D is For.....

Dynamic, damp, deload, disappointed, dusky and delighted. Disciplined athletes deload frequently. The conventional advice – which is actually pretty good unlike traditional nutritional advice – is to reduce load by about 50% every fourth week. I used to do this when I was trail running a lot. The schedule goes roughly like this: increase load (time) by about 10% on weeks 2 and 3, reduce by 50% on week 4, week 5 is week 3 plus 10%, week 4 and 5 increase by 5 to 7%, reduce by 50% on week 4, and etc., etc. You can do this virtually forever, time, injuries and energy permitting, because the recovery week allows the body to absorb the training and “build back better.”

Like many recreational athletes, I have the discipline to complete the build but lack the courage to live through the deload week. People like me are not ultra-disciplined, we are actually neurotically worried that if we take a week off training our hard won fitness will completely disappear. We take time under tension to its anxiety ridden extreme.

PC: DB

This never works. Never. It might be week 10, week 15 or even week 37, but at some point, fatigue sets in – if injury has not side-lined you first – and regardless of how willing the mind is, the body cries out for rest. Perhaps it’s fitting that I entered the first week of 2024 feeling deeply fatigued with a tweaky tricep, shoulder, neck and IT band. Deload weeks, if you can let yourself relax into them, are actually quite enjoyable, although I think, true to form, I did a bit too much to consider the week a true deload.

PC: DB

On Friday, we paddled south to Burrewarra Point, a round trip of about 22 kilometres so maybe not the best deload, but after four days of no paddling, I started to feel that twitchy anxiety that I must surely have lost ten kilograms of muscle and be unable to hold the paddle for an hour, much less actually move the paddle through the water in an efficient manner. In a nod to deload week, I did however, paddle easy.

It was dynamic, in a lumpy kind of way. Lots of big waves, swell, clapotis and general confusion. East of Mosquito Bay where there are lots of bommies and reefs and shallow water, there were breaking waves from all over the place. It drizzled with rain (D for damp), and, as we neared the end of the paddle, we passed by a shark tagging boat with a Dusky whaler shark alongside being tagged and released. We pass the shark drum lines all the time but this is the first time we have encountered the team catching, tagging, measuring and releasing a shark. This one was 2.5 metres long, way off our guess of 1.5 metres!

When you skip  deload week, PC: DB

It’s Park Run day today but I won’t be there. Somehow, I’ve gone from forcing myself to attend the Park Run every week to ensure I get my intensity training done to enjoying the process. There’s a lesson in there, fake it until you make it, might just work. But my IT band is just beginning to recover and five kilometres at zone 4/5 is not recovery in any dictionary. I’m a bit (D for) disappointed, but perhaps I should instead (D for) delight in the freedom of the deload week.