Hump Day

Hump day today, everything looks easier from here. My training program operates from Monday through to Sunday, and so Wednesday isn't really the middle of the week, but that doesn't seem to matter. Once I am through Wednesday, it starts to feel like I am on the downhill run.

I think a big chunk of that has to do with the Wednesday morning Swim Smooth session. This is a tough session and a bit of a mental battle every week for me. Once I am through it I am usually a fair bit more relaxed about the rest of my week of training. That is the space I am in at the moment.

True to form the swim session this morning was a challenge. However, for once it wasn't entirely to do with the set. Don't get me wrong, it was a tough one, but I think my struggling more had to do with how I was feeling. I am feeling good mentally, but my body is pretty fatigued at the moment. Despite how that might sound, that isn't actually a negative statement. I am two thirds of the way through a very solid two week training block. Really I think I should be fatigued. If I'm not, I suspect it would mean I haven't been doing the training correctly.

This morning in the pool I was okay for the first 2km, but then after that I had to take a step back and swim at a slightly slower pace. Once I did that the session went mostly okay. I still hit a bit of a wall in the last 1000m or so, but I am okay with that. Considering most of the morning had been a mental battle to firstly get myself to the pool and secondly to stay in the pool, I am okay with struggling towards the end. I still got through, which I consider to be a major positive out of the session.

It is hard during these heavy weeks to get yourself going for every session. No matter how well you are recovering the fatigue creeps in and the mental games begin. You start thinking, well I am doing XX hours of training this week, so missing an hour of running won't make that much difference, missing a swim would be okay. However, missing those sessions would no longer make it a heavy week. I always consider that battling the fatigue is one of the key challenges when it comes to a week like this. Don't get me wrong, you certainly don't want to be training tired all the time. I think when that happens the quality of your training reduces significantly. But at the same time, a heavy training week is not supposed to be easy. Skipping sessions because the training load is hard sort of misses the point in my opinion.

On the bike tonight, for what will be another tough session. Tough sessions on the bike don't tend to scare me though, if anything, after the solid day of running yesterday and the swimming this morning, I am looking forward to being on the bike again. I will finally have a chance to test out my new saddle. Today is very hot again so hopefully it isn't too uncomfortable, although the heat isn't such a big deal on the bike.

If worst comes to worst I guess I can always just ride into the river.