Keep it Slow and Steady

Anyone who knows me understands that I sometimes have a hard time keeping my training 'moderate' even during the off-season. I know I can sometimes go a little overboard with training hard throughout the year but I honestly believe that's why I've been able to have such incredible results. However there is always a point of diminishing returns, where that extra hard ride or run does a lot more harm than good. When you are new to triathlon and not sure of where your potential lies I think you can get away with hammering fairly hard in all three disciplines and still see very good progress over the first 3- 4 years of racing. After all if you don't really know how the cumulative aspects of training are going to affect you and you may feel like after a hard 60- 90 minute swim, ride or run you can do it again tomorrow. It's not until you've gone to that place where the world gets a little fuzzy around you and you start to have tunnel vision or you simply feel like you want to sleep during a workout that you start to comprehend where your real limits are; for me that's usually during the 20 hour bike week leading up to an Ironman.

But there is a point where training more, or harder does a lot more harm to your body than good and usually that's when you start to notice injuries. Having to deal with an injury this year has been pretty humbling, I've gone from my usual after work run being a 15k jaunt in an hour to running 5k in 1/2 an hour. However I realized this year more than ever how much I enjoy being active and healthy and the competitive side of me has had to take a back seat for the time being. It's been 6 months since my injury and I'm still recovering but I'm hopeful now more than ever before I will get back to normal I just need to do the right things and I'll be on the road to recovery.

Every time I try to push to hard on the bike my achillies reminds me who's in control and I have to back off. I know a lot of people don't like indoor training but I love it, there is no better way to get stronger and stay focused then by being on the trainer for an hour or two. Afterall we live in Canada so if you don't like indoor training you'd better move. That being said I still need to take things slow and keep my focus on recovering more than building right now. I'm giving myself until January 1st to start some serious training again and that will only be 6 months away from my Ironman, that's the shortest amount I time I've put in to prepare for an IM but the law of diminishing returns is starting to show itself just before I turn 40 so I'm listening to my body and preparing myself to peak at the right time.