Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Status Report

I received a nudge via e-mail indicating that for a triathlon-focused blog there hadn't been much here about my recent training.

The tyranny of choice: through choices we reveal our values to others (and ourselves).

The choice: I hit every Masters swim workout in July.
The implication: I cared more about enjoying my workouts and avoiding a repeat at IMMoo of the general suckiness of my IMAZ swim than shaving total time at IMMoo.

The implication may seem overly strong, but it isn't. Previously I'd been doing Masters sessions once a week; I've now stepped up to two a week. Masters sessions are in the evening; doing swim intervals in the evening means that my sleep is delayed and/or shallow that night. Hence, a Masters session generally means I won't workout the next morning and even so I'll still have some sleep deficit. Once a week for that is OK - twice a week means I'm dropping things. Two Masters sessions pretty much guarantees that I won't do a long sea swim. Also, a couple of times I've dropped a running interval session; other times I've dropped a (combined bike/run) drill session. I'm setting myself up for a relatively good swim, fatigue/pain on the late bike hills, and running on empty.

While my One Thing isn't dominating my training, I maintain that it will drive me on the day. Just have to be ready to run on empty - it is what it is.

Ideally I have three quality weeks left (including this one), one recovery week, and two taper weeks. I'll be tempted to drop that last quality week in favour of an additional taper week - I'll see how I feel.

I'll report on Monday how this week went.

4 Comments:

Blogger Jenny Davidson said...

That's fascinating--thanks for the great description.

(I am going to borrow the wonderful phrase "quite noticeable negative feelings" from your IMAZ race report for my own next ones as needed!)

Now I sort of have a temporarily blinding insight that the reason my sleep's been so bad this summer is that I do swim workout 7:45-9:15pm Mondays and a track or interval-type running workout Tuesday evenings that means I don't get home till 9 or 9:30pm, all revved up, but do morning workouts on Wed. and Thurs. including a 6am Thursday run.

I love running more than anything else, but I'm about to try and make myself have a couple months where I prioritize swimming (which I also love, but which makes me paranoid about losing hard-won running fitness) and biking (which fills me with nervousness & in which it will be months before I can actually get a good workout because really I need handling/road skills before I can work on fitness).

I must stop before I write a comment even longer than your original post!

8/02/2007 09:06:00 am  
Blogger KrissyGo! said...

Ahh...the One Thing. I'm so glad you keep coming back to this because it really helps keep me grounded.

So in these remaining quality weeks, will you make a point to focus a little more on bike and run? You know, for the cobwebs?

8/02/2007 10:06:00 am  
Blogger Wrenched Photography said...

The One Thing is lurking. It must be envious of your womens shoe envy.

8/02/2007 12:30:00 pm  
Blogger Unknown said...

The sleep issue is interesting.

Although my sleep is often delayed if I swim at night (currently the Mon - Thurs lane swims are 8 - 9:30), it is a better quality sleep. But then, I'm sleep disturbed at the best of times.

8/02/2007 01:03:00 pm  

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