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What are you thankful for?

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What are you thankful for? Empty What are you thankful for?

Post  GIANT Sat Nov 26, 2011 9:25 am

What I’m Thankful For
BY ROCH FREY ⋅ NOVEMBER 25, 2011 ⋅ POST A COMMENT
Thanksgiving is upon us. I come from Canada where Christmas is a much more celebrated holiday. Couple that with it being celebrated in October in the Great White north and I have missed the last 25 years in a row as I have been at Ironman Hawaii.  Despite my downfalls with this Holiday I see how important and cherished it is to Americans and am starting to get the bug.  I try to treat it like Christmas since when Christmas rolls around here in San Diego St. Nick just doesn’t seem to fit that well on the beach with no snow.

Here is a list of what I am thankful for at Thanksgiving:

Gadgets- I can’t believe that I am saying I am thankful for all this new technology but how cool is it that you can do a workout and then have all this data available to analyze at the end?  Very cool and very useful if you do two things with it.  First, do some test before its first use so you know how to properly use the new gadget rather than just using it to compare with your buddy to see who is faster (read: stronger.)  Second, always use and correlate your perceived effort to any gadget no matter what it is telling you.  Way too many athletes these days head out the door and turn the gadget on and shut the brain off, which is okay to do some days but most days you need to be in tune with how your body is feeling while training at all different levels rather than simply doing what the gadget tells you to do.

Old School Principles- Seems these days that coaches are looking to try and reinvent the training wheel before looking back at what has been successful for the past 100 years.  Don’t get me wrong, there are many new/good training techniques out there and everyone should give them a try, but don’t totally disregard what has worked for you and may have produced world champions in the past.  Embrace new ideas and give them a try and then build them into what has already been proven to work.  A great example of this is Compression + Ice from 110%.  Icing an injury or Icing down post training session has been standard protocol as long as I can remember  (man, I’m getting old.)  110% has taken this proven recovery technique and tweaked it by adding compression at the same time, thus making this pain the in ass chore at the end of a workout easy and convenient.

Dogs- that’s right, I’m thankful for my dog of 5 years now.  Morgan is the best motivator. Say “go for a run” and unless I lock myself in another room for 3 hours – I am heading out the door. I don’t run these days but it doesn’t matter to her, she is the best motivator there is and every athlete should have one.

Orthopedic Surgeons- I would be limping around and still only able to walk 10min at a time and definitely addicted to pain killers if it wasn’t for my Ortho, Dr. Ball in San Diego.  As endurance athletes grow old we are going to wear out knees, shoulders and in my case hips.  Do we have to stop being athletic?  Not anymore.  Joint replacement has come a long way and hip resurfacing allows those that need a new hip these days the ability to get back to running.  Knee replacements are not there yet but give it a few years.  Just listen to your doc if you do get any type of joint replaced  and give it the time to heal (all the muscles and proprioceptive nerve endings.) Don’t rush it, (and don’t fall off your Mountain bike 13 weeks post-surgery), and you will be back at training and racing before you know it.

Days off- enough said.  You don’t get faster and fitter from just training hard/long, you improve after you recover from all the hard work. Days off are good, not bad. 
And here is a list of advice that I am thankful for:

If it aint broken don’t fix it.  If you had a great race or year of training, don’t make any radical changes, just adjust a little and get more out of what worked for you the first time round.
Respect your elders but embrace the new ideas. Look to what worked for the legends of your sport and at the same time be open minded to new ways to do it a little bit better.
Yes, there is enough for everyone to go around so don’t be a hog. Don’t be the guy at the start line of an Ironman that opens up his skull and tosses his brain and then proceeds to give 3 black eyes and tip over 6 bikes in transition.
Have Patience, anything that happens fast ends fast. Those killer two weeks of training, you know, the ones that were 4x more then you have ever done in a given week. These might get you fit fast for the first race of the season but it is consistent training that you can handle over a long period of time that makes you faster and happier for a longer period of time.
Anything is not always possible. Be realistic with your goals and seek out objective advice. Let’s face it, most people cannot make it as a professional Hockey player or win Ironman Hawaii.  Find a mentor who you respected and will politely slap you across the head and make you realize this. You can still go for it but will be much happier once you accept and acknowledge realistic goals.

What are you thankful for?


GIANT

Posts : 319
Join date : 2009-11-02
Location : pasir ris

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What are you thankful for? Empty Re: What are you thankful for?

Post  GIANT Sat Nov 26, 2011 9:27 am


GIANT

Posts : 319
Join date : 2009-11-02
Location : pasir ris

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