The Torch

Yesterday our Coach Dave Gleeson came to practice all business. It was race day: 2 x 2000 m max on the schedule. We usually are pretty light hearted with Dave and he with us, but today there was a lot less joking and banter. This set of race pieces was the first of 6 before the Olympic Trials. We are all very run down from training so the expectation of speed is far lower than in April. Right now we are expected to be going around 75 -80 percent of our max speed this year. We all had good stretches and showed speed at points. I was in the lead substantially on both pieces and found myself reeling for something more in the last 250. On the first peiece Peter closed quickly and finished slightly ahead of me. On the second I finished slightly ahead. I was impressed with the speed I had in the first 1000 without pushing super hard. On the first piece I was up by 7 seconds at the 1000 m mark, which is pretty ridiculous--- I'm not sure how that happened!!??? Maybe too much coffee...bottom line is I did not have the killer instinct to finish the job. I thought the race was over and became complacent. This can never happen and I was very disappointed in myself on both pieces for racing this way. Come April, I must be able to increase the speed to the line. I won't be able to win by open water, these races will be decided by inches and I need to be willing to fight for every one. That was an unintentional " Any Given Sunday" reference...but it doesn't make it any less true!! THE INCHES WE NEED ARE EVERYWHERE AROUND US! Anyways, this weekend we are taking it easy before going into stage 2 of our training which will be a max power block in the weight room. The idea is that when we come back to the higher rep weights after doing some power, the weight that we had been doing this month will feel easier.