Stepping Back

There may come a time in your training where you'll need to step back and reevaluate your goals.  Often it's just a rough patch in your training that a recovery week can get you through.  Other times it's a red flag that it's time to revise your plans completely.

One of our TFI athletes, Jane, was hit with a red flag.  Jane was training for her first Olympic distance race, her first open water swim and looking for a good performance.  Jane's plate is pretty full.  She has two young kids, including a daughter with special needs.  Her husband recently purchased a business which requires a lot of work and crazy hours.  In addition to that, he consults out of town so he's traveling quite a bit.

Jane kept getting sick.  We were constantly revising her training and taking time off.  As soon as we started up again she'd get run down and sick again.  She wasn't having fun.  We talked about everything that was going on with her schedule, stress and sleep and came to the conclusion that the Olympic was just out of reach.  She's switching to the Sprint distance.  Her training will be much less time intensive.  She's enjoying working out again and really looking forward to her race.  It will still be her first open water swim.  By next season, she may have the time and energy to put towards a longer race.  Right now she's having fun in triathlon and still moving forward.

Having fun and moving forward.  Isn't that what it's really all about?