Let's start with one of my basic premises: There is no off-season. There are either the regular, normal, routine every-week workouts an athlete completes as part of their regular life, particularly if they want to be successful in upcoming events; or there's slackdom, pure and simple.
But I haven't been in a pool since some time before September 23rd, when I completed my last triathlon and open water swim at Walt Disney World. Which makes it something like almost seven weeks without a swim workout now.
So I guess that makes me a Swim Slacker (tm).
It happened that way because I don't have any kind of a Swim Training Plan in place. I've been trying to hit a minimum distance of 2000 yards per week, usually in one workout, but I'm realizing that in the last couple of months I've neglected that discipline.
So that means it's time to take a hard look at my 2008 event calendar, finalize my events and distances, and work backwards from there to see where I should be in my weekly training volume and intensity.
Because without a plan in place and put to paper, I'm just adrift.
5 comments:
"So that means it's time to take a hard look at my 2008 event calendar"
It means you better get your ass in the pool because if there is one discipline that seriously suffers when you slack off it is swimming. I'm having a little cry for you, dear. Write down "I will swim every week for the rest of my life" and head for the pool - stat! :-)
ZING! Bullseye!!
Heh. Except I think it's much more important to maintain a running base and keep up a certain level of pounding every week, but yeah, message heard. As soon as I get over this cold....
Running - must maintain soft tissues, otherwise back to low duration low volume low intensity
Swimming - must maintain technique, otherwise back to flailing
Not sure which would be *more* important - *both* are important!
Anyhow, I believe in recovery - call it an off-season if you like!
Put it this way:
Not swimming makes you slower in your races.
Not running cuts your mileage and increases the likelihood of injury when you ramp up again.
Injured or slow? I'll pick slow any day!!
I chalk up my "slacker" attitude to yearly "bio-rhythms". In hibernation mode, currently. And it's still in the 80s here....I am certainly wimpified!
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