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Written by Vince
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Tuesday, 23 June 2009 13:47 |
I am about to close the door on the Build period and enter the Peak period. As I enter each new period, I've been re-reading the periodization chapters in several books to refresh my memory of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. In the book "Going Long", the authors state: "Many triathletes end their Build period on edge."
It's funny how the mind works. You take a simple word like "edge" and I'm immediately drawn back into my childhood to when I would go to summer camp each year. The word "edge" reminds me of one specific year when I had the coolest camp counselor in the world. My world was pretty small back then but this man made a large impression which I've carried with me throughout my entire life. In addition to my world being small, I was physically scrawny at the age of 15. In fact, most of the kids in our cabin were small and we'd get picked on quite often.
The counselor, whose name I wish I could remember, realized we were unhappy for being teased and decided, in a very unusual way, to make us a team to which he was apart of. The year was 1982 and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released a song titled: "The Message" which is a song about life in the inner city. The chorus, the part of the song the counselor had taught us the lyrics to: "Don't push me, cause I'm close to the edge I'm trying not to lose my head." There's that word again... "edge". Fast forward to the future -- I'm 41 years old and I’m ending my Build on (the) "edge".
A typical period for me would have three weeks of solid training and end with one recovery week. My coach has decided that we will skip the recovery week and finish out the Build period as close to that edge as possible. She and I have a funny relationship because there are times when I'm begging for more and other times I'm wondering what the heck she's thinking. This is one of those latter situations but I already know the answer to the question -- the question being: "Hey, where's my recovery week?" The answer: "You'll recover during the Peak period" which is sort of the purpose of Peak but it is my understanding that you should enter the Peak period recovered. Fortunately for me, my recovery time seems to be practically overnight.
So what's in store for me on my so called "recovery week"? The two most obvious workouts are a 14 mile run which I ran this morning without a hitch and a brick this weekend which includes a 100 mile bike and a 10 mile run.
This entire season seems like one big giant experiment so I'll just throw another test onto the pile and see what comes out at Lake Placid. Wish me luck!
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