![\"2014-09-28](\"http:\/\/adjustedreality.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/2014-09-28-15.56.48-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThings I did right:<\/p>\n
1. Consistent training.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n I had no weeks where I was completely knocked out by injury.\u00a0 I had a few niggles here and there, but I was completely doctor approved to run through them and nothing hung around too long.\u00a0 My body showed up all year and I was able to swim, bike, and run each week from July 28th 2014 to June 21st, 2015 at my discretion.<\/p>\n One of the best things I did for myself was that 5 week run streak in January.\u00a0 It taught me that I could run in any conditions, that running didn’t have to be a special event.\u00a0 It taught me how to really do a recovery run.\u00a0 It made me harden the fuck up and get the miles done because it I couldn’t put it off until a better day.\u00a0 I also think it’s one reason I was able to run the whole marathon in February.<\/p>\n 2. Taking enough time off during season to stave off major burnout.<\/em><\/p>\n I had at least one week off after each major race, and one ramp up week after that. I also followed each major race with vacations – in some cases that helped my stress levels and in some cases it didn’t.<\/p>\n After that, I took about 1 recovery week for every 3 weeks of solid tri training.\u00a0 This helped me stay mentally with it pretty much through the end of my season instead of being OVER IT a few months before like 2014.<\/p>\n 3. My head game<\/em><\/p>\n While I lost it a little bit at times, I felt like 2014-15 was a breakthrough season in many ways because of how much better I got mentally at racing, not just physically.<\/p>\n I did sessions to really focus on keeping my head straight and simulate racing more often, and I think this helped me… y’know, race well.\u00a0 I was executing by rote instead of constantly problem solving new things I didn’t expect.<\/p>\n I went into just about every race feeling excited, rested, fueled, prepared, and motivated.\u00a0 It might help that I wasn’t racing any new distances, but I also pursued some lofty goals for each one.<\/p>\n I attacked every race.\u00a0 I never let myself do the “well, it’s not your race, let’s just jog this one in and forget the time” thing.\u00a0 If I was missing my A goal, I was doing strategerie calculating how to accomplish my B goal.\u00a0 This season was the one where I hung the fuck on every race, even if the day wasn’t going 100% my way.<\/p>\n I can’t lie – the marathon results frustrated me.\u00a0 I still can’t believe I can’t boast a sub-5 PR after everything I did last year.\u00a0 But I bounced back pretty quickly from both races and was thrilled with what I DID achieve; especially once I started in on the shorter stuff and started obliterating PR after PR.<\/p>\n I also was able to salvage my season even though I lost my training partner for a few months due to injury.\u00a0 I also think because I stayed motivated and training, he was more motivated to get back into the swing of things quickly.<\/p>\n 4. Training Specifically<\/em><\/p>\n As a 70.3er and marathoner, it’s really easy to overtrain the easy distance volume.\u00a0 It seems reasonable if you’re going to do a few long events throughout the year, you should always be ready to race the distance, right?\u00a0 Multi-mile swims, 3-4 hour bike rides, double digit runs should be done no matter what you’re racing, right?<\/p>\n Sure – if you want to stay the same speed and get burnt out.\u00a0 Taking a few months to work on shorter distances without so much endurance fatigue made me speedier.\u00a0 We’ll see how this plays out now that I’m having to ramp up the mileage rather quickly… but it helped me be mentally and physically ready to race each race knowing I specifically prepared for it.\u00a0 When I’ve been doing 70.3 volume, I’ll show up to sprint triathlons thinking “what the fuck am I doing here, this is a waste of time”.\u00a0 Not this year.\u00a0 It was fun!<\/p>\n\n