I've been lax in writing posts, but it's because I've been out training! It feels amazing to be out on the roads and the track sweating and working hard again. And with working on the bunkhouse when I can, cooking, eating, going to classes at the gym, life has been very full!
I've had a nice change in mentality the last few weeks that has really helped. I was getting frustrated that I wasn't going as fast as I "should" be going. Once I adjusted my thinking from what I should be doing for someone in shape, to thinking of myself as out of shape and getting back in shape then it was so much easier on me mentally. Now each workout feels like it's building instead of being slower than what I want. I had to realize that the Isle of Man race really took some out of me and the extra weeks off afterwards didn't help either. Now I'm feeling good and enjoying pushing.
One thing that helped too was to make my workouts more effort based. It can be really frustrating for me if I'm doing a standard workout of say 1K repeats to not see a time down as far as I want. So instead I do workouts based on effort. Today I did a Norwegian fartlek. I did one minute hard, one minute easy, two minutes hard, one minute easy, three minutes hard, one minute easy, all the way up five minutes and back down. It's 25 minutes of hard and 8 minutes of easy for a 33 minute workout (I do not end on an easy, I end on the one minute hard). This workout I can do anywhere; out on the roads, in a park, track, wherever. I can pay attention to how far I go or not. Today I did it in one of the parks in Owego that's constantly rolling, so I had the extra challenge of powering up some hills. It was perfect for today since I know I wouldn't have seen times I would've wanted on a typical repeat workout. Instead I finished my workout knowing I gave it all I had during my hards and had a very successful workout!
I think I'll be as ready as I can be for my races in China. I wish I was in a little better shape, but I've been doing the absolute best I can. For a while I was getting really down on myself, especially seeing the entry list for the women and their 20K PBs. I have the slowest 20K PB going into the race. I was thinking I was going to make a fool of myself, that people would think I had no business being there. But I realized a few things. First, I was probably ranked slowest last year as well, and I never came in last. Second, I'm strong, so where some women may struggle the last few days I will still be powering away. Third I can use this opportunity to race some AMAZING women and try to hold on to them as long as possible to help me become a better walker. I'm going to see old friends and make new ones. I get to visit China for the third time in two years! So I'm going to go, have fun, and try my absolute hardest. I learned a lot from last year and will capitalize on that to do better this year.
So with that I'm going to go spend some time in the garden and head out later for my second speed session of the day and then go to the gym!
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