Recovery

For those of you looking for my recent blog post titled "Feedback", it's lost in blogland. I'm not sure what happened but Blogger was experiencing some technical difficulties the past two days, and since then, my post is MIA and I'm too lazy to repost it from memory. In a nutshell, I was asking for feedback about my training volume. But Beth and Michelle provided some insight rather quickly, and during my swim workout last night, I had my "A HA!" moment.

I am following the same training schedule that I used for Ironman OZ last year because I stepped off that course, alert, feeling fresh, eating ice cream, and drinking beers and cheering the night time finishers all the way until midnight. I was fit going into the race and that was apparent post race; I was not sore, no GI issues or in pain immediately after the race nor the days following. But following the plan this time around has been less successful. I feel more fatigued and my times are slower in all three disciplines. Thus I cried out for help. Both Beth and Michelle brought up the idea of recovery, and during my swim, I revisited the idea and thus came the "A HA!" moment.

Though my training is not any different, my recovery is definitely different. I was on sabbatical last year, thus I wasn't working 40+ hour weeks and doing the training. I got to take naps and all of my training was done by 6 PM. This time around, not only am I working, but my workouts are getting done as late as 9 PM, and I have to turn around and wake up at 4:30 AM for the next workout. I really think the culprit is lack of proper recovery. I can't do all of this training and work a 40+ hour job...duh! the answer is so obvious and I'm feeling pretty stupid that I did not account for this (very important) detail. Looks like I'll be making some changes.

*Too funny, just as I posted this and checked my blog, the missing "Feeback" post reappeared.