Unfortunately, to spend my break feeling good seems to be too much to ask. I hurt my back while working in the shop on Wednesday, and I aggravated it on Friday. It's not anything that shouldn't get better in a few days, but it sure is making me feel miserable right now. And that wrist ailment I've been dealing with for a few weeks is acting like it wants to get better, but just can't seem to get over the hump to being fully healed.
Why take a break now? Several reasons. There's a lull in my race schedule, and I've got a lot going on in my non-athletic life and it seems like a good time to devote more of my attention there. And there's the mental fatigue I've been talking about in recent posts. It felt good to go win a race last weekend but here at home I continue to lack enthusiasm. The Dog Days of summer are partly to blame. Thunderstorms in recent days have made it not so hot here in the Mid South, but the humidity has been through the roof, and it seems to suck the life out of me.
So, a break it is. I'm hoping the aches and pains will run their course while I get some work done. It'll probably still be hot and humid a week from now, but at least I'll be that much closer to fall.
Once this break is over, what's the plan? Well, it'll start with a return to strength training, along with some paddling with a nonspecific agenda. There's a race on September 1 that I might do, mostly because some good racers I know are registered. Will my training to date be enough for me to produce a good showing after this training break, or will I be in for an old-fashioned spanking? That's anybody's guess right now.
As the weeks roll on I'll work myself into a new training cycle for the late-season events. Those events will include at least one race in late September or early October, and then in November I've got something BIG planned: I'm going to South Africa for a camp led by Dawid and Jasper Mocke! We'll be training on one of the most legendary downwind stretches in the world, "Miller's Run" off the Cape of Good Hope.
And really, that's another reason for the break I'm taking right now: I want to be in excellent shape for that camp, and seeing as how it's such a long way off I think a bit of downtime is in order.
Like I said, right now I feel about as far from peak form as a guy can get. But I've been doing this long enough to know that with some planning, I have the power to round into shape when I want to.
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