Nov. 5-7, 2010
Training: Nov. 5 : Distance skate with speeds. Total time: 2hr
Training Nov. 6 : Easy distance skate. Total time: 1.5hr
Training Nov. 7 : Over distance skate. Total time: 2.5 hr
Man oh man, my body has definitely found a breaking point. I didn't feel quite as refreshed as I could have after Thursdays recovery day, but feeling a bit tired is never out of the ordinary for me this time of year. I started the ski on Friday like any other and kept the pace pretty easy to allow my body to get underneath me before I started the sprints, which were roughly 8x30secs in length. The first couple sprints went pretty well, but I was having to really bring the pace back afterwards to allow the heart rate to drop back down again. It was after the the 7th sprint or so, maybe an hour fifteen into the workout that some switches in my body seemed to turn off. My balance seemed to be that if I had just taken back a couple shots of tequila and my breathing rate could have passed for a dog that had just ran as fast as he could in high heat. This was well after the sprint too mind you as my body was in easy mode. I wasn't going too fast between the sprints, but i was relegated to a walk at this point. I'm confident that your body does have a kill switch in there somewhere.... and I hit it. For what might have taken me ten minutes to get back to the car took a solid 30 or so. There would be no run that night.
With two sprint time trials the next day, I felt torn as to what I should do. These are important workouts to do at this time of year, but if I was smart and payed attention to the body it would be beneficial to relax the next couple of days and let things come back to life again. Talking with the coach, we decided to see how my body felt in the morning and make the call then. I have a hard time saying no when there could be suffering involved, but there is a difference betweennsuffering when the body is moving well and suffering with a suffering body. These are two very different scenarios when taking into account the mental game involved. Feeling healthy, the suffering will generally produce a positve feeling, while feeling crappy and suffering, can really put you out of the game and doubting fitness can creep in.
When I woke the next morning (Saturday) I wasn't surprised that I didn't want to get out of bed. I had taken a pretty bad fall on the dreary ski back to the car the day before and more things felt out of whack than I would consider normal. I made the hard but necessary call to take it easy and not TT. I went out for a fairly short 90 minutes and crawled along the nicely rolled out hillside trails. While skiing, I was comforted in knowing that if i had tried to TT, I would be disqualified for delay of race because getting out of first gear was seemingly impossible.
After a quick shower and feed, i was off to work and like most Saturdays, the Raven was excessively busy. The mental fatigue from busy work and the body being at a point of distress, I was feeling pretty wigged out by the end of the day. Its really easy to think negatively when the body is in that state and questioning whether or not its worth it to keep skiing is always the first topic in your head. There have been a lot of things on my plate recently and it was all feeling pretty heavy. I really just wanted to sit down and stare into space for a few days. The bright side was that a couple of customers that had come in just before closing and were going to miss a bluegrass concert at the Atwood Concert Hall for some reason and they gave me their two tickets. I called my girlfriend and off we went right after work. The concert was fantastic and I felt as though a spark of life had come back mentally.
Although I had a rough nights sleep last night, my body had actually moved a bit better today during the OD workout. I kept it pretty easy and tried not to stress anything. My body still feels really tired, but thankfully I will start my recovery week tomorrow meaning a couple days off followed by a couple easy skis. This is a good time to catch up on needed sleep and general rest for the body. I have never been so excited to do nothing. I have two weeks until the racing starts and I want my body to feel fresh and my mind to be positive, both of which come with time spent relaxing and building energy levels back up. I have done great work this summer and its time for the body to catch up and soak it all in.
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