Wahey, what a difference a week makes! With the drop off in fatigue and a bit of a lovely taper my reasoning, goals and aims for triathlon in general and the upcoming race have naturally settled and aligned. I had a nice easy spin on the bike on Sunday which allowed me to visualise my performance and the race, and my legs were starting to feel ok. This week has a fairly massive drop off in training load and a bit of sun surely helped.
Mood can be a great indicator. If you can step outside yourself, look at your behaviour and mood, and consider why you’re poorly motivated, or why you can’t really be arsed to talk about it, or why you feel like you need to go to the pub for a couple of pints, or why you’re a grumpy bugger, then you might consider how recent stress or incidents might be affecting you. Emotional stress, physical stress, mental stuff, hassle at work, significant life events, the stress of training, travelling, deadlines, relationships and long term workloads all affect us. As an athlete long term training loads often build and take us towards our physical limits without us really noticing. We crack on with it, we get used to the fatigue, we have a plan and a programme, usually with rest built in, and we keep going. It can be a good sign that you’re hitting your training limits right before you start to ease off and recover, or right before you start to taper for a race.
Of course most of the time we’re too tired and grumpy to give a crap.
With a well deserved rest you’ll see your mood change again, if its cause was training stress & fatigue. I’m looking forward to Sunday. I knew I would. Two more super easy days, hit it hard on race day and then spend the next week recovering.
Although camping in the rain with two kids might quickly change my mood again.
Overtraining? Under-resting? Been there, done that. It’s not an easy point to get to, but it’s not nice, and not easy to get out of.
To be honest I don’t think this is much of an issue for most triathletes (and runners and cyclists and swimmers). Most people don’t get anywhere near the loading required for resting to be a significant issue, but its worth keeping a third eye on.
I’ve still no idea what the hell I’m doing at work though.
