This week was a rest week for me, a time to take in the first few weeks of steady training and give my body a bit of a break. I have found in the past couple years that I tend to overlook rest weeks early in my plans, and that it tends to come back to haunt me around March-April. So this year, needless to say, I plan on giving myself an easier week after 3 good training weeks. The timing for this week happened to be perfect, as I got sick on the weekend with some kind of flu where I was just ridiculously tired and lethargic for 2 straight days. Lots of co-workers have been gettig sick as well, so something is obviously going around, time to break out the Emergen-C!!!(powder vitamin C you put in a drink). So anyway, the week was relatively uneventful, I got in some strong swim sets, and I feel like i'm starting to come around in the pool as I was holding low 1:30's for my 100's this week. Good times. Running was good as well as I jumped in with a group at the track on Tuesday for some fast 200's and held my own quite well, holding 34's for 7 and finishing the 8th with a tough 31 second repeat. Seems like my speed and ability to push that this year is vastly improved over last year. Now i'd jut like to quickly touch on intensity during triathlon(training and racing). For those of you who don't know, I come from a very competitive soccer background. I was never the most gifted soccer player out there by any means, but what I lacked for in skill I made up with a very good work ethic and a sometimes ridiculuous intensity while playing the game. I grew up next to my youngest uncle(also my smallest uncle- who happened to have 6 older brothers...) and he always managed to excel at sports. I asked him once what made him so good at his chosen sports, how he competed at the level he did. His answer... Be intense. He always said if you could raise your intensity level to compete, you will always beat guys who are bigger than you and better than you if they cannot match your intensity and drive. This is something that I bought into bigtime and it worked out in everything I have done... except for triathlon. I have a hard time at being intense in this sport as everyone is so friendly. In soccer, you have guys chasing you down trying to hammer you constantly. In triathlon, you run past someone and it's "good job man" or "great form, you're killing it". How are you supposed to be an intense competitor against these guys when they're so nice to you? The answer is: Be intense with yourself. It's not as easy as it sounds. You have to motivate yourself to do your best as the motivation is not going to come from your competitors. At least not all the time see Macca vs Stadler for more info!!! If you can master being intense quietly within yourself, I think that can be just another weapon in your arsenal on race day. I will try and elaborate more on this throughout the year as I go, but I just wanted to put some of my thoughts on this into writing for now. Feel free to chime in on this ubject if you think you can contribute.
Cheers,
Mike
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