Debbie Flood - Faf time is wasted time when there are things to be done and worked for.
Posted by Chris Rowe on Mar 24, 2010
Guest post from Olympic Rower Debbie Flood:
Faf time is wasted time when there are things to be done and worked for.
With my limited training profile at the moment, I need to be making the most of my spare minutes of time. I have come to the conclusion that I can be good at faffing and wasting precious time, particularly aimlessly looking on the internet and my facebook page. But over the last few weeks I have learnt to swap my wasted internet faf time to spend time on my new friend the Wattbike.
When I get back from work if I have a spare bit of time whilst I am waiting for my dinner to cook in the oven I will jump on the Wattbike for 30 minutes. 30 minutes passes in no time, and I feel much better for having done a productive training session without pushing myself over the edge. Perhaps this may seem slightly extreme when i should be just relaxing or winding down from work, but I am an Olympic athlete - and at the moment I do not make the grade. My focus is on getting fitter and closer to achieving my dreams and this takes a high priority in my life.
The Wattbike, I am finding, is a good way of keeping my legs moving fast without killing them like it would on the rowing machine if I rated high. I am able to spin along whilst still at a low heart rate keeping those fast movements and keeping my legs used to moving like they would if I was racing on the water. It is motivating to see my power splits getting better though I am being mindful not to go too hard at the moment as that is not the current purpose of my training on the Wattbike.
It would be nice if it was as easy as spinning the legs along at a high cadence and low heart rate then be able to jump on the water and race flat out, but in a week or so time I will be mixing up my training with racing practice on the water on training camp. I am hopeful that the high cadence work have been doing on the bike will have prepared me well for starting to take my fitness into the boat.
30 minutes is such a small amount of time out of a day and is easy to find if we want to do it. If you have a Wattbike of your own there are no excuses!!
