I have been struggling, struggling, struggling with being able to focus lately - in most areas of my life, but fitness and training especially. I have had too much trouble deciding where and what I want to spend time on, so not only is my training all over the place, but I'm not in headspace to set goals, and as for blogging about it... well...
I’ll try to give you an illustration of the fitness/training part of my brain lately:
This probably plays fast and loose with the laws of the Venn diagram, but it’s the best I can do to sort through the jumble. Let’s break this down some more:
Triathlon, comprised of Swim, Bike and Run. This is still my biggest love, still a priority. The temptation to let things slide due to the “off-season” is there, but there are also arguments that there shouldn't be an off-season (Tridot calls it “Out-Season”) especially if you haven’t had a heavy “On-Season”. On the other hand, maybe it’s the time of year to work on strength, like say through...
Crossfit. Confessions first: with only a few months left in the year, I realized I'm in danger of the sessions I bought back in January expiring. I've been even worse than sporadic up until that point, but I did manage to step it up in the last month or so, still falling short of the twice a week I wanted. What I like most is that I'm often addressing muscles in the posterior chain; easy to neglect, but very important muscles.
Big workouts have given me Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), which for me always sets in 2 days after the workout, which really throws off the idea of getting back in there for a WOD (workout of the day) 2 days later.
Besides that, the other problem I have is that it’s time consuming, which is a weird thing to say given that I've seen WODs that are 10 minutes long. Still, I have to drive there (it’s short, but that’s still more than using the in-house corporate gym or my basement or running. There’s the warm-up and skills portion (which I'm grateful for), yet they start when everybody is ready and there, not just when I want to get things moving along. There’s no shower at the box, so after I drive back, I still have to shower and change. The truth is, where there’s a will there’s a way, so these kinds of excuses shouldn't be an obstacle if I really love doing it, but I guess I don’t. I’d love to improve in some of the skills (pull-ups, dead-lifts, pistol squats and handstand push-ups come to mind), but I don’t get to pick what comes up in the WOD. I recently tried (again) snatches, but I didn't do so great with them; it just feels like flirting with injury. Forty-somethings need to play it safe sometimes, which brings us to...
Yoga. I've always considered Yoga to be a good form of cross-training for triathletes. When aches and pains crop up the way they have been lately, it can be a valuable tool. But here’s another confession: I've caught the inversion/handstand bug from various Instagram accounts (you know I'm on Instagram, right? It’s your best source for cute pics of the Lightning Kid) such as BeachYogaGirl, HeatherRoseScott, Christine from LiveLifeSurf.com, TrueStrength3313, RunningRachel, The_Altman, and Shauna Harrison. If I could get better at handstands and things like Crow’s pose, it would help shoulder and upper body strength, core strength, balance and flexibility for...
- Parkour*. The asterisk is for the fact that I'm forty (did I mention that already) and I don’t have the tolerance for risk that doing head-over-heels flips would entail, but I do like working on jumps, balancing and climbing during Burbathlon. What I'd really like to achieve is the Kong Vault (or at least the Monkey Vault). I just think it might come in handy, especially if I ever try an Obstacle Course race again. What I've been working on is getting my legs through with my hands on the ground (or any surface really). It's an exercise in flexibility and discipline, really.
- Nordic Skiing. This one is marked as being outside the benefit zone of triathlon, but according to what I've written before, maybe it shouldn't be. At any rate, Nordic skiing is one of my favourite forms of exercise, and as they say on Game of Thrones, Winter is Coming. I got lucky finding a pair of roller-skis at a ski swap, and knowing that the snow hasn't been reliable in recent years, I snagged them. When I get a chance to practice with them for more than 10 minutes, I'll write up a little review, but based on my current experience, I won't feel safe using them to commute to work any time soon.
- Martial Arts. For reasons I can't quite understand that myself looking through local places that offer Kung Fu like Wing Chun, and/or San Shou. I also have nostalgia for Jiu-Jitsu. The problem is I'm still in position where I can't leave the house in the evenings. Most things that I have seen after work are right during the time when I'm helping the kids to bed, and they're still not really putting themselves to sleep so that stuff it's probably going to have to wait.
If I take a look at my accomplishments in October (for example) the calendar looks like this:
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| The Little Standing man is for Circuit Training = Crossfit WOD or Tabata Bootcamp |
Labels: burbathlon, cross-country skiing, cross-training, crossfit, links, martial arts, motivation, yoga
