Hey.
What's up triathletes?
Taren here.
Have you been training like a beast lately and you're feeling pretty down in the dumps?
Don't have a lot of energy, feel lethargic, can't get off the couch?
You're not alone.
A lot of us go through it.
Today we're going to talk about how you can overcome that to keep on track with your training
schedule, be ready for your next triathlon.
Stick around.
If you have been going through your training schedule, getting ready for your next triathlon
and you're feeling like hell?
You're not alone.
We all go through it.
You know what?
It's actually a really good thing.
We actually want to tax our body almost to the point of being overwhelmed, not over trained.
When you start taxing your body to that super high level, it induces a reaction to start
repairing itself and become stronger because of homeostasis.
Homeostasis means that our bodies want to stay exactly as they are all the time, so
when you start overwhelming it, the body starts working overtime, strengthening itself basically
just, in the body's mind, to keep us from dying, so our body gets in the mode of repairing
itself, getting stronger, faster, leaner, better.
Then what happens when we start tapering for a couple of weeks?
Our body is still in that mode of turning us into a faster, better athletes and it keeps
going.
Essentially, we kind of become superhuman because as our training load goes down, our
body is still repairing itself and you get that nice gap when you're well-rested and
your body is ready to fire on all cylinders.
It's really important to get yourself to that level of feeling beat down, but that said
it sucks when you get there, so we got to keep training and here are some tips to get
you through that.
Number one and this is my favorite, eat more.
The more train, the more our metabolism speeds up and the more calories we need.
It's a double effect that you can stand to eat more calories and you need to eat a lot
more calories, especially before and after a really big work out.
Make sure that you're not training on an empty stomach and make sure that you're filling
your body up with a lot of calories after.
Things like smoothies are perfect because they can be calorie dense.
You can put lots of berries in there for the antioxidants and vitamins.
You can put some green juice in there.
You can put a little protein in there.
You can get a little bit of fat with coconut oil or peanut oil.
Sunflower seed oil is my personal favorite.
Get everything you need crammed into that smoothie and the liquid makes it easy for
your body to digest very quickly.
The second tip, and this is harder to do, is to get more rest.
Most people actually get two hours less sleep per day than they actually think they do,
but our body really only repairs itself and makes us a better athlete when we're sleeping,
so do things like go to bed earlier.
Take a nap during the day.
Sit on the couch a little bit more.
Do less around the house.
In general, be a much less productive member of society.
When you're training for a big race, you kind of have to.
The third thing that you can do is back off for a few days.
I find that three days is enough to get my mojo back.
Definitely don't take these days entirely off.
If you do that, your body will lose speed very quickly.
Endurance takes a little bit longer to lose, but that speed will come off very quickly,
so back the volume.
Keep some of those short and intensive bursts to keep your body's muscle memory in the habit
of knowing how to go fast very quickly.
If you take a few days off and you feel better, get right back into it.
The fourth thing you can do is make deals with yourself to get yourself out the door
and keep training.
A lot of my mornings go like this.
"I do not want to go to the pool today."
If you go to the pool, you can wear your floaty ROKA SIM shorts.
"Fine."
Yes.
Or treat yourself to some energy junk food that you really like.
Maybe there's a really sugary energy bar, energy chew that you really like.
Make a deal that you can have some extra of these as long as you get out and do your work
out.
In general, give yourself some treats and incentives that just get your ass out the
door.
The fifth and final thing that I like to do is go for things like acupuncture, massage,
physiotherapy to give myself a refresher.
These little treats that you can give to your body are enough to work the kinks out and
often move a lot of that junk that's clogging up our body, making us feel like we don't
want to get out the door, out of the your system.
Lately I've become a particular fan of acupuncture.
I've been really pleased with it.
Consistency is key in triathlon and you far better off to keep training when you're tired
just a smaller amount.
You do not want to take days off.
That said, back off before going over the edge.
Over-training is one of the worse things that you can do for yourself because it'll take
you out of the game for a long time, never mind a couple of days.
Noticing over-training is different for everyone, so keep a very close eye on when things like
aches and pains become chronic and don't go away after a massage or a rest or icing, and
when fatigue starts turning into a foggy brain or feeling like sickness.
These are signs of over-training, that when you're training a lot, you got to be really
careful about, but do as much as you can to keep training, keep consistent.
As always, triathletes, happy and hard training.
Keep at it out there and good luck in your next triathlon.