Nice Work

We have been talking a lot the past week (month, year?) about all the seemingly separate components that comprise a quality training session. Which in turn forges a solid training block, sometimes alchemically, into racing gold. The latest round of research regarding lactate was especially illuminating, as many of the principals of exercise physiology were inspected, and through this close examination found to be useful. In a number of ways. The most important of which, I believe, is this:

YOU HAVE TO PUNCH THE CLOCK.

LIke Ralph and Sam each toting a lunch pail, we all need to show up, punch the time clock and go to work. If you don't show up regularly enough, you don't get the benefits, and sometimes the job vanishes altogether. So in this example MORE is better. Overtime oven, if you can get it.

Secondly is the bio-chemistry issue. All that takes place as we are 'at work'. Oxygen ions and mitochondria, glucose and glycogen, pH and hormonal imbalances all in flux, changing rapidly, especially when the heat is raised. This can cause an overload resulting in our default management style taking control; Let's take a break here boys, slow it down - there is a long way to go, or, worse of all, time for a nap. I am a big fan of napping, but not at work. And NEVER on the battlefield. You snooze you lose. Or as The Z-man used to say, "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead".

These two share a training commonality. We need the consistency of a forty hour work week as well as some occasional OT when the demand dictates. That demand is intensity. The way to build dense mitochondria, where power, speed and endurance are manufactured, is in not just work, BUT IN HARD WORK. One must show up Monday thru Friday, punch the clock and work on the basics, building base, impeccable form and muscular adaptation. Then, come the weekend, get in some triple time and a half OT, going hard, to max, and sometimes beyond.

That paycheck pays for the recruitment of additional muscle fiber to power your event, increased mitochondria in the cells of those muscles, heightened heart and lung transport systems, increased vascularity and fuel delivery lines and, lastly, the confidence to spend. You have worked hard, you know this and the paycheck validates it.

So go stimulate the economy. Use it. Race it. You have earned it.

Nice work and enjoy every sandwich.

Pix: Sam and Ralph go to work. At IM Texas, Superman as Yell Leader, "Nice Work".