The other kind of training

I took the 'easy' option this morning.

I was really keen to train this morning, quite eager to get up and get on with things. However, I was a bit late to bed and when the time came to be up I really was just exhausted. To much burning the candle at both ends had caught up with me. With nothing pressing to train for I decided to take the simpler option and get some sleep, I knew I would be thankful for it later in the day (which I was).

Funnily enough, around lunch time today I was talking to an athlete about having some post Busselton 70.3 down time. Timely I thought.

The topic of conversation with the athlete may seem strange, but it is actually a surprising common theme. They were asking how to take time off. It may seem unusual to have to explain to somebody how to take it easy, but most athletes are so in the habit of getting themselves out the door and training, that the idea of not doing that is pretty foreign. Usually when athletes try and take some time off the little voice in their head that tells them that they should be training is so loud that they find it hard to ignore. Often they end up doing more exercise than they should and not really doing much recovery. This is the same reason that many athletes struggle to do recovery sessions and why long slow runs are often done way too fast. Athletes are funny critters, but also rather predictable.

In the end the way I explained recovery to this athlete is the same way I used to explain it to myself.

Recovery time is simply another form of training. Rather than thinking of recovery as time off training, I used to remind myself that it was training. Sometimes the right type of training is a 6 hour ride. Sometimes training is running intervals until you throw up. And sometimes training is going for an easy ride before having a stretch and sitting on the couch. What sort of training is the right sort of training depends a lot on the phase of training a person is in and what they are preparing for.

In this athlete's case they have just finished a solid 12 months of racing that included four 70.3 races (including the World Champs) and a whole bunch of travel. They are about to embark on a 7 month training block getting ready for their first Ironman. Before they start this long build, they need to be fully refreshed mentally and physically, which means taking it easy for a while. I don't want to get four months into this Ironman build and have this athlete quit on me because they are mentally fatigued or physically worn out. I want them to start this training block eager and hungry to train and ready to do the work that they need to do. For them to get to this point they need some rest and recovery time. In this way the recovery time is an essential part of their preparation for Ironman, it IS training.

I find that for most athletes, once you frame recovery in the context of being another sort of training, it usually helps put their minds at ease. We struggle with the idea of missing a training session, but when the training session is resting, for some reason we are usually okay with it. It used to work for me when I was racing, it worked for me this morning when I stayed in bed and it seemed to do the trick for my athlete today.

As I said, athletes are funny critters sometimes.