An anymous reader recently posted a comment which I’m going to answer here. Thank you for your question anymous! Please do not hesitate to post yours as well. I like to have interaction with my readers and I know you have questions and comments so please keep them coming!
“Hi Jaakko,
I enjoyed reading your entry- very cool that you are finding something that is working and you are excited about. I was wondering changes you are making to your training program and lifestyle. The reason I ask is because I think I have probably also been overreached for most of my triathlon career and would definitely like to train so that I am excited and have great hormone levels again.”
So indeed I have made some significant changes to my approach to everything. First and foremost the biggest thing has been that I have developed a very positive outlook to everything, good or bad! I know that whatever happens to me, there are still far worse things happening in the world!
Secondly I’ve become better at managing things that stress both my mind and my body. Probably one of the best qualities I have as a person is that I manage to focus and do work on whatever sparks even the smallest interest in me. This can lead to serious problems however if there are too many intensive things going on simultaneously as has been the case in the past. So consciously reducing the amount of these focus-things and especially doing as little things as possible that I feel bad about has helped! This includes reducing extremely boring courses from my schedule and not even trying to watch movies (which I’m seriously challenged and terrible at, watching movies that is!).
As far as training goes the primary change has been getting a coach and changing from a quantitative training approach to a qualitative one. When I’ve been self-coached I haven’t had a good and progressive training program to work on because weather especially in the winter usually throws good self-made plans out of the window but also because I can get too much caught up in the program, and just focusing on completing training even when resting would be the right thing to do. So this had lead my training to be too monotone and not focused enough on absorbing training and recovering from it. Only making myself more tired insted of fitter.
In the past I’ve tried working with a couple of coaches but either they’ve not have time for me or the chemistry between the coach and me hasn’t been working. Now I am working with a guy I have full confidence in and who I enjoy talking about things!
These have been the main things I’ve made. I’ve become a happy/positive person^1000 and am enjoying life to the fullest right now!
On another note I went through quite an interesting experiment yesterday! I agreed on being a test-rabbit on a run test that a serious sport biomechanist guru/researcer Tapani Keränen from the KIHU - Research Institute for Olympic Sports wanted to perform. It was a test that measured foot pressure points during running. It was performed with Novel- insoles that were put in my running shoes. I was then equipped with all kinds of analyzing and data transmission equipment and the test was performed in a lab running on a treadmill. The technology was quite interesting and it’ll be rad to see if these kind of things eventually lead to running powermeters!
However at this stage I think that the analyzing system we were using wasn’t too good for running analysis as all the equipment weighted probably 3-4kg adding over 5% to my bodyweight! Also I had all kinds of disturbing wires and braces attached to me making running quite unnatural. But when these things get wireless, smaller and lighter it has the potential to revolutionize run training, me thinks!
But all in all it was fun. Though I got pretty severely dehydrated despite only running 7km! The lab was quite small with no A/C or any cooling and I had trouble speaking after the run J
Only two weeks to go before first training camp of 2009!
Be positive, healthy and have a great weekend!
-JH
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