It is fairly hard to believe that I am already looking forward to Basketball (NCAA) season.
That Miami game was.... .....well that topic has been beaten to death on texags.com (and everywhere else) so I'll let those yahoos continue to duke it out.
My consensus: Status Quo.
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Big Matty Stein has been asking me about how I approached/am approaching my training in the ten weeks between IM Canada and IM Florida.
First off, I have never done this before so its hard to really know if I am doing things correctly. I can only truly know once the season is over and I can objectively look at my training and racing. Therefore, I find it hard to say whether I am doing the right things as I am currently just "doing things."
Ironman Florida comes very late in the season and many athletes are mentally (probably not as much physically IMO) fried from a long year and I might have been the same way had my year gone differently.
This past year I trained 'half time' in January-March; then I left the country in May for two weeks for personal reasons (so most of my training stopped); then I contracted giardia in June which sidelined me for a few weeks off and on; then I suffered from the aftershock of the antibiotics and the illness itself throughout the month of July.
I only bring this all up because I finished Ironman Canada this year having felt that the season had barely even started for me. I knew the morning after the race that I had a lot of fight left over and so I decided to put togther a bit of a training push to Ironman Florida in hopes of finishing this year on a high note.
The "push" basically lays itself out into the following pattern:
One week with one hour of exercise
One week with 15 hours of light training; but most of the intensity is in zone 1
One week with normal training volume; but intensity is flexible
Three weeks with normal training volume and intensity
One unload week (for first half)
One moderate week including an OLY race and normal swim volume
One moderate week with normal swim volume
Ironman race week
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First off, let me say that I would have been (and will be) entirely willing to back off if my body's response to training was not (or is not) positive. I think I was fortunate to have my coach tell me back in August that I would "likely bounce back pretty quickly" after IMC. I think I was mentally prepared to see that and probably just assumed that it would happen. However, I did less than he actually predicted I could do during the second week after the race and I know I was doing the right thing. After two easy weeks my body seemed to be training instead of recovering.
The first week back made me pretty sleepy and I took naps every day, but I didn't generate much of that "deep fatigue" that I hear about. I don't doubt that I could be exceptionally tired over the course of the next few weeks, but I'm confident in my intuition to do the right thing if rest is needed. I was pretty damn tired after having giardia this summer and I feel a whole lot better now. Its not a very scientific or objective approach to judging training stress and recovery, but it works for my head.
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I'll keep you guys in the know as to how everything is going.
-jd