- Get a heart rate monitor
- Know how to use it
- Follow a training plan
- Get a coach. Even if you set and do most of your workouts yourself a fresh opinion never hurt anyone. At the very least it will help you reflect on your training. Even if you ask someone at your club to watch you for a session and comment a bit it is almost certain to help.
- Set goals for each workout - have a daily plan.
- Accept that harder isn't always better - everyone needs long relatively slow miles.
- Do drills - improve your technique. Long slow distance session do not need to be "junk miles"
- Train with a partner or in a group - it keeps you motivated and keeps you from missing workouts.
- Train alone! You have to spend some time alone, or with a very closely matched partner, if you intend to work in your own training zone.
- Use a Strokecoach or a Speedcoach (cyclists - get a cadence function on your computer). It will help you follow your individual workout plan, and frankly it keeps the workout more interesting.
- Have a training diary. There's no need to be obsessive - but a few notes about your workout, or other things happening in your life will keep you motivated and help you reflect on what sets you up for a good training session. A log is a great place to record your daily training goals - then go back to them and think reflectively about your session.
- Use video - even occasionally. You don't need a coach for this - get a friend to shoot it. Even a training partner in another boat can stop and shoot a bit.
- Try something completely different in your workout. Try a bungee or a bucket row. Cyclists - don't avoid the hills - find them. Cyclists: I know a (very successful) guy who trains occasionally with two water bottles filled with lead shot early in the season!
- Think about nutrition - do you drink enough and the right stuff in a workout? Do you skip a meal and train on an empty stomach?
- Warm-up - intelligently!
- Buy something cool to use training! OK, not great personal improvement advice but that new piece of clothing does make you feel fast doesn't it?
- Look after your equipment - wash your boat (your bike, your shoes, whatever). Clean gear is happy gear and somehow it seems to go faster!
- Test yourself - but on a schedule. Not every workout can be a test - that would be a huge mistake (see #6). But regular testing shows progress and is motivating. Test, and record (see #11).
- Make your goals public - tell your wife, your husband, your kids, your friends, or just post it on the fridge - stating things publicly makes them more tangible and is motivating.
- Enter a race, or some other event, as far ahead of time as you can. Again, it motivates and makes things tangible.
Do you have more? Send me your own list and I will post it!
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