About three months ago Jesse mentioned to me that simply doing workouts was not enough. The quality was more important than the volume. Oh, make no mistake, the volume is always there and is more than important at Iron levels, but what happens when you just put your time into training vs. trying to get better each session is that you never get faster or make much progress. You simply do not do enough of what matters (stressing your systems in order to break them down so that they respond faster and stronger). I now go into a workout with clear data and a focus of what I’d like to do with a particular workout vs. going by feel or expectation that putting the time mandated will be enough. The results have been great with wattage up and speed galore.
One of the things I like about myself (this is a new behavior I’m trying to master) is that I’m extremely goal centric. Almost too much at times. However, what I try to do on a daily basis is go about the task of being introspective and working on issue I don’t like about myself (I'm especially good at this). To a lesser extent, taking into consideration opinions from other’s (another work in progress). What I have noticed is that I don’t live in the “now” as much as I want/need to. Too often my head is pushing onto the next task or sadly at times, I’m in a distant place while maintaining a conversation. My daughter Bella even constructed a pact with me to leave my cell phone in the car during our time together. It’s made us closer and she is mature beyond her years. I’ve been applying the "in the moment" in any way I can.
Often on a Friday night my wife and I discuss the weekend plans and the things we would like to do. She will throw out a whole list of things we either could do or need to do and try and overlay that with usually 5 hours per day of working out. Invariably I say yes to all of it with the full-on belief that I in fact will fit everything that life has in front of me that day. It could be something like paint the house, mow the lawn, drive 200 miles, run 13, bike for 4 hours, etc. My wife calls me superman because I actually try and do all of it and get frustrated when the day runs out and it can’t fit in. I look at life as little goals and go about trying to problem solve them in my own unique way. To me they are choices. The great part is that Michelle is one of those people who can pack a suitcase fast, has the sort of mind that can organize details and implement a plan. I’m not completely sure how you would describe this skill. She’d make a great project manager and is pretty amazing. After my rendition of how the day will go, Michelle then asks what my realistic plan is for the day and offers choices. Now that’s a partnership!!!
The Training and Pemi
For the past couple of months I’ve been focusing on getting more efficient and stronger in each sport. I’ve consolidated some equipment and picked up my new P4. The next push until March is going to be a lot of fun and varied. I really feel like I’ve found the fun again.
I bought this cool Tanita scale that syncs with my Garmin that gives crazy accurate body fat info. Apparently my older scale was 5lbs more friendly which meant clamping down even more !
This coming Monday I’m going to complete the Pemi Loop with my coach/friend Jesse along with a great young guy, Pat Wheeler. Jesse has been doing this hike for a while and apparently it makes Ironman look like a joke. It’s over 9100 feet of climb and 32 miles. We are starting out around 4AM. The average time of completion is 20 hours. The world record is 8:34. Jesse has us at plan at a sub 11. It’s going to hurt for sure. I then have an Olyi Tri the following Sunday. The Pemi usually takes 10 days to recover so I'll be a bit banged up for this race. It's great prep for the 6 back to back marathons in as many days in March. I love these weeks! As soon as I set the plans in motion after talking with Michelle, my world perked-up knowing this was right around the corner!
Jesse authored this great article on Xtri about hiking and Ironman Training.
http://xtri.com/coaches_display.aspx?riIDReport=6608&CAT=52&xref=xx
If you would like to track us live starting at 4AM on August 23, 2010 click the link below. If this works I’ll be using it during the Ultra in March. The Pemi Map is above.
Just follow this link to see my location updates:
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0iI62lXVDdpf2ymlq9UO7ctECsLZnDXfU
If the link doesn't work, try copying and pasting it to your browser's address bar.
1 comment:
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