I’m finding that with long course training, my annual hours aren’t really increasing like I thought they would. I find that after my longer workouts, I need (or want?) more time to recover for the days after. So while I’m actually doing some much longer workouts than I was when I was training for my 1/2 IM, the days after I’m more sore and less motivated to get out the door an do another monster workout. I’m guessing this is probably a good thing. When I was training for my 1/2, I’d have a lot of workouts that were all moderate distance and probably “too much in the middle.” Still, I was pretty happy with my 1/2 results, so I feel like I’m ditching a plan that’s worked successfully for me in the past. Training for a full IM shouldn’t be the same as a 1/2 though, so I’ll stick with what my body is telling me and rest when I feel like I need to.

One point of uncertainty though is if I truly need the rest or if I’m just getting burned out and lazy that day and don’t feel like working out. One problem with starting my season at the end of January I’m finding out is that it’s hard to keep going with the same intensity all the way through the fall. I think I’m getting some serious mental fatique. Tuesday and Thursday, I found myself at all time lows in terms of desire to go out and workout. Then again, both Monday and Wednesday I had some pretty good volume workouts, so I don’t know? Anyway, my plan is to keep myself as fresh as possible until August where my big key workouts are going to be. I’ll do whatever hours I can until then and try and keep myself fresh with some shorter, smaller races between now and then. I have the Lake Waconia Triathlon next Sunday which should be fun.