Week IM – 21: Psychology Benefits of Sun and Rugby

This was a big enough week. Two long swim sessions on Monday and Thursday and one short speed recovery day on Wednesday of 500m swim and 5Km cycle. 4:25 on Saturday between bike and a run.

I did just one weight session this week but I’ve been concentrating on stretching a lot again. Stretching and the foam roller to make sure the ITBs don’t stiffen up again. It seems to be working. My knees were a small bit sore on Saturday after the run but were fine again by Sunday. Perhaps the Irish victory over England in the 6 Nations had a part to play in this quick recovery also. I’ve never underestimated the psychological influence on the physical aspects of the body. Brain Training for Runners is basically a book on how to use your head to improve your body.

He uses techniques such as mental queues that you implement in training to keep your concentration on certain aspects. For example to practice 10km runs where you concentrate on “falling forward” to avoid heal striking.  He also categorises different types of feedback (say subjective (“that was 8 out of ten in difficulty”) versus objective (heart rate, power)) in a constructive way which allows you to consider all forms of perceivable feedback to get the best gauge on what’s going on. Basically, too often people rely solely on HR.

It’s recommended quite a bit - or maybe more, it’s done quite a bit by long distance athletes, especially runners- to take anti-inflammatories during or after long runs to prevent the knees becoming inflamed. I’ll consider this in the future for longer runs. I’ve also been advised that dehydration and AIs don’t mix well, so to take a lot of fluids at the same time.

Saturday was a relatively big day of 4 hours 25 back to back. That was 3 hours on the bike followed by a 1:20 run – 14Km at an easy pace.

Here’s the bike route:

The weather was really nice for this one, which was great. Physiologically, it makes a huge difference when the sun is shining. It’s substantially easier keep going on long cycles, as opposed to the mild frustration that just doesn’t go away when you’re cycling into wind and rain.