Keep On Pushing

I have taken a new interest in seeing how my body responds to being pushed. It is funny, in hind-sight, that I use to take every single race so seriously and truly expected to be in top form for every single one. Inexperience I suppose. Now, I genuinely relish the opportunity to try new things with not only specific workouts, but with larger blocks of training, race day strategy etc. The whole enchilada.....everything is fair game. What this really means, with respect to being in top form for race day, is that you kind of have to be willing to accept the results of a failed experiment...or be prepared to reap the rewards of the increased risk. Enough with being vague!

What all this specifically means today is that I am trying some new workouts that push me well beyond my typical comfort zone, or ordinary intense training. For example, today's workout consisted of roughly 2hr mtb ride of which 40mins where intervals going up some gnarly climbs at a threshold pace followed by a transition treadmill run where I set the pace for 6:15 miles and simply held on for as long as I could. No warm-up or easing-in, just set it and went. I lasted for 30 minutes. This might not sound considerable to you, but with the fatigue that has set in as the result of the cumulative effects of intense training over the past number of weeks....this was tough. I physically cracked after about 20mins and then put the brain on cruise control for the last 10mins. I will keep forging ahead tomorrow with a 3.5hr road bike ride and a 2500m open water swim to stay true to my "crash" week. Not big, but, trust me, enough at this point. Looking back, pretty much all of my intensity workouts in each sport are not the "norm" that you typically see or that I hear others doing. This is great and might be the answer to how to not leave potential fitness on the table come race day.