REST!

Yesterday all Jess and I did was eat, sleep, watch movies and then I ate some more. I had a rest day scheduled for yesterday and the rain and snow made it very easy to sit inside all day and get some "real" rest.
Today is supposed to be sunny but we woke up to more rain. The forecast says that it will clear up by the afternoon so that means more rest for me in the am and then this afternoon I will head out for an easy recovery ride and swim. We have realized that the weather people really don't know what they are talking about so we will just wait for the sun to come out and then hope it stays that way.

Today will be my second recovery day after two harder days of training. I didn't really want to put 2 harder days together but weather forced me to make some adjustments to my schedule. At altitude rest is key! It is very easy to overtrain b/c your body takes longer to recover then at sea-level and it takes us stubborn sea-level athlete's time to realize this. I know how my body reacts at altitude b/c of years of training and I have a good coach that knows the physiological and psychological effects of altitude training/racing.

So, I have learned that even if you feel good and are ready to go you probably still need some rest. This is especially true since I have a big race next weekend. About 2 weeks to 10 days out from an event you stop gaining fitness...well, you don't really stop gaining fitness but the workouts you do in the 2 weeks to 10 days prior to an event don't really help you on race day (it is possible that they could mentally but not really physically). The reason for this is that your body needs time to process and recover from the hard work you put in. Hard workouts I do now will help me in Maui (which is the most important race of the year) but will likely only make me tired for nationals. I will do some shorter, intense efforts throughout the week in each sport b/c you want to make sure your body is sharp and knows that it has a very hard effort coming up. These efforts will be short and used primarily to "shock" the system, not to gain fitness. The most important part of my training right now is the rest. So, as I mentioned above, altitude affects me quite a bit so over the next several days my job is to make sure I go into each workout rested and focused mentally on the upcoming race. If I am not rested I won't train at all or will do very little to facilitate recovery (this is "active recovery").

--The only time we left the couch was for a HUGE breakfast at the local coffee shop...it was AWESOME!


--Even Sophie got in plenty of relaxation

Have a good sunday and stay tuned!