A little bit too hard

The past week I worked hard on my training. A little bit too hard.

On Monday, I started with swimming training.  I kept up with the other athletes in the class.  Directly after swimming I went cycling.  I didn’t go the whole twenty kilometres as I wanted because the wind was strong and against me.  Early evening I went for a run and did my first five kilometres!

Running five kilometres is an outstanding achievement! I found that when I keep a pace of small steps, I get it done easily without being too tired.When I swim, my lower body drags through the water.  This is an indication that my core isn’t strong enough to keep my body straight when I swim.  I asked the coach what kind of exercises I could do to strengthen it.  She advised me to go to Rochelle for new  exercises.  She helped me with an exercise program that can help strengthen me for all three sports.  It is quite tough, but doable.  I should do it after every training exercise.

On Tuesday evening, I did five kilometres again. On Wednesday in the swimming pool I could feel my body telling me that it was tired and that I needed to stop; I still kept going but decided to only run three kilometres. On Thursday morning, I was so tired that I couldn’t keep up during the swimming practice and had to excuse myself.  At this stage, my body was screaming at me to stop.
I remembered the last time I felt like this was in August last year.  My psychiatrist advised me to take a complete break from training to rest.  So, I decided to rest till Sunday and start again on Monday.

Because I don’t have a coach who helps me each day I have to discipline myself, but found I was pushing myself too hard.  I need to remind myself that I am training for three different sports at the same time.  To rest and recover is more important than to push myself to do more than what is necessary.

By Deon Labuschagne