British Summertime has officially arrived so its very timely that at the start of a new season - my journey to Roth begins.
Tomorrow sees me start my 16-week plan for Challenge Roth on 12 July. Over the last few weeks I have spoken of the need to adopt a more disciplined, focused approach to my training - enabling me to prepare to the best of my ability for the what will be the biggest challenge of my sporting life to date.
With the arrival of the first 3 weeks plans, my mind is clear on achieving my goal and removing all other potential distractions. This may mean that I won't do the race my mates are doing or cutting short a long ride (as I'm only due to do 3 hours) but, in a strange way, I am looking forward to displaying the discipline required to stick to the plan. The suits my personality strengths and gives me inner strength & motivation - and is one of attractions of the long-distance stuff.
The last few weeks have seen me recover from the 30 mile Ultra, get out on my bike for some encouraging rides, see a drop-off in my swimming performance (due to fatigue & injury) and do minimal running. This has been the cluttered mess which I am now looking forward to clearing up via the structured planning - I love to clean up a mess (I'm a real geek for cleanliness!)
So, light nights will bring post-work bike sessions, longer runs and consistency. The lighter mornings will see the swim sessions include some outdoor sessions (50m lido & lake), early morning bikes and those lovely fresh morning runs.
The diet will "lighten up" - so loads of regular, balanced meals and no need for those "winter warmers" of traditional English dishes.
One really pleasing factor with my race planning this season is that all of travel & accommodation is sorted & booked. The great positive is that for every race I will be traveling with mates - which is not something I've done in the past. Meeting more like-minded people and creating new networks has been a real positive from the last few months. Removing the additional stress of travel etc and adding in the social ingredient just adds to my positive mind-set for the forthcoming months.
Back to the last week, following last weekends monster sessions of 5 hour bike and 5.6km swim, I have predictably felt shattered. I have been experiencing some real discomfort in my rib region when swimming. This has seen me have to cut short Thursday & Saturdays swims - which I really hate doing - it leaves me feeling peeved all day. Strangely, when I was in M&S y'day, as I turned I heard this ripping noise in my ribs - as if something was being torn free - and the pain seems to have gone or significantly decreased......one to watch me thinks...
Before I leave I wished to make you all aware of a great initiative launched by the author of The Thrive Diet, Brendan Brazier. The Thrive Diet is the best nutrition book I have ever read and has inspired me to really review & improve my diet - not that it was too bad (more lazy than bad) - via the introduction of more whole, plant-based foods.
Brendan is now providing a service called Thrive in 30 - which simply breaks down the book into a series of emails & video-casts - for those time-poor athletes. I highly recommend checking this out - you can sign-up here
Please let me know how you get on - I think this is a wonderful idea - it would be great to hear your thoughts as well.
Ok kids, bit of a long one tonight, must have something to do with the clocks....
Take it easy - catch up next week...
Sparky
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