Monday 16 December 2013

To hibernate or not?

It's that time of year when triathletes tend to catch up on what they missed out during the year due to training and races.  But for me, my "A" race was in April and I've enjoyed the 6 months recovery time but not the 3/4 of a stone I have put on.  I've been slim all my life so please take my comments in context.  I'm not enjoying being just short of 12 stone as having trained for the MdS with a weighted rucksack, I feel I am carrying around excess baggage which is an effort.  So come January when my training gets back to normal, this excess baggage is going!
But should I just hibernate for the rest of the month.  Enjoy the lovely food, fine wines and a few beers?  Stop any kind of training and just enjoy a couple of weeks off?  Well I had 6 days off training last week but did a 10k run on Friday and Sunday with some yoga.  My glutes complained on Saturday so I went for a painful sports massage which helped loosen them up. 
After doing "Dad duties" on Sunday while the weather was dry I found my only "window" to run was in the pissing rain with the wind sending it sideways.  This is always a good mental test - am I mental enough to go out in those conditions?  I decided it would be character forming and once your wet you can always look forward to the hot shower afterwards which is the best bit.
I have concluded that hibernating would be nice but I feel sluggish if I don't do any training.  Therefore I will continue a "winter schedule" over the coming weeks, buildng it around social occassions, food and wine - at least it should mean no more weight gain.  Then come January it won't be such a shock to the system when my training and my diet gets a radical overhall.  In the meantime I think I'd better start my Xmas shopping which will definately involve running around some shops!