Focusing on the Now
Well.. the bike is clean again. I took it down to the car wash and used the spot-free rinse mode to get caked on mud off. Worked quite well! I dried everything with my car chamois. Still a few places I'll have to get in with a q-tip.. or take things apart, neither which I have time for. The chain still sounds like the links are full of sand. Uggh. I ran it through my chain cleaner brushes, but didn't seem to help much. The only thing I know that strips a chain clean of gunk is WD40. Might have to pick some up tomorrow. Anyone else have a good chain cleaning tip?I've been perusing more than a few of my fellow triathlon bloggers lately and keep seeing a too common theme: daily training logs, and weekly total hours. I know, I know.. at one time I did the same thing on this blog. However, I shut that down about two years ago. I couldn't tell you how many hours I trained since, or what workouts I did on any day since then, or at what intensity, or what my weekly hours were. These statistics are meaningless to me.
I've learned the most important thing to my performance as an athlete is what I'm doing RIGHT NOW. Looking over old training logs serves no purpose but to cause me to not pay attention to my current fitness.
"oh look, i missed x hours in February, no wonder I'm not as fit"
"I put in x hours per week average, so I should be this fast/slow"
I only care about how my body feels today, which dictates how fast/slow I should train. If I get TODAY right... I'll be fitter tomorrow... and race faster in the future.
Another way to lose focus on the now is TIME GOALS.
"I want to do a x:xx swim split, a x:xx bike split, and a x:xx run split, for a x:xx total split, adding in transitions"
How fast you want to race in the future does not dictate how you should be training right now. How fit you are right now dictates how fast you train. Any fans of Jack Daniels Running Formula will know his philosophy of race faster to train faster. And when your not racing, you listen to your body to dictate how fast you should train.
Speaking of which, I need to get to bed NOW. Hard bike session tomorrow... hopefully my chain is clean enough to ride.
posted by Greg @ 5/13/2008
5 Comments:
Thank you for teaching me this! It is freeing to train in this manner. All I am focused on is today. Speaking of which, what a great day for riding!
XO,
:)
Ha. I am one of "them". I log it...all of it. Because I like to see it, to acknowledge what I am doing and it actually does benefit me to look back when I am looking for clues or patterns to how I am feeling. Mostly it is a positive reinforcement to me, a reward to see the completion. I do look back at it, but not to tell me how fit or fast I "should be". Some days I don't feel fast, or strong, or fit. Some days I need a reminder of the commitment and dedication I have made and what I have done to get to the present. And some days reading back to great and shitty training days helps keep the big picture in perspective.
I am still bass ackwards from most. I don't have a training plan- not a defined 'do this workout' plan anyway. I swim bike and run every week, and the days I feel like going faster I do, the days I feel heavy I focus more on form. I never wear a hr monitor and go exclusively by feel. I never looked at the thing when I wore it anyway.
It is all a giant experiment for me- no coach, no program, no zones. So far it is working out, and only time will tell.... I don't have any money on it, and my life and self worth are not dependent on my results, as long as I am loving what I do and it is a positive addition in my life, I will keep training.
I do agree that training faster results in racing faster. This I have learned from experience and from watching D who goes hard in every workout.
Enjoy the bike ride :-)
I'll have to look into the Jack Daniels theories. I find it hard not to chase a time goal but you do have a point, and I'm trying to zen it a bit more than fret it.
Put in the hard work today - that's all that can matter in the 'now'.
"I do agree that training faster results in racing faster."
I said the opposite... racing faster, means training faster... but that's Jack Daniels.
Looking for clues from past training logs leaves out many variables. What was your life stress, your level of sleep, etc? There are too many variables to account for and log... so the best we can do is say "How do I feel right now?" and train accordingly. But, I think you're mostly there already!
I once trained as you did... and made some tremendous gains in fitness... it works! However, I plateaued and needed a plan for further progress, which is why I hired Marc.
Happy training. :-)
That last comment was a response to Amber.. not you Jordan!
I think a post on my "mental training" this year is in the works...
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