So, how is the rest period going? Great question and I will share. This is the first time I have actually totally set aside my swimsuit, bike and running shoes and haven't touched any of them for 2 weeks now. Mentally I was very ready for a break. And to this day I'm not exactly ready to jump on my bike for a long ride. I have been enjoying just looking at my bike and that's about it. The Specialized is sitting in my temporary kitchen (we are re-modeling our kitchen) so I can glance at it several times a day. Just looking at the Specialized gets me excited about the upcoming race season.
My goal right now is to continue resting for about 3 more weeks. I am exercising, just not training. What does exercise consist of? Well, right now it consists of lots of walking, P90X, push-ups, lots of sit-ups, and hiking. That's it!!! On a day-to-day basis I am mostly doing a P90X DVD in the morning and an hour+ walk later in the day. It feels good to be active and yet not training.
I haven't ever taken such a break but feel as though it is going to be very beneficial going into my first ever ironman training. What I am practicing is periodization. I am sure many of you have heard of it but for those who are not familiar let me explain what it is. Periodization is a year-long training plan that includes rest, recovery, foundation building, pre-race training leading to peak performance during race season. Basically, the idea behind periodization is to keep the athlete injury free, fit and in top condition during race season. Rest and recovery are necessary in order to reduce the risks of injuries, burn out, and overtraining. The plan breaks the year up into cycles. There are three cycles: macrocycles, mesocycles and microcycles. A macrocycle consist of the entire year of training; mesocycle consists of each month of training; microcycle consists of weekly training and/or daily training. During my off season I have been spending part of it designing and organizing my upcoming macrocycle, mesocycles and microcycles. I have my training mapped out from January to July. Each month is planned, each week, each day. Each month will vary in intensity and volume. I will be training fairly hard for 3 weeks and then take every forth week to recover a bit. During each week I plan on training everyday but one. I will be taking every Saturday completely off for several reasons. First of all because it’s the day I go to church and I firmly believe in keeping the Sabbath day holy as the Bible says. I, personally, cannot train on the Sabbath without getting too much into the sport leading my mind to dwell on other things rather than on God. I find that God blesses me beyond my wildest dreams when I listen, obey and follow Him. Second of all I love spending the day with family and friends. Also it gives my body a physical and mental break. Taking Saturday off prepares my body and mind to tackle another week of training.
My weekly training will look something like the following starting in January: long bike ride every Sunday. I will be starting the season out doing only 2 hour rides and then build from there. Monday’s I will be doing a long run and an easy spin. Tuesdays I will be swimming in the morning and doing a run late morning. Wednesday I will be biking followed by a short t-run in the morning and doing hill runs in the evening. Thursday I will be swimming in the morning. Friday I will be biking and doing a t-run in the morning. Saturday I will have off and then Sunday I will start all over again. I will also be throwing some strength training into the above schedule here and there, especially core training. This schedule will continue to change during the year but it gives you the basic idea for now. I hope to be able to keep the above schedule up but it’s going to be tough to do while raising a 1 and a half year old, working 4 part-time jobs and taking care of the home, laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, and so much more. I will be blogging about it so you all can read whether it works out or not. My fingers are crossed and I am already feeling slightly exhausted thinking about it.
Once my above training schedule starts I will be going to bed when Tuck does and raising several hours before my boys do in order to train mostly before Tuck wakes up and before Jamie goes to work. There will be hardly any leisure time, every minute will matter. First of all I want to start each day with God in prayer and worship, once my early morning training is done then my goal is to focus on Tuck during the day and Jamie during the evening when he gets back from work. So, as you can see I will be squeezing in lots of training around my most important relationships then every other moment will be filled with other daily responsibilities. It’s going to be a roller coaster ride from January until July 22, 2012. I am ready for the challenge; feeling like exhaustion is going to be beating down my back door, but this is my one chance so I’m going to give it everything I’ve got. Here’s to hoping that periodization works!!!!!!!!
Smiles, Alicia
