Failure is the antithesis of all goal oriented enterprises
– Mark Twight
Yep. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. If you look at my whiteboard you see all sorts of stuff scribbled on there about stuff to get done in 2022. Now at almost five months in how much of it has been done? Checked off so to speak. Well, I’ll tell ya… pretty much nothing. Reasons….? There will be a companion piece to this story that’ll get into all of the gory details; at least from a philosophical perspective.
Now to be fair, the year ain’t over yet, and there are still a couple of items on the list that maybe stand a chance of coming to fruition. One of them being a summer alpine climbing trip; presumably to be told about here later. The other is of course… training up for that trip. The thing is; that when you take a look at the aforementioned whiteboard you will see that the training was to have begun in January. And yes dear reader here it is almost June.
Now this doesn’t mean that ol’ offwidth has been a total sluggard since Hogmanay, just a partial one. What I have been doing has been cycling, a bit of gym climbing, some kettlebells, and very easy short rucking. What I should have been up to was following the training protocols from over at Uphill Athlete. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, yeah, yeah, yeah…
Three months to go and now I have to get a wiggle on.
But what to do?
It’s pretty easy to get in a nice comfortable rut. Doing the things you normally do, either because they are fun, or perhaps easy. Familiarity breeds contempt. And of course there are the inevitable excuses, and delaying tactics. I mean… tomorrow is another day after all… and why put off to tomorrow what you can do the day after….
But of course doing the things that I normally do is not going to be remotely close to being adequate training. The astute reader will notice that even in this story I am delaying getting into discussing any actual training. Making it up as I go along. I am actually hoping (and oh how I dislike that term) that by writing this, that some training plan will magically crystalize out of it.
So what is the goal? What exactly am I trying to accomplish? Any training needs to be well aligned and harmonized with that. There needs to be a direct line of sight. The goal is to be able to move as effectively as possible over the terrain of our proposed objectives; with the ancillary target of staying in one piece during the training process.
In no particular order…
Big cardiovascular engine:
By this I mean both aerobic and anaerobic adaptations. Being able to go reasonably fast all day long as well as being able to exhibit strong bursts of speed over and over if necessary. Cycling has served me pretty well to build a reasonably solid foundation in this area, but now it’s time to switch to some more sport specific modalities. To that end I will be incorporating trail running, rucking, and box-steps, along with reducing (but not eliminating) my cycling.
Strong and endurant legs:
Obviously legs will get trained to a large extent by the very same activities that are being used for the ’cardio’ training, but I will also be incorporating kettlebell goblet squats and split bench squats to the mix.
Indestructible connective bits:
This one, for me at least causes the most amount of trepidation or anxiety. All of the above activities have the Nietzschean potential to make you stronger or kill you. I’m really not interested in the latter, therefore it’s important for me to employ a comprehensive variety of preventative activities to ensure all those bits are taken care of. This will consist of a potpourri of mobility based things taken from Original Strength©, Flexible Steel©, Super Joints©, Relax Into Stretch©, along with some physiotherapy exercises I have picked up over the years.
Climbing:
Yes we are going on a climbing trip. And yes there will be actual roped climbing and the snap of a karabiner gate, but nothing to go to any extreme measures for in training. At the rate I’m going it looks as if I will only be able to do gym climbing to support this. I know, I know…
Recovery Strategy:
Yes, there is a lot of training going on. I will need a recovery strategy that is appropriate for the actual training. A good recovery plan needs to address many things. Rest, sleep, hydration, nutrition, hand care, foot care, and stress management are all part of this. Two of the biggest and most important elements are: actually having a plan, and listening to your body.
The Template:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
| Tai-Chi | Tai-Chi | Tai-Chi | Tai-Chi | Tai-Chi | Tai-Chi | Tai-Chi |
| Trail Run | Ride Recovery | Run | Box Steps | Trail Ruck | Off | Ride Long |
| Climb Difficulty | Weighted Box Steps | Climb Volume | Mace | S&S | ||
| S&S | Goblet Squats | Leg Maintenance | S&S | Split Squats | Leg Maintenance | |||
| Mobility | Grip Maintenance | |||||
| Mobility |
At least that’s the general idea. Obviously there will be increasing volume and intensity in many of the activities as the weeks progress. Without a doubt this will get changed and modified many times over between now and August.
Stay tuned…