Thursday, January 23, 2014

OSF!



OSF

Operation Super Fit
or
Operation Super Fine

Your choice.

For the past few years, me and a friend would do this Dec/Jan/Feb thing called Operation Super Fit/Fine (depending on your goals). It was always funny. It was meant to be serious....and definitely NOT a resolution. It was something to keep us motivated for tri-training in the colder months.

It never worked out that way. To me, it was always a joke. Of course, I'd love to think that I could work toward that goal, but I never did.

With OSF, the goal isn't to look like some super lean pro athlete. The goal wasn't physical appearance at all. The goal was physical strength in whatever sport you want. As a triathlete, maybe one year you focus on being the best runner or swimmer or cyclist. You get super fit in that event, for that period of time.

This year, since I switched Coaches and really didn't know what I was heading into, I decided to skip operation super fit.

Instead, I focused 100% on each workout, giving what I'm supposed to give for each training session. Go hard? I go hard. Easy day? No problem. No one does easy like me.

In addition to that, I've taken a serious look at my training nutrition. Last year, I had very weird year of racing. Weirdness includes some fueling issues. I really can't remember a year where I had so many fueling issues. It occurred to me that it was probably because I raced so much. If I'm not racing very much, it's hard to find a common theme with fueling problems. Race often, and you're going to notice a trend.

I certainly did notice a trend.

I have spent a lot of time over the past month, researching. I've found that the problems that I was having was simply from being female and using the standards that had been researched for and developed for men.

For the past month, I've been working on nutrition (daily and training fuel) and being 100% focus on my training.

Without trying, I realized today that I was accomplishing OSF. As I was warming up for my run, my heart rate monitor fell down to my waist. I guess I was so focused on my workouts and fueling that I didn't even noticed that I've lost some fat along the way.

Then, I nailed my 5K paces....no, that's not true. I could have gone faster than I did. The last 5K I ran was 6 or 7 weeks ago. I didn't expect to run so fast today.

Then, I did my plyo workout like it was no big deal.

Even though, I'm focusing on running now, the benefits are affecting my swim and bike as well. I'm only swimming 2x per week but haven't lost any speed.

I'm biking 3x per week and feel like I'm getting stronger.

5 days a week of running
+
5 sessions a week of various types of core strength work (sometimes 2-a-days)
+
3 days of biking
+
2 days of swimming
+
A Solid nutrition Plan
Operation Super Fit