Tireless State. 無

It's been a month since my last post, and in the meantime I've had my first run race of the season - an 8k. The great thing about this race is that I've done it now 5 years in a row, and each year, I've set a new PR. I don't know how long this streak will last, obviously it will end at some point since I can't keep getting better ad infinitum. However my hope is that it will keep improving at least for the next 2-3 years. The current PR lies at a high 32 min. Hopefully I will eventually get it down to sub 27:30, which will qualify me for the elite corral. That's a lot of wishful thinking in my opinion, but it never hurts to dream big.

In addition to that I've broken a few other personal records as well. I've had my biggest volume weeks (by a aerobic's point metric which I found online), two weeks in a row! Another personal record I've broken is the amount of hours worked out per week. I guess there is a correlation between aerobic points and hours, but I'll consider them two separate records, thank you very much.

I feel that all this is possible due to the fitness focus I had over the winter. In a way, it was "just" a run focus, but according to Lydiard, running is second to only cross country skiing in its ability to strengthen your cardiovascular system. I have very little doubts that it did indeed contribute to what I'm capable of doing right now.

The most stunning effect, in my mind, is that the time to fatigue for me has increased dramatically. My speed probably has not changed much, but that isn't too concerning since I believe my main limiter is endurance. I vividly remember a moment last week as I was hammering on the bike and realized that I wasn't getting drained as fast as I used to. Lydiard's words echoed in my head "aerobic conditioning is nearly limitless, some athletes have worked themselves up to a tireless state". That has since become my mantra. The word I repeat in my head is the chinese character for 'nothing' - 無