredom, lassitude. I will live life the way it should be lived, not make excuses, reach for what I want, take it and make it mine. That is why I love to train. Train to live. Why I compete. To condense it from a mind blowing, all encompassing concept to a pat phrase? I don't know. Maybe, "If not now? When?"