Weekly Reflection 02/09 - 08/09

Before I go into my weekly entries, a bit of background to my training week. I couldn't stick with my usual routine as I had a family dinner (brother's bday and belated Fathers Day) so Tuesday was my non-training day. I only had one cycling session and it was the Saturday (more on this below), 3 swim sessions (2 with squad) and 2 runs (one half-arsed one before my coaching session).

I have also been home-cooking a few new food "things" - including home made yoghurt (2 ways). Amazing how easy it is and how much money I have saved so far. Currently obsessed with probiotics and eating foods which promote healthy bacteria. The other is some energy bars packed with seeds, bananas and dates.

Home-made energy bar

Homemade yoghurt (with a drizzle of honey)

 

Favourite session of the week: My Saturday long ride reminded me of the days when I was out on the road by myself. Just me and my bike. I had a pre-election dinner on Friday which meant that I didn't get to bed until 11pm. Being awake since 4:30am that morning, I was in no state to be doing my Saturday morning ride early so I opted for a later ride instead. I use to do (later) rides this time last year. I only do a later ride when we are made to ride Beach Rd as I wanted to avoid riding in big groups and amongst the craziness that is Beach Rd.  

Beach Rd is a congested mess of crazy egos and aggressive tempers from 7am - 11am. Too many group rides happen at that time and everyone thinks they are entitled to their space. To avoid the stress, I had a great sleep in and started my ride at about 11am. At this time, the sunshine was abundant and the number of cyclists still riding on the roads were few and sparse. I rode towards Port Melbourne first and then turned around and headed towards Frankston. 

Nothing too exciting happened on the roads except that I rode with intention and made sure that I fed myself at the right times. When I reached Frankston, the heavens opened and it started to rain so my ride from Frankston back to Mordialloc was as much of a TT as I could. I still stopped at lights and obeyed all road rules. 

This was my favourite session as I was really positive about being out there by myself and being able to still ride with intention was all I wanted out of that morning. 100km completed (mostly) in the sunshine.   

Least favourite session of the week: My Thursday night run was not the best. As I was coaching, I needed to do my own run session before helping out Emma-Lise with the sprint/olympic run group. The first few km was ok, I did start to feel slightly sluggish. After running the first lap, I started to warm up so I went to the car to drop off my long sleeve. I then ran the tan again but going the other direction (clockwise). As I was running by myself, I didn't really have the diligence to stick with the program, all I was doing was just running. I had done nearly 9km before the group's session and did a further 6km running back and forth whilst coaching.

I didn't really enjoy this session as I felt that I was training with no other intentions but just to run before I was coaching. I wasn't disciplined enough to push myself and walked several times around the tan track. Will assess how my week pans out to see if I am doing the Essendon run session or stick with the Tan.
Advice of the week: Healthy guts = Everything working well. Ever since I attended a presentation about probiotics a few months ago, I have been eating food high in probiotics. So far so good, my gut issues are subsided dramatically, my skin is much clearer (less swelling and rashes around the eyes and neck) and most importantly, I haven't had a big cold since I started this regime. You can take a daily probiotic if you want but probiotics occur naturally in so many foods we (can) eat. These include (not limited to):

• Plain yoghurt (not commercial yoghurts which contain no healthy bacteria)
• Sour kraut
• Kimchee
• Miso
• Preserved vegetables

The nutritionist also advised us to stay away from the commercially made fermented milk drinks which are sold in supermarkets are they are filled with sugar which the bad gut bacteria feeds on. The other note which I picked up on was the use of anti-bacterial products. There is so much emphasis on products which are anti-bacterial, this is especially for cleaning products - not just for the home but also your body. The point which struck a cord with me was that these products not only kill the bacteria which are considered as bad germs, it also kills the good bacteria we need. These companies are selling their products but using fear as marketing tool and what is happening is that people are getting sicker and using more of these products because their guts are sick with bad bacteria which feed on processed and sugary foods we have in our diets. Without going into too much into this entry, I have stopped using products which are anti-bacterial and have changed my mindset about cleanliness.

Thing I’m looking forward to next week: This weekend is camp weekend and as I am not attending the camp due to budgeting for Noosa and 2014 Canada, I will try to develop a program for myself and hope to have my own training peak around Melbourne. I haven't really sat down to assess/plan my weekend training schedule just yet but it will consist of a long endurance swim, a long ride and a run off the bike (post ride).

I am also going to try a cycling group (this is a social ride) which happens on a Thursday mornings. I won't say too much about it just in case something happens and I end up not being able to attend. Watch this space!