Successful Weekend; Initial Pre-Wildflower Thoughts
Wildflower is in less than a week and I’ve begun slowly shutting my training down. After last weekend’s bonk, I started getting a worried that I was over-trained. Coach Rom talked me through it and we concluded that instead of being over-trained, I’m probably under-recovered. The distinction wasn’t totally obvious at first, but the way I understand it (apologies Rom if I’m explaining it wrong) the mistake I might have made wasn’t that I was training too intensely, it was that I hadn’t been taking enough easy and off days. Looking back at my training log, there is no question that that is true! The result was too much moderately intense training and cumulative exhaustion. Of course there are plenty of fitness benefits from lots of moderate intensity, but I probably could have gotten more out of myself by doing more of both high- and low-intensity training.
With less than two weeks to raceday, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about any past training mistakes I might have made, but what I could do was to make sure I concentrated on recovery leading up to the race. So last week I cut out a few training sessions, decreased the time of most of my other workouts and even took Friday completely off. Friday was my first off day this month and only my third off day since February 1. Compulsive? Nah…
At the same time that I cut down the total amount of time I spent training, I made sure to include some hard intervals in many of my workouts. I pushed the hills on both my trail runs last week and during yesterday’s out-and-back on the PCH, I included six eight-to-ten minute intervals at what was definitely faster than my projected Wildflower race pace. The fast, hard stuff felt good, during both the running and cycling. And, regardless of what it actually did for my pre-race fitness at this point, it restored some of the confidence I’d lost during last Saturday’s bonk.
The highlight of the week though was the mile ocean swim I did this morning with the LA Tri Club at Manhattan Beach. It was an overcast, grey morning and the ocean was cold (supposedly somewhere between 60-63 degrees), but a lot of people came out for the swim (including some I haven’t seen in over a year) and it felt awesome to be in the ocean. My stroke felt great (for me at least) and the mile went by quickly. I didn’t hurt that there was a strong current behind us that cut at least five minutes off what my time should have been! (It was also nice to confirm that my wetsuit still fits and didn’t get eaten by neoprene-hungry moths in the last 13 months.) I wish I had some pictures to share!
Regardless of any training mistakes I might have made, I still feel like I’ve set myself up for a good race at Wildflower. More pre-race reflections to come over the course of the week.