Thursday, October 28, 2010
Hello Again
Whoa, It's been a while. I'm going to try and revive this blog in case there's anyone out there that still read. A quick recap of my year is in due order. However for now I'll suffice to say that I am successfully recovered from my injury from last year. Graduated from UT Tyler with a B.S. in Kinesiology this spring and am currently enrolled in grad school at UT Tyler for Kinesiology and working as a graduate assistant. I'm still running xc but working exclusively with my triathlon coach Shelly O'brien. Running is going great. I've been setting some good pr's this season running 27:32 for 8k at a meet in Memphis, Tennesse four weeks ago. 2 weeks ago at the Univesity of Arkansas I ran 34:12 for 10k which was a HUGE pr for me. I went through 5 miles in 27:29 which equates to about a 27:20 8k. Our conference meet is this Saturday and hosted by UT Tyler. We do not have a fast course by any means but I'll be looking to run fast and get close to my pr. Then at regionals in Memphis drop that time down some more. Maybe break 27? Stay tuned.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Training Hard is Easy
“Training hard is easy, recovery takes courage and confidence.” –Matt Dixon
My friend, Jody asked me if this quote spoke to me-
Sort of, yes, I guess. Its just true. That’s all. Anyone can train hard. Training's fun, pushing yourself is fun, doing more is fun. But to balance hard training with adequate recovery takes not only courage and confidence but intelligence as well. Training doesn't make you faster. When you back off and let your body recover from hard training is when you get fitter and faster. That being said I believe in hard training. You have to train hard to excel. But if your body can't handle the hard training because recovery your is off then its useless. You’ll get sick, burnt out, overtrained, injured, whatever. Trust me- all of the above have happened to me. Recovery is everything. Its nutrition, hydration, sleeping, stretching, taking the elevator instead of the stairs. Could I train harder if I didn't have school? Sure. School is a stressor and it takes away from my recovery. Sitting in class is horrible for my hip flexor injury. But school is also necessary so I have to learn to balance that. The person that will perform the best is the one who can best balance quality workouts with adequate recovery. Not the person who trains the most- the one who trains the smartest. Right now I'm training hard, like really hard. Harder then I’ve ever trained in my life but for the most part I'm nailing my recovery and my body is able to handle the workload. Later in the semester that may not be the case. As school gets more intense I may not be getting the sleep I need or other factors may play a role and I would have to respond by adjusting the training workload accordingly.
The thing is, like the quote says. To recover takes courage and confidence. You have to have confidence in yourself, your fitness and the plan. Just because someone else is training harder than you doesn't mean its right for YOU. You have to take the ego out of training. Its hard, really hard but its necessary to be able to do what YOU the athlete need to do for YOU. Because as an athlete its all about YOU. Training is selfish. You have to be selfish. You don't spend all those hours sweating and hurting for another person. You’re doing it for you. The best athletes in the world know what’s best for them and could care less what other people think. They just put their head down and train hard- then recover.
A lot of people may read this quote and say, “what are you talking about? Training hard is hard!” And their right. I’m not saying training is easy, or should be easy. It isn’t and it shouldn’t be. More often than not it sucks. There’s a lot of times in the middle of a workout where I look at myself and go “Why the heck am I doing this? This is NOT fun.” But why do we keep doing it? Because we love it. We love pushing ourselves, challenging our bodies, we strive for excellence and at the core its because we want to win. At our heart we all want to be winners. Each person can define what “winning” means for them but we all want to win. To be the best. So then training hard is “easy” because we choose to do it and we love to do it and we have an end goal we’re striving for. Recovering isn’t so much fun. As an athlete you don’t feel like your “doing” anything when your sitting around letting your body absorb the work. You may think its no big deal to make sure you get enough electrolytes or that there’s no such thing as the “30 minute window” for refueling and restoring glycogen stores after a workout. That’s fine. Maybe you don’t want it bad enough. You care enough to train hard but do you care enough to recover even better? Do you crave success enough to back off when its time to back off? How bad do you want to win? Everyone your going to line up against on race day is training hard. But who’s recovering the best? If I can train just as hard as everyone else but recover even better. If I can cover all the little intangibles that people overlook then I can win. I can beat them on race day. And that’s what I want. That’s what any athlete wants.
Time to get on the trainer…
My friend, Jody asked me if this quote spoke to me-
Sort of, yes, I guess. Its just true. That’s all. Anyone can train hard. Training's fun, pushing yourself is fun, doing more is fun. But to balance hard training with adequate recovery takes not only courage and confidence but intelligence as well. Training doesn't make you faster. When you back off and let your body recover from hard training is when you get fitter and faster. That being said I believe in hard training. You have to train hard to excel. But if your body can't handle the hard training because recovery your is off then its useless. You’ll get sick, burnt out, overtrained, injured, whatever. Trust me- all of the above have happened to me. Recovery is everything. Its nutrition, hydration, sleeping, stretching, taking the elevator instead of the stairs. Could I train harder if I didn't have school? Sure. School is a stressor and it takes away from my recovery. Sitting in class is horrible for my hip flexor injury. But school is also necessary so I have to learn to balance that. The person that will perform the best is the one who can best balance quality workouts with adequate recovery. Not the person who trains the most- the one who trains the smartest. Right now I'm training hard, like really hard. Harder then I’ve ever trained in my life but for the most part I'm nailing my recovery and my body is able to handle the workload. Later in the semester that may not be the case. As school gets more intense I may not be getting the sleep I need or other factors may play a role and I would have to respond by adjusting the training workload accordingly.
