Recovery Complete. Cool.

The scheduling of workouts for the remainder of my year will be a balancing act. This past week I took a recovery week. I didn't necessarily need a recovery week because 1) my body was holding up well, 2) my motivation was at an all-time high and 3) my ATP (Friel's annual training plan) was necessarily indicating that I needed one.

So, why did I take the rest? First, I trust my coach Brian Grasky. Second, to set up the rest of the year, schedule wise, I had to take the week "off." On a coaching note, if you are a coached athlete or considering being coached, I strongly recommend engaging in robust dialogue with your coach. Over time, your coach will learn quite a bit about you as an athlete, but I am a firm believer that you will always know yourself better. You might not know how to articulate the way you are feeling or how a training session went - in words per se, but if your gut presents a discomfort about a particular piece of your plan....don't dismiss it. Address it.

Back to my recovery week. I really rested for 5 days and hit the weekend fairly hard. It worked out ok because I had a two day business trip in the middle of the week that really only limited me to short, moderately productive runs. I got in a test in each sport where my swim test went well and my bike and run tests netted little improvements. Not worries at all. In general, I am seriously re-evaluating what my recovery weeks look like and how my mind and body respond to them. On the "mind" side of things, I need to find a way to keep riding the positive momentum from putting in solid/hard weeks. I kind of get "down" mentally during a recovery week. On the body" side of things, I need to keep feeling fresh while still recovering. I know I don't really "lose" fitness and that recovery is extremely good for my body, but often times I feel like certain parts of my fitness regress....not sure how to quantify this, but things centering around how my body responds to regularly scheduled workouts and discomfort from difficult sessions.

This week I am entering a build phase with slightly less volume with slightly increased intensity. I am keeping up a decent swim volume w/4x/wk , hitting the most intensity on the bike and easing up the volume on the run while adding in my 1st track workout of the season....watch out!