To Plan

Well my B race is done, and it more or less went as expected. Can't complain about that.

Heading down to the race today I was certainly tired before we even got started, not an ideal way to begin a race, but as I wrote about yesterday, I was going into this race with realistic expectations. Training and gaining fitness is the priority at the moment, more so than race results.

The plan for the race today was to give it an honest effort, but not beat myself up about the result. I wanted a race where I was able to practice a bit of race craft as well as have a good solid session. The result was almost irrelevant.

The paddle ticked all those boxes, so as a B race I am putting it down as a success. In the end I came across the line in 5th, which is actually a result I am not displeased with, so that is good to, but as I have said, it wasn't the priority. If I had come into the race fresh and fit I think I probably could have come in 4th, or perhaps even pushed for 3rd, but give the circumstances I am not going to complain about a close 5th place. In fact, I am actually pretty happy to come with the result when racing a strong field when very fatigued and still building fitness. It gives me a good boost of confidence of how things will go once I am fit and properly tapered.

Speaking of fit. The training build is currently going flat out. I have written before that I am pushing pretty hard with the training and at the moment I am kind on on the borderline fatigue wise. In fact according to TrainingPeaks, the fatigue is pretty solid. Definitely something to keep watching. Looking at the numbers in TraningPeaks I am certainly in need of a recovery session, but at the moment I am considering pushing on with training, which is something I would never endorse with my athletes. A case of do as I say, not as I do. The reason I am thinking of pushing on is because I am off to Darwin from Wednesday to Friday and while I plan to get in some training, it is likely to put a bit of a hole in my week. My current thinking is that if I can push through at the beginning of the week then I can recover in the second half of the week. Not ideal, and it probably means that the sessions early in the week (particularly tomorrow morning) will be of dubious quality, but I would prefer to get the training in while I can, I know I will regret it if I don't.

Happy that after a couple of weeks of solid training results seem to be coming though.

Speaking of solid training and results. A very successful race by one of my athletes up in Darwin today. Hannah took place in a race called the Katherine Ultra Challenge. It is a particularly insane adventure race that has been happening near Darwin for years, I happened to win it once a long time ago. The race doesn't mess around, having a swim, trail run, mountain bike, paddle, road bike and road run legs. All up it covers about 100km and it takes over 6 hours. As I said, not messing around. Anyway, Hannah is a very talented athlete and she came in 2nd in the women and 4th over all. Very awesome result. Always a great feeling helping athletes to chase and obtain their goals.