This is a blog post about days off. Get it? The blog entry title is a pun!
Okay so Saturday there was a good deal of training to be done--30 min open water swim, 4.5 hour bike and then a 90 minute run. I was pretty excited about it. I started off the swim at the pool (open water swim at the beginning of May ya right!) and felt a little bleah. As soon as I started the bike though a sudden and drastic wave of apprehension swept over me. My legs were toast! As crumpled-up as the clothes on my bedroom floor! As fried as the eggs in my egg and bacon sandwich! As dead as Abraham Lincoln! This was very sad to me. So after spinning for 15 minutes and nothing doin', I called it quits. This was a difficult decision (read: big athletic ego bruised) but in the end I knew it to be better than try and flog myself through the session.
It is only in the last 6 weeks or so that I have been encountering this phenomenon of taking forced rest due to thick, layered fatigue. It has been one heckuva learning experience. I've come to realize that it's not one single, or even a few, workouts that makes you a competitor; it's the consistent dedication of weeks and weeks of training, the thousands of little decisions that cumulatively makes one better. Going to bed 15 minutes earlier, skipping the doughnuts at work, taking a freaking ice bath, or whatever, those things make the difference. Best not to get too upset about one workout, but relish the extra rest. So Sunday was also a rest day. boy oh boy.
But then, this (Monday) morning I had a 3 hour bike workout, and nailed! it. I obliterated that session. I am a cottage of wattage. Haven't felt that good on the bike in a long time. So there you go.
Take home message: excellence=cumulative result of many small decisions, all leading the individual towards a specific goal, place, or whatever. Consistency makes for champions.
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