Now What--Part II

The previous post was a list of my "Product Goals" for next season; the times that, if everything goes well, I hope to achieve.  However, since my hypothyroidism and heart arrhythmia have often dictated that everything not go well, I also have some "Process Goals"--basically, I have goals for how I work towards my time goals, as well as having goals for what I want to achieve with my times.  I may not be able to control the outcome, but I should have quite a bit to say about the input!

So, here are my Process Goals:

• Execute a good dryland season before the oval opens again May 6 (for inlining)
• Be consistent with warm up and cool down routines
• Do core work and yoga at least twice a week
• Follow the workout plan once the ice season opens

Now, these might seem like just common sense, and indeed they are.  However, each bullet point above comes as a direct result of me screwing up that aspect of training last year:

• Execute a good dryland season before the oval opens again May 6 (for inlining) (last season I got sick just as dryland started and then, just when I was feeling better, dropped a slideboard on my foot.  I used both of these as excuses to do very little dryland last spring).
• Be consistent with warm up and cool down routines (I've always been perfunctory about warmup and cooldown and, while I was able to get away with this in my early to mid-forties, skipping warmup and cooldown is not a good idea for someone who will be turning 50 next fall).
• Do core work and yoga at least twice a week (Again, I've always been bad about doing anything that I don't enjoy, which in this case means "anything but actually skating."  But again, core strength and flexibility become more important as one ages.  Which, dammit, I seem to be doing).
• Follow the workout plan as written once the ice season opens (Dryland started poorly last season (see first bullet point), and then once I started skating my thyroid tanked again.  Med adjustments continued all summer and into the middle of November, which meant that I skated many workouts over- or under-medicated.  Skating with high or low thyroid levels sucks and, in the case of high, may even be dangerous.  So I quit or skipped or modified an awful lot of workouts last summer and fall, which led to being unfit to complete the ice workouts as written once winter rolled around.  In addition, I really wanted to skate with behind my friends last year, so I ended up doing many workouts with them.  Often these workouts were different from what I had planned for the day, but this wouldn't have been a problem if I had compensated for it by moving workouts around; just because I did Fast Tuesday with the fast guys didn't mean that I couldn't move my Tuesday endurance workout to Thursday.  However, usually I ended up just skipping the endurance workout that week, with predictable results.)

So I have Process Goals, and I also have a plan for how to make achieving them more likely.

First, I am going to use a different workout plan this year.  Last year, and the year before, I used the workouts Coach TieGuy had written for me for the 2011-12 season.  These are great workouts and Coach TieGuy is good at periodizing workout plans and understands the needs of the um, mature athlete, so this should have worked fine.  Problem is, the workouts are pretty high volume and are based on a year-to-year increase in my fitness and ability to complete high volume workouts.  Since I skipped or modified a lot of workouts last year, I don't think my fitness is at a level that would allow me to be successful with using the 2011-12 workout plans.  And I am not to be trusted when it comes to deciding that I need to reduce or modify a workout.  So, (with TieGuy's seal of approval), I plan to use the workouts from 2007-8, which was my first full season with TieGuy.  The workouts are lower volume than what I had worked up to after a couple years of TieGuy's coaching, and I think I can complete most of them as written.  Oh, and 2007-8 was a fantastic season for me (producing my 8:16 5K PB), so clearly the workouts were not too easy to produce results.

Second, I have a plan for making the dryland and other "non skating" workouts more fun.  Mel and Sprinter Boy want to do dryland as a group this spring, which sounds like a great idea to me.  We'll also incorporate some core and yoga workouts into the dryland, as well as consistently warming up and cooling down.  My only issue here will be that I'll need to be steadfast about sticking to the dryland as written by TieGuy; Mel and Sprinter Boy are 20 and 15 years younger than I am, and are capable of doing much more high-intensity plyometric-type stuff without injury than I am.  I foresee myself using the line "Are you crazy?  I'm not doing that!  I'm old enough to be your mother!" many times next dryland season.  Still, it will really be fun to share the misery of dryland!

So I think I'm ready...bring on the April 8 and the 2013-14 season!

A little dryland flashback