Training plans - a personal reflection
Tandem swim buddies
In early December I started focusing my training on my big plans for the summer of 2020. As a reminder, these events are:
Channel relay - mid June
Catalina channel solo (as a tandem) - 30th June
Alcatraz solo (in a group) - 3rd July
20 Bridges solo (round Manhattan as a tandem)
2 further channel relays
Clearly, this is a big list of big swims, and something that I need to train seriously for. However, I’ve been here before and trained for similar things, so why is it different this time? Well, this is the first time that I’ve done tandem swims. What is a tandem? It’s where two people do a solo together with the same support boat. That means that we really need to swim at the same speed.
Here in lies the challenge.
My swim buddy is Julian Critchlow. I’ve spent many hours swimming around the harbour with Julian and he is a rock-solid swimmer who has helped me through plenty of challenging training swims. The first year we swam together was 2014 when I was at the top of my game. Training with Julian was comfortable.
Move forward a year or two and my swimming was not as fast and Julian was faster and I found myself chasing him around the harbour in training. 2019 was pretty much a year off for me whilst Julian was in heavy training.
So, not only do I need to get fit, but I need to get my speed back up again!
A matter of priorities
I am extremely time poor. I currently work four days a week in a job that takes me away from home with a 2.5 hour commute. Running Dover Channel Training may appear to be a role that takes up my weekends in the summer, but actually there are jobs to be done throughout the year and throughout the week. Most recently we had the annual seminar which took considerable planning. Even without that I have a never ending supply of queries. Planning for the season starts at the beginning of the year.
Also, the annual CS&PF dinner is coming up and as one of the organisers that also takes up a massive chunk of time.
Add to that running a small business single handed and I’m sure that you can appreciate that in order to get sufficient sleep to maintain good health, that there is very little time for anything else.
Whilst I have made the decision to walk away from my corporate role, that doesn’t take effect until April. Until then I needed to be clear about priorities. This is the order in which I decided to use my time
Corporate role (well, they do pay me well to do the role I do!)
Sleep
Training
My business
Dover Channel Training
Everything else (a pretty long list)
This doesn’t mean that the things at the lower end of the list aren’t important. They are. They wouldn’t be on the list if they weren’t important. It is merely the order in which I approach things when there is limited time. It means that some things will take longer to be dealt with than others. They will be dealt with though.
What’s changed? Sleep is the big change, that used to be given up just to get one more email reply or one more blog written. Training too - that was fitted around everything else. The priority list was probably more like this:
Corporate role
Dover Channel Training
Everything else
My business
Sleep
Training
So, I still prioritised my job as you would expect but sleep and training were seen as ‘nice to have’ rather than essential. Replying to queries in a voluntary capacity were given priority over running my own business.
Quite frankly my priorities were wrong. If I allowed that to continue once the business launched full-time then it would almost certainly fail and fail very quickly. I also wouldn’t train and lack of sleep would have health consequences.
A plan
It’s easy to say that I’m prioritising in a certain way, but it isn’t easy to do without actually planning everything to make it happen and to be aware of all the spinning plates at any one time.
So I have a high level plan each week. This is where I work out where, geographically, I’m going to be. This is often work driven. From here I can work out where to slot in training. When I’m in Cambridge with work, I’m limited to the gym - but I do have the gym so that can be planned. I need to factor in commute times and rest.
I like to do a combination of swimming, strength & conditioning and classes. I also like to follow a cyclical plan, building for 3 weeks or so and then a recovery week. Of course, that’s all in an ideal world. I need to build in a bit of flexibility to work around other commitments. For example, I’ve just finished building up for three weeks, so I would ordinarily be due a recovery week this week. But if I do that, and build again, I’d then find myself at a recovery week again for the week that I’m due to be in Croatia on a training camp. So I’m following a pyramid for this cycle instead. If I didn’t plan ahead, that reality would just hit me a little too late.
I use a simple bit of paper to sketch out this high level plan (the picture excludes all the other to-do items - you really don’t need to see all that I’m juggling!
Basic planning across all my areas
I also maintain a spreadsheet that shows this plan at a high level and what I actually do. It tracks things like sleep quality, diet, hydration, muscle soreness, injuries, metres and time.
The summary page of my excel tracker
Then on a daily basis I focus in further with my key objectives for each day plus reflections at the start and end of the day.
Daily planning & reflections
When it comes to open water training in Dover, I’ll be like everyone else and will need to adapt to increasing water temperatures and conditions. My plan will be more flexible then.
I feel this time is for laying the ground work. Getting to the season fit and healthy and physically and mentally ready to go.
What have I learned?
I have found that it has helped me both physically and mentally. Without a plan, I assess how I think I’m doing based on how I feel - physically and emotionally.
As an example, early this week I felt like I was taking it too easy - but I had also done all that I had planned - a Monday morning masters swim and a session in the gym at work on Tuesday. That enabled me to enjoy some downtime without thinking that I should be doing more.
It stops me over training, whilst building to where I need to be. I can get to the end of a day or the week and smile and know that all is well.
If I’ve had a tough week at work it would be easy for that feeling to extend into other aspects of life and assume that training was bad too. I can now objectively show when that is or isn’t true. On the flip side, if I’ve had a great week, I might be tempted to think that training is also on track when I haven’t actually shown up.
I get to enjoy my training.
By tracking markers like sleep, hydration, muscle soreness and mood, I can spot the signs of over training.
I keep it all real.
So how is it going?
Honestly, it’s going great. I’ve done some pretty heavy duty training in the gym and in classes and I feel physically good and strong. I’ve done more pool training than I have in a while. My technique is getting better and so is my speed.
Checking in on technique in an endless pool
I’m on track to where I want to get to. As importantly, I’m really enjoying it.
It is taking longer to do some of the other things on my to-do list, like keep up with emails, but I will get there. If you’re waiting for a reply you may just need to practice your patience. Gone are the days when I am going to prioritise everything above my own targets and my own sleep. There are no apologies here, I’d encourage you to do the same.
Take aways
Is this just about training? Absolutely not. Anyone who has a full life would benefit from sitting down and identifying all the calls on their time. Then work out how you are choosing to prioritise - is it based on what is important to you or what is important to other people? Are you happy with how you prioritise? If not, change it. It really is that simple.
If you want help doing this, please do get in touch.