This is a question that I have found myself pondering each of the past 4 years as my racing season starts to wind down in the fall. With my "A race" for the year in the rear view mirror, what do I have to look forward to now?
From early on, I knew that the most important thing for me was to have a plan in place for the end of my season and off season. It is fairly common for athletes to focus and train hard for a race, only to not have a plan to keep their fitness level up throughout the off season. Often, this even results in not getting back into racing shape at all. For me, triathlon and running is now part of my life and not just a one time occurrence.
That being said, my racing season isn't quite over as I still have 3 races remaining on my schedule. The finale of my triathlon season will come next Sunday, when I race in the Cyman triathlon in Bondurant. In mid-October I will be joined by 4 other teammates to complete the IMT Des Moines Marathon Relay for the 2nd year. I will finish off my year with the Des Moines Turkey Trot 5k on Thanksgiving day where I will attempt to set a 5k PR.
After my big race in Lawrence a week ago, I took 2 days completely off of training before getting back after it. I kept things easy for the remainder of the week as my body continued to recover. In fact, I would say that even today I am only about 80% recovered. I purposely left 3 weeks of unstructured training to finish out the month of September to not only allow for physical recovery, but mental recovery as well as I have been following a strict training schedule since last November.
Beginning October 2nd, I will start a new 8 week training cycle that focuses on developing speed for the 5k distance. At the same time I will be dialing back my swimming and cycling mileage significantly to accommodate the increased running load and intensity. In addition, beginning this week I am refocusing on my nutrition and starting prepare for an off season of weight loss (more on this in future posts).
What an amazing year it has been, but it is not over yet. I am excited to see how the remainder plays out.
No comments:
Post a Comment