My approach for my two week mid-season break was unstructured fun. Without a schedule as to what to do each day, I let my body and mind decide what it was I would do, and for how long. Aside from swimming, all exercising was kept at a low intensity and included stops as needed.
Here's a recap of my 2-weeks of unstructured fun:
July 25th: Ironman Lake Placid
July 26th: Walking around town
July 27th: Fly home
July 28th: Road bike (90 min, 4PM)
July 29th: Long course swim (~3700 yards, 8:13AM). 40 min run (5:40PM).
July 30th: Long course swim (~4300 yards, 9:04AM)
July 31st: Bike (~1:20, 10:11AM), Run (59 min, 11:54AM)
August 1st (private training session with an athlete): OWS (9:31AM), Bike (2:58, 11:20AM)
August 2nd: Long course swim (~4300 yards, 8:58AM), 45 min run (4:23PM)
August 3rd: Long course swim (~3900 yards, 9:11AM)
August 4th: Run (1:10, 9:40AM), Bike (1:11, 4:27PM)
August 5th: Long course swim (~4000 yard swim, 7:45AM)
August 6th: Road bike Blue Ridge Parkway (4:01, 10:39AM)
August 7th: Spectate Karel at Lake Logan Half
August 8th: Run (1:25, 10:34AM)
It was a nice mix of swim, bike, run but without any structure or routine. I made sure to keep every workout fun but without a purpose.
If you have been struggling with finding the "fun" in your training, I encourage you to explore the following topics to see how you can bring yourself back to that beginners joy for training and racing.
- Obsession with metrics - miles completed, weekly distance, paces/watts/speed
- Dissatisfied with body image
- Rigid and ritualistic with training (and eating)
- Pressure to perform
- High expectations
- Fear of failure
- Inadequate recovery
- Monotonous training
- Isolated training
- Dull workout environment
- Workouts without purpose or meaning
- Too high volume/intensity
- Not enough intensity
- Training without gratitude