Operation Incline: Week 3 Recap

Rest, Recovery, Restoration.

Whatever you want to call it that's what went down this past week. After busting my ass for a couple of weeks it was time to back it off a bit before another block of hard work. It came at a perfect time. I am 4 weeks out from Nationals and 7 from Worlds. Something I read in a post by Chuckie V a couple weeks stuck with me. His athlete's are killing it! So I think he knows of what he speaks/types.

"In sports psychology circles, it's commonly accepted that eight weeks is about as long as an athlete can maintain razor-sharp focus."

This makes sense to me and I am now within in that window and time to buckle down.

Here's the breakdown of my second half of the season training which started on 6/30. Last week was by far the lowest volume in a while.


Trevor had me taking pretty easy through the week and it was a nice change. I was waking up without an alarm, sleeping great, I never even thought (ok.. maybe once) about adding workouts. I just followed the plan even when Trevor told me Thursday afternoon to skip the planned Friday morning mountain bike ride. As much as I was looking forward to getting out on the trails I listened and got in another night of good sleep and a morning of waking up with out an alarm. I also spent plenty of time this week stretching, torturing myself with the foam roller, T.P. "tools", marathon stick, and got a killer massage.

Saturday morning was my first and only bit of hard work for the week. I had a track session on tap for some testing that was a mix of 2k and 1k intervals. I slept in again and then sat around the house watching sportscenter, drinking coffee and letting my food digest. A nice change from getting up slamming some food and coffee to get out the door as early as possible to knock a long saturday of workouts.

At 9 I set out for the track. There is a killer track at La Costa Canyon HS (see Beth's post for photos and videos from the track). It's a fast track and I was looking forward to running there all week. When I got there the parking lot was packed and the track and field were in use. It's football season and a bunch of little grommets were in middle of a heated battle with their parents going crazy in the stands. It was awesome and I watched for a bit, but then had to split and find some place to run. I headed to San Marcos High School because they have a killer track too and Beth and I met the track coach a couple of weeks ago and he said we could use the track any time. Same results as La Costa.... more grommets, more football. I was stoked for them, but I still needed to run.

My third option was Carlsbad HS which has kind of a crappy dirt track, but when I got there it was empty. Time to "do work." The workout went fairly well from my perspective. I was able to throwdown a good effort and get my HR way, but I know I can go faster. I can't wait to do this workout again after another block of workouts that will be building and dialing up my race speed.

"do'n work"


Sunday was all about football. I woke up early Sunday morning without the alarm and just decided to get on it. The earlier I got my ride over with the earlier my butt would be planted on the couch watching football. Trevor sent me a late email Saturday night telling me to cut back my long ride... and believe it or not I listened. I got in just under 3 hours and got home in plenty of time to knock out some weekly chores while watching some football.

I was done cleaning the house, backing up Beth's computer, and getting gear ready for next week in plenty of time to get to watch the bolts game, which ended up being a total disappointment. They didn't play too well and Carolina won on the last play of the game... lame.



On another note GZ sent me a bottle of his home brew. Good stuff. I was kind of shocked at how good it was... no offense GZ, but I would pay for a six pack of it for sure!


taste test


time to head to the pool!