I'm just getting ready to head off to Auckland this weekend for the ITU World Championships.
The past 4 weeks being back at work seem to have flown by, but its been a good experiment in extending my peak conditioning phase while not actually putting many hours of training in. The dark mornings haven't helped, but I've managed 5 mornings of 6am alarms to train before work this week.
Its been hard to train effectively with my ribs still recovering from the bike crash, but I keep reminding myself that, as Chrissie says: 'pain is a conversation between the mind and the body'. I proved that by racing successfully at the Votwo race in Dorney, rather annoyingly being beaten into 2nd by 15 seconds - a result of having raced in the men's wave not the women's. That will teach me to get too big for my boots! That, together with the Speedo Hampton Court Swim had proved to me that I can handle the cold in a swim again, after getting used to the balmy bath temperatures in Las Vegas.
Anyway, as usual I've been thinking.... about two different things. Firstly, now is the time to be planning the race season for 2013, and I've been helping out athletes both new and old to the sport to enable them to both assess their current season, learn from it and to form the right goals for next year. Its very rewarding and it is good practice for me to make sure I can answer the same questions for myself to my coach Tom Bennett at T2 coaching like:
1. what are my strengths and how to make the most of them? Answer: work ethic, resilience. I will be looking at another set of mentally tough races next year to test my resilience in 2013!
2. What are my weaknesses? lack of self confidence and sometimes self-belief. I really surprised myself this year because deep down I didn't think I was capable of the results I've achieved.
3. How will I do things differently in 2013? - I have learned a lot about myself, my ability to make great leaps in performance by raising my game, and I know the conditions I need to allow this to happen next year. And rest is the key.
This is my second point- I'm thinking that there is something to be said for sleep being key to being able to make breakthroughs - for one simple reason - pain thresholds. I've noticed that while my ribs are still inflamed, I feel very forlorn, like the little meerkat that was bitten by the snake on the BBC's Life of Mammals and I am not able to push myself as my pain thresholds are not good enough.When I've slept a bit more, then I'm much more able to withstand and push through the pain -this is a well documented phenomenon, see Pertovaara et al. and any number of references to the HPA axis in response to pain.
So I'm thinking about ways to get myself new targets for next year based on achieving a set number of hours of sleep. We all know how hard it is just to get to bed at a decent time during the week. I think I need competition to encourage me. What about a strava equivalent for logging your sleep hours? No idea if it will catch on, but I want to be proud to rest more in 2013, and I'm looking for incentivisation.
Speaking of sleep, I need to try to get a whole lot of that during my 36 hour journey starting this Sunday- I've never raced this far from home so it will be a new experience to fly in on Tuesday and race the following Monday with a 13 hour time difference.
Have a great weekend and for those racing Kona - have a blast, I'll be following in envy ahead of setting this as a goal for the future. And of course it will be one way of staying awake on Saturday to make sure I sleep well on the long flight!
The past 4 weeks being back at work seem to have flown by, but its been a good experiment in extending my peak conditioning phase while not actually putting many hours of training in. The dark mornings haven't helped, but I've managed 5 mornings of 6am alarms to train before work this week.
Its been hard to train effectively with my ribs still recovering from the bike crash, but I keep reminding myself that, as Chrissie says: 'pain is a conversation between the mind and the body'. I proved that by racing successfully at the Votwo race in Dorney, rather annoyingly being beaten into 2nd by 15 seconds - a result of having raced in the men's wave not the women's. That will teach me to get too big for my boots! That, together with the Speedo Hampton Court Swim had proved to me that I can handle the cold in a swim again, after getting used to the balmy bath temperatures in Las Vegas.
Anyway, as usual I've been thinking.... about two different things. Firstly, now is the time to be planning the race season for 2013, and I've been helping out athletes both new and old to the sport to enable them to both assess their current season, learn from it and to form the right goals for next year. Its very rewarding and it is good practice for me to make sure I can answer the same questions for myself to my coach Tom Bennett at T2 coaching like:
1. what are my strengths and how to make the most of them? Answer: work ethic, resilience. I will be looking at another set of mentally tough races next year to test my resilience in 2013!
2. What are my weaknesses? lack of self confidence and sometimes self-belief. I really surprised myself this year because deep down I didn't think I was capable of the results I've achieved.
3. How will I do things differently in 2013? - I have learned a lot about myself, my ability to make great leaps in performance by raising my game, and I know the conditions I need to allow this to happen next year. And rest is the key.
This is my second point- I'm thinking that there is something to be said for sleep being key to being able to make breakthroughs - for one simple reason - pain thresholds. I've noticed that while my ribs are still inflamed, I feel very forlorn, like the little meerkat that was bitten by the snake on the BBC's Life of Mammals and I am not able to push myself as my pain thresholds are not good enough.When I've slept a bit more, then I'm much more able to withstand and push through the pain -this is a well documented phenomenon, see Pertovaara et al. and any number of references to the HPA axis in response to pain.
So I'm thinking about ways to get myself new targets for next year based on achieving a set number of hours of sleep. We all know how hard it is just to get to bed at a decent time during the week. I think I need competition to encourage me. What about a strava equivalent for logging your sleep hours? No idea if it will catch on, but I want to be proud to rest more in 2013, and I'm looking for incentivisation.
Speaking of sleep, I need to try to get a whole lot of that during my 36 hour journey starting this Sunday- I've never raced this far from home so it will be a new experience to fly in on Tuesday and race the following Monday with a 13 hour time difference.
Have a great weekend and for those racing Kona - have a blast, I'll be following in envy ahead of setting this as a goal for the future. And of course it will be one way of staying awake on Saturday to make sure I sleep well on the long flight!
No comments:
Post a Comment