Junk Miles Vs Bricks & Mortar

It has been one long arse crazy week. Problems have been thrown at me from all angles and as such I now have severe neck ache from being on Larry (the laptop) for most of my working hours since Friday, Saturday and once this is posted, Sunday. Tomorrow is a Public Holiday..but guess what...still got frigging catching up to do!

ANYWAY...she is rattling on again...to the point Emma!

I had 3 days of nothing after Camsur. Yes you heard right 3 days of squat...meaning no training. I do not remember when that last happened in the past 12months. I was berated for doing this. Accused of being weak and not disciplined.

Given a pop quiz. Choose one of the following that you think applies to you and your swim. If ANY. Discipline, Consistency, Patience.

My reply was...I am disciplined, I would like to think I am consistent, but we both know I am NOT patient.

Reply back: You see you are none...any little excuse (read: food poisoning) and you skip a swim, got a cold, skip a swim, feel tired, skip a swim. Now while some of these excuses I have NEVER used, I was not going to hit back and argue. So I took the punches, shut up and got back in the pool.

So with 3 days off I feel fitness has lagged, I have slowed and am trying to get back up to speed. Sessions have been extremely mentally trying this week as have those tiny fast-twitch muscles in my legs that scream at me when doing speed run sets. Coupled with little sleep, problems with Larry all these things I know effect training.

Yesterdays ride was solid. 138k's, it was 3 mins slower than my best effort. I knew I was not on fire and I know you cannot nail every session with PB's.

Before this morning's run I logged onto the teamTBB forum and there in the light of Cyber space was a post from Doc about the very thing I know to be true but sometimes in the fog of fatigue and mental tiredness we weaken and fold.

Some people talk about junk miles. What is 'Junk Miles'?? To me junk miles is training that you do just for training sake. You go out there and swim, bike or run and just go through the motions...because maybe you are tired, not feeling well or not up for it. But usually if you are honest with yourself if you are feeling any of these three elements you would not even get out of bed. SO that means when you do do Junk Miles you are doing them on a good day when you feel good. It is simple:

No pain

No fatigue

No puffing & panting

No tiredness

This ladies and gentleman is what you call Junk Miles and you should have bloody stayed in bed!

Whereby Bricks & Mortar is when you go out when you are tired, not feeling 100%, mentally buggered and weak. It is simple:

Push through all pain

Push through all fatigue

Push through mentally

When you are having a BAD day you CAN have the best training day. Your times may not excite you so don't get hooked up on splits, averages, power and shit. If you can train when you are at the lowest of the low...no matter how slow it was if you felt the pain and didn't cut short no matter how much the demon on your shoulder said QUIT QUIT QUIT then you come out the other side stronger, more confident, very tired probably, but oh so much STRONGER in mind and BODY.

I suffer with pain every day...I don't complain about it, it is always there. If it goes away I know I have not been training. I enjoy training it is my drug of choice. It gives me such a high I cannot explain the euphoria that goes through my body on good days. And when I am having a bad day and there are lots of them...the feeling of complete and utter satisfaction on completion of a nightmare turbo session, swim or run is to me the best feeling in the world.

And there-of endeth the lesson :)

Thanks for the Pic, Cycling Asia...I actually like this one :)