Catch up

As some people may have noticed I just didn't get a chance to make a post yesterday. I haven't missed a post for ages. It was just one of those days, very busy day at work, around which I was trying to fit training and sleep. Something had to give. Not making a post was the easiest thing.

Not a bad day of training yesterday, double run day. The morning run went pretty okay. The session hasn't changed for the last couple of weeks, but this week I focused a bit more on maybe not being quite so fast, but running a lot more sustainably. Rather than just flat out for as long as possible. I think that is an important step in transferring the training into racing. It felt like it went okay.

My afternoon run very nearly didn't happen. By the time I had got home from my long day at work and then executed my fatherly duties it was past 7:00. A very big part of me just wanted to collapse on the couch, but I figured I would feel better if I got out the door which I managed to do. It wasn't the best example of an interval session on record, but I hit all my targets and most importantly the session got done.

The desire to sit out training continued this morning when I got up to head down to the pool. I really felt like staying in bed, but I managed to get myself down to Claremont and the swim set went pretty okay. On these long Wednesday sessions we typically start with shorter stuff and then work our way up to the longer pieces. For something different today we started with a 1000m and worked our way down to 100s, each shorter distance on a quicker pace. It was an interesting psychological exercise. It was certainly no easier physically, you still ended up totally fatigued. But rather than progress through the session and falling into a deeper and deeper hole, each time the distance got shorter, you felt a faint glimmer than you could hold the required pace. Which surprisingly we did. We have been told in no uncertain terms to not get used to doing sets in this way, starting short and getting longer will remain the norm. But it was an interesting exercise.

Another interesting element to the swim this morning is we found out what happens when there is nobody left to lead the lane. Usually in our squads we have one or two people who lead the lane, if they are having a bad day, or hit their limit the person behind takes over. Today we had four of us who were similar speeds and we all took a turn at the front. Unfortunately once we hit the last 10 x 100m we were all completely stuffed, there was no fresh person to fall back on. In the end we manned up and shared the load and surprisingly made the times. But there was a funny moment at the beginning of the set where we were all just looking at each other, all of us saying, 'don't look at me'.

As I mentioned above, over the last couple of days my motivation to get out and train has had a bit of a struggle. Sometimes it is very tempting to miss a session. It is very easy to think, well just one won't hurt. Which to be honest is probably true. The danger is when that becomes a regular. Missing one does start to hurt if you are doing it every week. Consistency is the key. When I am really tempted to skip a session, I usually have a good honest look at my reasons for thinking that. If I can't come up with anything better than, 'I just can't be bothered' then I try and get myself out the door.

It is a fine line though, I think it is important to maintain some perspective and balance with respect to training. If the idea of missing a session fills you with dread and insurmountable guilt, then it might be time to take a step back. When I examine why I feel like missing a session, if I really do have a reason, I am injured, I am sick, I am just genuinely exhausted, I will walk away from that session and not look back. I didn't have any of those excuses this morning.