I am lazy sometimes

This morning the alarm went off at 4.30am, I know I have to get up but I feel like I’ve done the Ironman yesterday. If I wasn’t the coach I think I would have pulled one of my blue cards out. (Trent, my coach and motivator and I have an arrangement. At the start of the season I get four “blue cards”. It’s like a “get out of jail free card in Monopoly”. The idea is that when I’m sick or too tired to train I use a card. I only get four of these for a season)

If I wasn’t the coach, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been there this morning, but I have only missed coaching a scheduled session twice in the past six years. I’ve been crook, I’ve been hurting after having fallen off my bike, but I feel I have an obligation to my athletes to set an example of what I want from them.

I looked in the mirror and Keith Richards (Rolling Stone) was looking back at me. This is usually a sign that I should have a day off. Once you get going it’s not so bad, my back was tired, my shoulders were sore, but as I walked up the path to the pool I turned on my stage face.

The workout went well. Today is a swim speed set followed by strength intervals on the windtrainer and an aerobic group run. Everybody in the squad gave all they had. It was a great workout. It was my turn now. By this time my Croation coffee grinder had arrived and opened his kiosk. I ordered a double espresso with a couple of sugars. Maybe this’ll lift me, it works before races.

I swim and do my intervals under Trent (Red Dog) after the squad go off on their run. My swim warm up was 2 x 300m with drills. Honestly half way through I could hardly lift my arms out of the water. I was ready to pull out the “blue card”. I needed a quick trip to the toilets after the warm up. The third time this morning. I sat there thinking, I must have a stomach bug, yeah that’s it, I must have picked up something. My head was a bit foggy. I had just about talked myself out of the workout.

I jumped back into the pool, onto the next set of pull buoy and ankle bands. 150m easy, 100m moderate, 50m fast x 3. At the end of the first set I told Trent I think someone has hidden some “Kryptonite” around the pool. I had all the symptoms Superman has when he’s exposed to it.

Trent is a sympathetic man, he suggested the Kryptonite might be between my ears and my best bet would be to “harden up”. I reached into my sack of tricks and turned my head on as if it was a race start. I don’t like to waste race start energy in training but things were desperate.  In the first 50m fast effort, something clicked, maybe it was the espresso, or maybe I over-ruled the voice of “Soft Al” in my head.

I seemed to be right in each of the other efforts. Next set was a set of 25m efforts. For all the fast ones I managed to lift myself and come in fast. Then just when I thought I’d gotten away with it. Red Dog pulled out the stopwatch and announced a 200m time trial. Soft Al was right there in my ear. Strong Al had a plan. Smash it and see what happens. What’s the worst that can happen? Do a fast 50m then blow up and grovel home?

Red Dog set the others off in a handicap, the cunning bastard knows I always find something when it becomes a race. Bob was off go, Lyn was off 30sec, Neal was off 30sec and Kay and I had to wait to 50sec. I had a simple plan. Smash the first hundred and see what I have left to finish it off. You can’t swim a fast 200m unless the first 100m is fast, there’s just no time to make up for a slow start.

I focussed on simply being streamlined, loose and “feeling” the water. I swam 3min flat, I can’t remember the last time I swum a 200m faster then that. It’s not fast by swimmers standards, but I am a 60yr triathlete (and a tired one at that).

A 200m cool down and we mounted our bikes for the interval session. We warmed into it for 10min or so. Then a set of 3 x 3min, 9 x 1min, building to the last 3 x 1min at full power. I finished pushing as high or higher, power figures  than I have in the last three months.

I’m still feeling smashed as I write this. Smashed but satisfied. I am walking up the steps today, instead of running. If I didn’t have Trent (Red Dog) as my coach/motivator, I would have talked myself out of this workout.  

I still have all of my “blue cards”. I gave it a shot, even though all the “symptoms” were against it. Over the past couple of years, Trent has got me started in lots of workouts which on my own, I may never have started.

Sometimes I think I’m lazy, but when I look back at what I have done in the past three months, any three months, I am reassured. Sometimes I’m just tired. It’s amazing what you can pull out once you get started.