Coachly guidance

Here are Coach Paul's suggestions for why I had a bad day yesterday (paraphrased by me):

• Bad day: most likely cause since I've been doing my MAF pace training on the same course
• Reaction to my anaerobic training (see "Hill Sprints" below). It's no secret that anaerobic work interferes with aerobic base building which is why Maffetone et al have the 155 cap rule when developing the aerobic system. It's also obvious that I struggled with the super-anaerobic training over the weekend (though I do think this was out of the ordinary- I coped MUCH better with horrible hill sprints on bootcamp in 08) However, the strategy this time 'round is to develop my strength, power, pain tolerance etc and now is the best time to do it., not nearer the race season.

His short point is not to stress- my winter programme focuses on strength, power and breaking that CG down- and to remind myself that the MAF tests are there to learn about myself as an athlete as much as they are about testing and seeing my improvement, and that REAL and PERMANENT improvement only occurs over a number of years.

Anyway, even if the test wasn't great, I still had a fairly solid 11km run last night, and I've had some pretty good trainer sessions, showing that my strength is improving. We're getting closer to the pre-season race-season, and I'm looking forward to Okoroire, Taupo Half and The Legend. Awesome.