#101 Reshuffling the deck

Thanksgiving has come and gone and December is all but here.  I find myself tired, but so ready for the next phase of the year.  I love the holidays as much as the next guy and although a bit early for me to get excited for Christmas and way way too early to even begin to think about shopping (don't want to ruin my record of waiting until the very very last minute), that's not what I'm feeling ready for.  

The main reason I'm feeling ready is that the hectic fall is about to give way to the brief but real period of scheduling-calm (a break from max-intensity kid sports, a brief lull professionally, etc) that will allow me to enter "base-phase 2013" which is one of my very favorite training phases.  

Not that bad yet thankfully

It's not particularly exciting, but base-phase signals the end of the "fat and happy" part of the season which is heavy on recovery and tissue repair, (the fat part of this phase was especially successful this year to the tune of 12 lbs from racing weight, ouch) and now it's time to start the slow march toward progress.

Status - I put somewhere around 20 running miles in this week and a couple of other short workouts and my body is feeling surprisingly well.  My R achilles, which has been nagging me for several weeks now is all but subsided (more soon on the very promising therapy technique that got me on the mend).  I have begun working on my shoulder mechanics which has been a weak spot for me that undoubtedly hurts me in the water and although the last few (very light) months have done wonders at healing some overused muscles, with healing comes tissue shortening, and I can feel it.

Goals - this is going to continue to take me a while, as there is no 140.6 distance on my calendar this year......but besides training hard for Timberman 70.3 in August and my first ultra-distance run (50 miles) in May, I'm not entirely sure what I'm hoping to accomplish.  I'd like to say that I'll be able to qualify for the age-group nationals and/or the 70.3 world championships this coming year....but I haven't thought enough about it at this point to commit.  

The short(er) term (60 day) goals are: 

• to have a great base period racking up lots and lots of low-heart rate, aerobic hours
• to get back in the water in some standard routine and begin doing the work required to take that next jump in that discipline
• to continue to build the strength/flexibility/efficiency in the gym to have another injury-free season of training and racing
• to kindle the mental-fire to train hard and race, something that is generally easy for me after 2 months largely indoors

Schedule - one more week of get what you can and then it's time to get back in the habit.

Ready,

Mike E.