The thing is, like the quote says. To recover takes courage and confidence. You have to have confidence in yourself, your fitness and the plan. Just because someone else is training harder than you doesn't mean its right for YOU. You have to take the ego out of training. Its hard, really hard but its necessary to be able to do what YOU the athlete need to do for YOU. Because as an athlete its all about YOU. Training is selfish. You have to be selfish. You don't spend all those hours sweating and hurting for another person. You’re doing it for you. The best athletes in the world know what’s best for them and could care less what other people think. They just put their head down and train hard- then recover.
A lot of people may read this quote and say, “what are you talking about? Training hard is hard!” And their right. I’m not saying training is easy, or should be easy. It isn’t and it shouldn’t be. More often than not it sucks. There’s a lot of times in the middle of a workout where I look at myself and go “Why the heck am I doing this? This is NOT fun.” But why do we keep doing it? Because we love it. We love pushing ourselves, challenging our bodies, we strive for excellence and at the core its because we want to win. At our heart we all want to be winners. Each person can define what “winning” means for them but we all want to win. To be the best. So then training hard is “easy” because we choose to do it and we love to do it and we have an end goal we’re striving for. Recovering isn’t so much fun. As an athlete you don’t feel like your “doing” anything when your sitting around letting your body absorb the work. You may think its no big deal to make sure you get enough electrolytes or that there’s no such thing as the “30 minute window” for refueling and restoring glycogen stores after a workout. That’s fine. Maybe you don’t want it bad enough. You care enough to train hard but do you care enough to recover even better? Do you crave success enough to back off when its time to back off? How bad do you want to win? Everyone your going to line up against on race day is training hard. But who’s recovering the best? If I can train just as hard as everyone else but recover even better. If I can cover all the little intangibles that people overlook then I can win. I can beat them on race day. And that’s what I want. That’s what any athlete wants.
Time to get on the trainer…
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Just Rolling Along...
Training is continuing to roll along. I had a bit of a hiccup last week when I came down with some sort of flu like sickness for a day or two. I worked it right however and still got all my swims and runs in and just cut out a lot of biking. This week has been solid so far and the focus is on the swim. Big time. I'm on pace to do 30,000 yards this week which is more swimming then I have ever done in my life. My arms are already pretty exhausted but I keep plugging through. I am really impressed with how my body has been able to handle a consistent high work load for the last 4 weeks or so. Last week was a bit of a down week but still trained around 14/15 hours. My legs and arms will tell you otherwise but I'm having a blast doing 3-5 hours of training everyday. I'm feeling good and becoming more and more convinced that with enough sleep and good nutrition I can train as hard as possible! Collegiate Nationals is less than 3 months off...
Thursday, January 14, 2010
A New Year A New Season
It's January 14th and classes are under way at UT Tyler. Also underway is a new season. I'm not really sure what season it is for me- triathlon, track, cycling, cross country or all of the above but it's a new season regardless. My last season ended with the regional cross country meet in North Carolina. I crutched up to the starting line, ran a terrible race, picked up the crutches and moved on. Since regionals its been a slow rehab process to get my hip back where I can run again. Christmas break messed things up pretty good. Not so much because of lack of training and rehab but because of all the travel that did not do good things for hip. Lots of sitting really tightens up my hip flexor bad as well as my piriformis and glute medius. (yes those are real muscles) I did keep up with my strength program in hotel gyms and by paying one day fees but I didn't see much improvement in the two weeks I was gone over Christmas.
New Years Eve I landed in Dallas, Tx and was back in Tyler that night. What an exciting New Years it was for me. I spent about 8 hours helping a friend move and missed midnight by about 5 minutes because I was carrying a couch downstairs. Is this what happens as you start to get older? Oh no. January 1st I moved from my apartment to a duplex across the street (With said friend I'd helped move the night before.) The duplex is great mainly because we have a garage! Right now there are no cars in it but there are 6 bikes, 3 trainers and a bike repair stand. Perfect if you ask me.
Its been nice to get back in a routine and train regularly again. I did about 25 hours in 6 days last week with only 50minutes of running so that translates to some solid time on the bike and in the pool and gym. I'm running about 10 times a week but they are all super short runs. Last week was 5 minutes at a time, this week we bumped it up to 7. Slowly but surely. Even though I'm still a long way off I have confidence that I'll be able to still race well and have a good season this year. (Whatever season that may be)
I pr'd my 200:800 swim test last Saturday by A LOT. The times still aren't very impressive but coming off the week of training I'd had and only a week back in the pool I was super excited. If I can keep getting faster in the water it could mean good things for 2010...
Until next time.
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