It seems that whenever I choose to participate in a long-distance endurance event, my life gets busier and busier in the weeks immediately prior.
Not that I am complaining – far from it in fact – but over-scheduling and “under-resting” seem to be part-and-parcel of my personal race day build up.
While the coaches and textbooks call for slowing down during the last fortnight, I find myself speeding up. A gradual increase in downtime is what is recommended to achieve peak performance over long distances but I find myself increasingly swamped as race day approaches. Why is that? Perhaps it is my own personal defence mechanism kicking, my sub-concious way of diverting my attention away from the event and concentrating on other things that make up of daily life. And to be honest, I wouldn't want it any other way.
Take last weekend for instance. Working away at a mountain bike event, Friday saw a travel day which meant no opportunity for training followed by ten consecutive massage treatments. Saturday morning dawned I went for a two hour long run in the local hills and tales exploring the area followed by another day of treatments before driving home that evening arriving a couple of hours before midnight.
This past week saw almost every evening taken up by coaching and/or massage treatments in addition to my day job. Friday and Saturday were reserved for working with the elite athletes invited to the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon. Pretty busy but then not even close to a working parent with kids to care for!
Yet amidst all of this activity, I have found that it is important to maintain what I term a daily training skeleton, in other words the minimum daily dosage. For me, cutting out complete rest days and doing a minimal amount of exercise every single day is what works best. Together with prioritising night-time sleep, one can maintain a surprisingly high level of fitness during the times where life becomes rather busy. By viewing sport as part of life instead of a separate entity, great things can be done off of a daily template.
As I write these final few sentences, it is late Saturday afternoon at the professional athletes hotel accommodation. I've just been for a stroll around the cosmopolitan city centre of Cape Town after a break from giving treatments. All the second-hand bookshops are closed so I head to Greenmarket Square on my way back down one of the more interesting boulevards in the Mother City. The sun is shining brightly coupled with a slight breeze. Bars and restaurants are full as weave through the trading tables of the cobbled market, mostly containing beads, souvenirs and other Africana.
Finally I find the book merchant and am impressed by his eclectic collection. Malcolm Gladwell's “Tipping Point” catches my eye then suddenly I see a book too attractive to not buy. Deal done, I walk away with Olivia Forsyth's “Agent 407,” which should make great reading tonight and early tomorrow whilst killing time before the 7am marathon start.
On the walk back to the athlete residence, I already envisage what my training plans are for the next few months. Lots of barefoot running on the beach, off-road meanders on my road bike and exploration walks like this afternoon's, only longer and more adventurous. I realise that most of the elite athletes I'm working with cannot even contemplate such freedom of choice and diversity. But then professional sport is very different from what we as amateurs do for fun.
But first there is a standard marathon to do on the morrow.
Let's see what happens.
