New season, new plans, new beginnings!
I love racing and training, but at the end of the season (which is for me usually beginning of December) I really can't wait to have some proper time off. In the past I didn't really want to have time off as I was always motivated to keep going, race more and more, as these days you can race the whole year round. But you can not have everything. You have to allow your body to recover after a whole year of racing. It is good not just for your body, but also for your mind! Just try not to do anything triathlon, training, time, nutrition. Just enjoy doing stuff you can't do for 11 months. Spend and enjoy the time with your family, friends…
Myself and Brad, we both love travelling. So during our race season, we start thinking about places we would like to visit during our holiday time. This is also a great motivation during hard races or training days. You just think, okay two more races to go and then off to holidays! This year I had 4 weeks of great travelling, sunbathing, having fun. I really enjoyed doing nothing, but after some time, I started feeling tired and just not right. This was my body telling me, that enough is enough and that it is time to get back in my routine of training, proper eating, no alcohol and mid day napping.
First week back in training was hard. You want to swim/bike/run, but you are tired, times are slow and getting up is tough. But I know that the beginnings are always hard. So you just deal with it and soon you start feeling better, you start again loving what you do and you can not imagine a different lifestyle!
I have put on some kg during the off season, but I was not worried about this. Sometimes your body needs the extra fat to feel healthily and strong later in the season. With training and proper eating the body weight will easily get back to normal. It's already February 1st and I feel good.
Here are some plans and goals I've done that you may consider during the months of January/ February:
plan your races
set your goals
plan training camps
start working on your weaknesses
stay positive, don't give up with your first bad day
get motivated
new products, equipment
new sponsors
sign up for your first race (I am racing on the 7th February Ironman 70.3 Geelong and I feel like this is a great motivation to keep pushing)
make a massage appointment for later in the week so you have a motivation to keep pushing with a massage to look forward to
movie
nice dinner with friends
bakery stop during a long bike ride
