Less is More

I’ve been rather quiet on the ol’ blog lately, for good reason. I have been a lot less focused on training & racing since September and this blog has always been mostly about triathlon. I managed to burn myself out again, despite what I should have learned from the last three months of 2009. So after Tuscaloosa I decided to back off, mentally and physically, until it felt fun again.

I had a few other good reasons for backing off --

1. I agreed to take on a new role at Microsoft, and I really want to see what I can accomplish there. I’ve been rather happy with my racing efforts over the years but I’ve often felt like I could do a bit better at my “day job,” so I am making that a higher priority this year.
2. A friend and I have opened a personal training business called GeekFit. There is enough going on here that I’ll do a more detailed post soon, but let’s just say that GeekFit is giving me a great outlet for my passions for exercise, nutrition, wellness and teaching. If you live or work near Microsoft and you are looking for a smart, efficient workout, let me know!!
3. General health – I’d been slowly driving myself into the ground with my overly ambitious mix of racing & work & life. I thrive on being busy … but apparently I have limits, too. A lot of the GeekFit research told me that my lifestyle isn’t all that good for my long-term health, so I am trying to “slow down” a little and to reduce stress & inflammation.

An intriguing piece of all of this is that this lower-stress, lower-volume approach might actually lead to faster racing for me in 2011 and beyond. I thought that my past approach was very well-researched and meticulous, but I was probably piling on too much work without letting my body recover enough.

After September, I adopted an approach of “Swim/bike/run when you feel like it, if friends are going, if you’re excited about it. Otherwise, sleep in, go out, rest, work, enjoy life.”

As I hit the end of the calendar year, I started thinking about what a GeekFit-inspired training program would look like: lower volume, very focused intensity, lots of recovery… I’ve been doing our GeekFit strength workout once every 10-14 days and I’ve thrown in some very infrequent but focused/hard swims, bikes and runs. I am still trying to figure out exactly what the right structure should be, but for awhile I did a ten-day cycle with the GeekFit workout on day one, a hard swim+bike+run on day six, and everything else easy/social/optional. I really enjoy hard group workouts and my friend have been on the track a lot, so for the past ~3 weeks I’ve done a (running) track workout every Wednesday while keeping spacing to any GeekFit workouts and to one hard swim (3/21) and one hard ride (3/12 in Austin!).

Recall that in 2010 I would do 1-2 hard runs, a long run, 2-3 hard rides and 2-3 hard swims EVERY WEEK, plus a lot of easy/volume.

I raced a 5K on the track today at the Club Northwest Spring Break Open. I surprised myself by running a smooth, easy 16:01 – eleven seconds faster than my previous PR! The first two miles felt super-easy as I sat behind a guy I knew… then I took off with a mile to go, splitting something like 5:04, 5:16, 5:04 for the three 1600s. (Yes, there is an extra 200 in there somewhere.) I could have run a bit faster in that second mile. I went in with no expectations … but next time I’ll be expecting 15:45!

So I’m training less, sleeping more, focusing more on work, and (running) faster than ever! As for the swim and the bike… well… maybe next weekend?