I suspect most age grouper endurance athletes go through a pendulum like experience with their training and racing. In the past twelve months I’ve experienced the largest pendulum swing yet.
A little over a year ago, for the first time ever, I ran 50 kilometers. It was one of those bucket list endurance things on my list. Mostly what made it possible was that for the 7 months prior to that day I was living on my own 2,000 miles away from my family while we were in the process of relocating to Colorado. It gave me plenty of time to train as I tried to keep busy during lots of lonely weekends.
After many months of sacrifice being away, my family we were finally reunited full time this June. This has obviously been great for our family as we’ve spent some wonderful time together over the summer and fall. Lots of hiking, biking and just hanging out at the house (with our new addition, Gus)!
What has not happened is any kind of regular training and racing since completing my first ultra run (except for a half marathon and my first cyclocross race). My CTL is taking a nose dive while my TSB is shooting through the roof (for my non TrainingPeaks readers this means my fitness is dropping not good!).
Now that the back to school routine is in a good groove it’s time to get back on track. Even though it may mean a little less time with the family, both my wife and son agree that I’m a much better person to be around when I’m training and racing. Not to mention the forced efficiency in time management helps me to actually get more done with less time. This might sound weird but I think my endurance sports friends would agree with me.
One of the biggest drivers is that I got into endurance sports primarily because of my son. At almost 250 pounds 15 years ago, learning of a son who was on the way sparked the drive to get in shape. Then after getting hooked on triathlon, being a good role model for my son on living an active lifestyle was the driver that led to several marathons, half-ironmans and (almost two) Ironmans.
So this off-season actually marks the beginning of my planning for next season….stay tuned, the off-season is over!
Dave Criswell 