DDDS

DDDS - Don't do dumb....stuff.

Tapering as I am right now, the topic of DDDS has come up with a mate lately.

The idea is pretty simple, when it comes to tapering, a big part of the week is simply resisting the urge to do something stupid. With athletes, not doing something stupid can actually be a lot harder than you think. The list of stupid things itself is extensive, it can be anything from training too hard, not training enough, doing an unusual new activity that leads to an injury, trialing dramatically new equipment etc. Really the options for stupid things athlete's might do it pretty endless. As I said, resisting the urge to do these things is the challenge.

When it comes to tapering, there is a message that I consistently find myself giving athletes, nothing you do this week will make you any fitter or better, but something you do this week could make you a whole lot slower. These things usually fit the category of DDDS.

Why do athlete's find it so hard to heed the message of DDDS? Well one simple explanation I have is that during taper week we suddenly have a lot more time on our hands so we start over thinking things, particularly gear choices. Another explanation is that we spend so much time training hard that the idea of taking it easy doesn't sit that comfortably, we are always tempted to keep training hard, even though we know we aren't supposed to be. Training sometimes fits the pattern of an addiction in that way. In additional to that many athletes have a pathological fear of losing fitness, so we train when we should be resting because we find it very hard to switch of that part of our brain that is constantly saying 'you should be training, you should be training'. We are a funny old group of critters us athletes.

Whatever the reason, you might be surprised how often athletes self sabotage by ignoring the message of DDDS.

My own little DDDS challenge came this morning. As I have mentioned many times I monitor my taper on TrainingPeaks and what I have been seeing over the last couple of days is that I haven't been recovering as quickly as I was hoping. Basically a couple of sessions were a bit harder than planned and so I am getting over my fatigue more slowly. On top of that I have been feeling a bit fatigued at training. In my experience feeling lethargic at training is kind of normal in a taper, but that is different to feeling fatigued. What I was feeling was tired muscle sort of fatigue, not what you are after. These things put together mean the taper hasn't been going quite as planned.

The answer to the above is obvious, rest a bit more. You aren't going to get any fitter (sound familiar), but it is easy to train too hard (DDDS). From that I realised I probably needed to take this morning off. I knew all that, it made sense and the data backed it up, but do you think that was enough to silence the voice telling me to train. It certainly quietened it down a bit, but I am not sure it ever quite shuts up.

In the end I did resist the urge and I was able to follow DDDS and I think I am feeling better for it. The proof will come on Sunday I guess, but even if I don't have a good day, I think the decision to back off today was the sensible one.

It doesn't always happen, but sometimes we DDDS.