Did I really just say sometimes?
Anyway ... As an everyday endurance athlete we all have to make compromises. Reality can be a missed workout or a meal on the road. Gotta do what you gotta do, right? Right. So with the limited amount of time we have for swim/bike/run we have to squeeze out as much as we possibly can.
Sometimes this means changing things up .. calling an audible on your personal plan. At times this means simply changing around when you perform a specific workout. For example, this time of year I normally run on a Wednesday morning and do intervals on the trainer on Tuesday. If, however, the weather forecast for Wednesday is bitterly cold or snow, I will move the Wednesday run to Tuesday. In the Summer months I will often make a switch to run in the rain as opposed to riding in the rain. Not only will I still get the workouts in, the workout is probably of better quality than if I stayed with the original plan.
But what do you do when you show up for a workout not feeling it? Do you bag the workout and go to Taco Bell? Maybe. I don't suggest it, but there are times where it is more productive to walk away from a workout than to carry on. Trust me, you'll know when to walk away.
More often, you simply need to find a way to get through the workout. Sometimes it's as simple of running a big loop instead of smaller loops so you can't stop at home early. Sometimes it's just sucking it up and doing the intervals you have planned. And sometimes you call an audible.
Here's an example from last week:
My basic training week during the first few months of the year has me swimming on Friday afternoons. It fits the schedule, but is a dangerous time of the week to schedule a swim, because, you know, it's Friday afternoon and it is easy to be a little physically tired or mentally checked out, thinking of the weekend. There are days it would be so easy to just keep riding down the highway for some shuteye on the couch.
This past Friday was one of those days. The body was tired and I was lacking mental focus. Still, at 4:30 pm I drove to LA Fitness. After some dynamic stretching and a few minutes of futzing around, it was a bit after 5 pm and time to swim. When I jumped into the pool to start warming up, I knew there was a main set of 5 x 400 on tap.
The first 100 of my warmup felt horrible. So did the next 100. The third 100 felt even worse. From there it didn't get better. After 15 minutes of easy swimming, it was time to dig into the main set ... or go home and grab some dinner.
Here's what I did: I started the main set with Rule #4 (20 Minute Rule) in mind. As I started to swim, things felt less horrible, physically, but mentally hard. About 200 yards into the first 400 I made the decision too change the workout. Instead of 5x400 the main set became 2x1000. My stroke felt good, my heart rate appropriate for the pace, and the pace was right where it should be. All good so why the change?
The challenge that day came from the space between my ears. I knew that time spent standing at the wall between 400s would give me four opportunities to bag (what would be left of) the workout. What my experience tells me it that there is a good chance I would have done maybe 3 but probably 4x400 before calling it. By going 2x1000 I only had to put my head back into the water one time to get the full main set in. As it turns out, I did the full main set and finished the workout with a pull set, giving me 3,000 yards for the workout.
The decision to change things up allowed me to get the workout completed with a relatively minor change, but the main objective in tact.
So the next time you aren't necessarily feeling it, you have three options - suck it up with the workout as planned, bag the workout and go eat some pizza, or call an audible to keep teh spirit of teh workout in tact, but make the work a bit more palatable.
Train hard. Stay Focused.
Jon
