The Fourth Season: Recovery

At our October TriCATs triathlon club meeting, Mary and Al Delaney gave a presentation on the ‘fourth season’, which we are entering into.  The first is our ‘base’ season, where we do a lot of base miles, we then have the ‘build’ season, where we ramp up the intensity and volume, and finally ‘race’ season. So what is the fourth season? Recovery.  In her presentation Mary said that we should go for at least 3 weeks with “no endorphyn’s”. Most of us chuckled, but by the end of the presentation I decided that I would follow her advice and do no exercise for 3+ weeks. It is now 22 days since I finished the Marine Corps Marathon so I figure that I’m allowed to start some training again. Let me explain why recovery is important, and why it is so hard for some people.

Travel Risks for Endurance Athletes: Or How Being Healty Can Kill You

One of the benefits of being the editor of my triathlon club’s newsletter is that some great material comes across my (virtual) desk. One of our members, Dr. Al Delaney, is both an MD and a scientist. He also runs a practice ‘Rehab to Racing‘ with his wife Mary which is aimed at rehabilitating injured athletes so they can get back to competition.  Al wrote an article for the September 2007 TriCATs newsletter that I am reproducing here. As someone who travels for a living, it has important advice which all endurance athletes – even duffers like me – need to be aware of. I for one am taking aspirin before my flights.

Product Endorsement – Zoot Triathlon Bag

To do a triathlon you have lug a lot of gear to the race. As a minimum: Swimming – goggles, wet suit, towel; Bike – helmet, sun glasses, shoes, socks, gloves; Running – hat, shoes. I say the minimum because there are also a lot of other things to remember like body glide, nutrition, race belt, timing chip, bike tools, etc. After lugging things around in different bags I saw someone with a Zoot Triathlon bag at a race and I was sold.