Periodization is a system of training that allows you to structure your training over a period of time to reach a peak at the right time for the main event.
Endurance athletes really know about periodization, even amateur ones trying to structure and force things into their lives to get a better result in the things that they want to do (a bike race, a long run, a long swim or a triathlon or whatever it is) means that you're going for something big and you're going to try and achieve something, you're working up to it, doing it and working down from it and then working up to the next one if you choose to do it again.
Many people tick off a box, don't they? Run one marathon and then never do it again, or do an Ironman and never do it again; other people go into periodization for their whole life.
If you use this as a metaphor for your work, you realise that you cannot stay at the top all the time, it's impossible. You can't function at that speed all the time, or something's going to give.
As I come into my 50s now and head devastatingly quickly to my mid-50s, which is absolutely horrible to think of, I realise that many people stop now in their mid-50s because they didn't periodize or they didn't check their pace, they didn't give themselves a break.
I think many people sprint all the way to their 50s and then are just desperate to stop, but then what you do is you stop and you don't do anything, and then life just passes you by, and then you're dead.
At least that's how I see it: pretty morbid, pretty dark, but for me, it's different; it's about pacing myself.
I realise I've got all these opportunities that exist, but I can't have them all. It's ok to give them to other people or to let other people run with them (from other organisations or other countries or anywhere) because all you get to do is make the smallest little change in your little world.
But I understand now that I can't do everything, but I'll just do something.
And so I'm still trying to periodize, some big wins through the year, some periods where I'm not winning, but I'm just recovering and hopefully letting me run for a bit longer than just the next 10 years.
Blog Post Number - 4078
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