It was 5.30am and I was woken by the radio blaring in my ear! It’s unusual for the alarm to wake me up as I am normally already awake when it goes off. Not this morning though, I am bleary eyed and feeling a little sleepy and I have a very busy day ahead of me!
Now, this is a very dangerous time as I lie there just trying to actually get my eyes to open! You see this is the time I question myself. I am lying there all warm and snug under the duvet, knowing that waiting outside is the dark, cold winter morning! Why do I do this again? Can I skip today and start it all again tomorrow, I feel really tired and I don’t think I want to get up? These are just some of thoughts that go through my mind as I lay there thinking of the day ahead.
Then I think about the races ahead and what I am trying to achieve. I also know that if I don’t do my session, Chris my coach will know as my stats will not be uploaded! (Yes, we analyse my training, but I will explain that at a later date!) So as I lay there the guilt begins to set in…
I know from experience that failing to get up will make me feel really guilty and that stresses me out. So I leap out of bed and hit the bathroom only to catch myself in the mirror whilst cleaning my teeth and ask myself whether I’m completely mad for doing this.
Of course the answer is yes…Then it’s downstairs to feed the cat who has been patiently sitting outside the bathroom door waiting for me to finish (as he always does) so I can feed him his breakfast. I pour myself a nice strong black coffee to kick start my tired body, pack the days food which requires it’s own dedicated rucksack for the amount I eat, drink an Actimel, pop the vitamins and supplements and sit down for a brief 10 minutes to finish my coffee before heading off to the pool carrying a very large (heavy) bag with what feels like half my wardrobe packed inside.
Before I go though I have to take my antihistamine pills, as wait for this…..I have a chlorine allergy. Not great for a swimmer is it! I get really badly irritated eyes, and my sinuses block up, so I have to take pills before I get in the pool and also a nasal spray. I also have to use the nasal spray again afterwards as well as eye drops to stop them getting sore…. and you think I’m fit!
I arrive at the pool for 6.45am with a 50min swim ahead of me. Not a tough session as such, but I think today it might be as I have not swum for almost 3 weeks. The session is 1700m in total and consists of some drill work for my technique and then some endurance work in blocks of 100m to a target time.
I have 7 sets of 100m to do and each set of 100m needs to be faster than the previous one. This is all about pacing myself and not going off too fast or I won’t last the distance or will get slower! Chris has thrown in some leg kick drills at the end when my legs are dead tired and that is just what I need when I’ve finished my 100m sets and my lungs feel they are about to go into hyperventilating mode.
8 lengths of just solid kicking doesn’t sound much, but after all that my god does it hurt! I can actually feel every single muscle in my thighs move with every kick almost to the point of going twang!
I finally finish, drag my tired body out of the water and hit the shower! I get into the car and head on up to work drinking my recovery drink along the way. It is very important to recover properly as Chris and I believe ‘your next session is only as good as your last recovery’
There is a vital window of 45 mins after a training session when I need to eat something containing a 2 to 1 ratio of Carbohydrate / Protein to aid my recovery and I do that in a form of a recovery drink from SiS called Rego.
After a full day at work I am swim coaching the York Triathlon Club at 8.30pm, so I head off straight down to the gym as I have a 1 hour base run to do before I go onto the swim session. I am tight for time, so it’s going to be a bit of a rush.
I am driving down to the gym with the thoughts in my head about how tired I feel. I don’t normally train in the evenings as I am not at my best, but needs must. I am not convinced that my body can cope, but I guess I’ll be fine once I get going.
I arrive at the gym at 6.30pm, quick change, many layers of clothes, the essential iPod and head out of the door. I am planning on running into the city centre and along the river and back around in a loop. Today it is a base run, so it’s fairly steady and targeting a speed of about 12-13 km/h and is all about getting time on the legs and building the endurance and aerobic fitness.
As I headed out the legs felt quite springy and surprisingly I felt quite energetic. My base fitness was a bit of an issue last year and in races I tended to fade about 20 mins into the run, so this is a real focus for my training this year. The first 20 mins go well but then the fatigue started to creep in. As I enter the second block of 20 mins my breathing becomes a little heavier, my legs were starting to tire and it was just getting altogether harder, but manageable.
Then came the final 20 minutes. In races and in race season I barely run beyond 45 mins in training so as I entered the final 15 minutes I was entering unknown territory (fitness wise) for the first time in about 8 months! The legs started to feel like lead, the breathing was getting heavier, the stitch was starting to kick in through my right shoulder, my knees were aching and the heart rate was creeping up! Don’t get me wrong I was not flat out, but it is a different kind of stress on the body base training and my lack of endurance at this stage was evident, but it should be, that’s why we are doing this session! Even so, it does not stop me talking to myself in that final 20 minutes and saying ‘why am I doing this, remind me again’!? Is this fun?
It’s a mental battle at this stage as every thought in my head and body is telling me to stop because I am tired, but this is the important stage of the run as the more I enter this phase, the more conditioned my body will become and I will get fitter and it will become easier, simple right? Yeah well, try telling that to your body when it’s screaming STOP!
Finally I arrive at the finish 58 mins and 12.8km later thankful it is done and in the bag. It’s a quick shower, compression tights on (if you don’t what they are, I’ll explain later) changed and head out to swimming and I only have 10 minutes to get there, so it’s eat my sandwich in the car!
I finally arrive home at 10.10pm after leaving the house at 6.30am that morning. I empty the bag (and at the same time completely fill the wash basket, oops) quick cup of tea and hit the sack completely knackered with a bike turbo session lined up for tomorrow night. God I hope I sleep well tonight as my first double training day for a month has certainly been a ‘shock to the system’!
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