Athlete Series: Training Update

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. That’s the saying right? Well life has given us lemons post Age Group Nationals, but Kelly and I are going to make lemonade out of it! Let’s fill you in.

Age Group Nationals

To cap off Kelly’s month of racing, he made the trek from Reno, NV to Milwaukee, WI to race some of the best age group athletes in the country. This race was a culmination of the hard work Kelly has put in over the last year and a half. From his mid-pack finishes to podium finishes, he earned his place at this prestigious event.

Kelly had a great race. His age group didn’t start until ten a.m. By that time the heat was starting to creep up as Milwaukee was experiencing a rather warm weekend. He didn’t panic in the swim, even though the water temperature was a brisk 58 degrees! He held a super solid pace throughout the duration of the swim which set him up in a great position in his Age Group. Transition went smoothly, and he rode well, even though he was on a rental bike! He managed to hit his target pace. The run was an out and back and fairly sunny. By this time it was close to noon and the heat was really up there. This slowed him down a bit from his goal pace, but he ran solid 10k from start to finish. Overall Kelly put together a great performance from start to finish.

The Lemons

That evening, Kelly didn’t sleep well. He started noticing a sore throat, and started to cough. The following morning he decided to take a rapid test for Covid. Unfortunately it came back positive. Currently Kelly is experiencing an extremely sore sore throat and finding it hurtful to talk a lot. In general he is tired and he had to delay getting home.

Making Lemonade

While this is an unfortunate setback in his build to IM California, we are formulating a plan on how best to work through this situation. Right now, the priority is rest and recovery while Kelly still experiences symptoms from Covid. Rest actually means no working out to allow his body to recover and hopefully heal quickly.

Once he is in the clear our plan will be fluid based on how he is feeling and what he experiences when he starts to exercise again. This means, that while we have an initial plan in place, I’ll be adjusting his training as often as needed based on how he is feeling and what he is experiencing during a session. Right now our initial plan is to start slowly and keep everything aerobic. We will not do sessions based on power or pace, but on heart rate. I’ll be paying close attention to his heart rate with the intent to keep it low in zones 1-2. We don’t want to put too much stress on the heart too soon. Realistically this means that he will be running, riding, and swimming A LOT slower than he was before. And that is okay. This will be a real test of his mental strength! It’s not easy to dial back the effort when you know where you before. Triathlon training is not just physical, it is an exercise in mental toughness, and this will be Kelly’s time to shine in that area too.

We’ll take it day by day, workout by workout. In the meantime, we’ll let Kelly rest and recover. I’ll keep you updated once we get back to training.