forgotten_aria

So I am not a physio or have studied this, so take the following with the same gravitas as "so I read somewhere on the Internet..."

At least in my experience, there's a massive difference between "overall aerobic fitness" and "how good I am in this particular aerobic-based sport".

So what I would expect from your TKD and xfit experience is that your aerobic engine can run for daaaays, which woohoo, outstanding, yes, very good. But then there's a completely different sphere of the particular sport, and I believe? this comes down to neuromuscular coordination. Sure, xfit will mean your muscles can deliver power, both explosive and sustained, and similar for TKD with all its kicks, but just as you wouldn't expect a marathoner to be instantly good at TKD kicks or box jumps, so I wouldn't expect to be good at . Now, have a distinct advantage? Sure! Maybe (ha ha, maybe!) the marathoner has good standing-on-one-foot balance, so cool, they can skip that part of learning a front snap kick, buuut there's everything else that goes into a snap kick. Likewise, just because you can stand on one foot and crack out N front snap kicks without setting the kicking foot down isn't going to help all that much with running.

That's just the first level. :)

When you run faster than you should be during C25K, it's like someone with 1 year of training trying to do kicks like someone with 3 years of training: hang on, that's not a good idea. "But I already know how to run!" Well, sure, we all know how to run 10 steps. But a mile and a half? No, of course not, most people would actually have difficulty running more than a half-mile without a break.

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Years ago, Alyse and I did RAGBRAI, a 7-day ride across Iowa. We had to train a lot for it. We both rode the same number of miles (maybe she did a bit more midweek). But the big differences were:
* prior to starting training, she was already doing spin classes, which she continued during training
* I was a marathoner; I did a tiny (but non-zero!) amount of running during training

This became SUPER obvious because we were on a tandem, so on Really Steep Hills, she had 1, the balance to 2, stand up in the pedals and power us up the hill. I was contributing, but pffft, I was definitely not putting in 50% of the power. Her specificity of training - spin classes - was what was enabling her.

Similarly, on long days, near the end, I definitely noticed that her power output was dropping off. Didn't tank or anything, but my endurance degraded more gently than hers: this was my marathon experience paying off, because my body was trained in going for hours without a break. I have this recollection of asking her to help me pass some people, so bam, she drops the hammer, we pass them, and then her power output crashes as she aerobically recovers while I'm like, okay that sucked but whatever I'm good. But could I have summoned that power myself? No.

This, to me, is a good example of the difference between crosstraining versus specificity of training.

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If you like, let's schedule a time to video chat and go over your training logs.
Or, flip side of that, let's do nothing of the sort :D and I'll encourage you to work with a run coach.

Analogies are always suspect, but I feel like what you're trying to do is like... it's like if I wanted to get to where I was bench pressing bar + a 45 on each end, so that's, what, 130? And okay, when I start, I can do the bar, 5 sets of 5 reps.

And I'm working out 3x/week, but then the next time I workout, I'm trying to go from 0 on the bar to 2*25s. Aieeee! :D

So it's not that my goal is wrong
or that I don't have the determination
but the details of how I'm trying to train are totally getting in my way.

Does that make sense?