This is officially my first week of base training. That means that my off-season was exactly four weeks long, during which time I spent three weeks preparing for a 10k running race, three days doing light recovery workouts, seven days getting my schedule sorted out, and finishing up my schoolwork (“sorting out my schedule†included 17 hours of workouts because I decided to be tour guide on my bike with Courtenay), and two days of no training at all. Those two days were awesome.
This morning at 5am I joined the Cascade Swim Club for a practice. I was excited to have some high school kids beat me around for 90 minutes. I was less excited for the part about it starting at 5am. Then I heard the set, and was even less excited: 15×200 @ 2:12.5 (I moved to the slowest lane and did 12 @ 2:25). This is not the kind of set I was looking for my fourth practice back in the water. Ouch. The only redeeming part of the morning was getting to listen to Nirvana Incesticide. I love Grunge music.
So I guess I’m back at it. And! Apparently, having never spent much time on the base portion of my training, I have quite a bit to gain by building up my aerobic base – perhaps some endurance and strength to avoid injury next season.
Unfortunately, in the four weeks of “off-season†I also rehashed a few bad habits, and started helping a bit more around the house (my dad will read this and think I’m lying, but he was out of town – so he’ll just have to live in disbelief.) Now, I can’t just drop everything again cold turkey! Here’s my list of thing I need to stop doing in order of priority:
- House work – it’s terrible for recovery.
- Nightlife – this was a close second, but a night of dancing has a lot more benefits than cleaning out the dishwasher.
- Baking cookies – it’s extra time on my feet (bad for recovery) and the cookies are much better when my mom bakes them.
- Watching movies after 8pm – especially of the Braveheart or Lord of The Rings variety.
- Morning coffee – I swam at 5am this morning, how is that possible without coffee?
- Eating cookies – first I have to convince my mom to stop baking them.
That’s all I can think of right now. I’m tired.