Half way down the page is the Blog I planned on releasing yesterday.
There is one major flaw with it though.
It is all bullshit.
This week it is anyway. I am not sure what happened this week but the wheels literally fell off. All motivation left me and I was flat out getting out the door to walk the dogs never mind start to bring in structure to my training. I basically said fuck it and stopped even trying to get anything done by about Wednesday. But you know what. I AM OK WITH IT.
I know this was a message that my body was telling me I need more time off and basically to train when I feel like it and concentrate on getting my body right again. Over the weekend I worked a fair bit in at Allez Sport but the start time of 9 am is late enough that in reality I could have done 1 - 2 hours of training Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But I did nothing on any of those days. I also did zilch on Monday. So I had 4 days off any training what so ever. Man I felt like such a lazy slob and a a fake and a fraud. All the things that come along with trying to be honest and transparent about my journey. I ate junk food and drank coke and just basically did nothing except for go to work and go to bed stupidly late each night to make myself so tired that I couldn’t get up and train. A classic Mick self sabotage move.
That’s still ok though as I know I will resume when I am ready. I have still been diligently doing my rehab work each day though which I am super happy about. But the thought of training just made me uneasy.
Well today I went for a 3 km swim and a 5 km run on the treadmill after my rehab and it was nice. There certainly was no 1 km TT in the pool trying to baseline myself. It was all pretty slow with a few slightly harder efforts just to see what would happen.
I will be honest I contemplated releasing the below bullshit. But I couldn’t do it. I think this week is as important to my development as a great training week is. Because I need to listen to my body and know when to say enough is enough. I also need to be honest about each week, to myself and to you. If I am not. I might as well just go write a fiction book and that serves no purpose for me or anyone.
Lets see what happens for the rest of the week. Who knows my mojo may just come flooding back. But I am ok with a staying like this for a while if I have to.
It is ok to feel shit for a bit. It is ok to say fuck it and stay home, watch Netflix and eat junk food. Just don’t wallow and beat your self up about it and feel guilty. Enjoy your time off recharge the mental and physical batteries and when you are ready get back out there and get back at it.
Plan A
Baselining myself.
Last week I did a couple of baseline performance tests. I did a 20 minute power test on the bike and a 1 km TT in the pool. I realise that the 20 minute power test may not be the overall best way to measure FTP or what ever but it is repeatable and I can easily track progress with it with out the need for any equipment other than my trainer and heart rate strap.
I haven’t done a bike interval since the week before Sunshine Coast 70.3 about 4 weeks ago so I was under no illusions that I would be hitting any significant numbers for this assessment. But my riding has been pretty consistent and as I always say to my clients. It doesn’t matter where you start on day 1, because where you start never indicates where you will finish. But I was reasonably happy with the 20 minute average power figures being (insert figures here) watts. If you read the Power meter training bible stating you take 5% of that figure to give you your Functional Threshold Power (FTP). But most coaches that I follow on different podcasts all agree and tend to take 8-10% off that figure. So for this build I will use 10% so ( Insert Figures here) watts - 10% gives me (Insert figures here) watts. Like I said not very impressive but a good place to start.
My 1 km TT in the pool was also a fact finding mission to see where I am at swimming fitness and pace. Again there are plenty of other assessment procedures out there that I could have done but a 1000 meter effort in a 50 meter pool is pretty repeatable pretty much any where I go. My swimming since Sunny Coast 70.3 has been patchy and inconsistent at best. So I was really expecting a train wreck with this one. But I hit ( Insert time here) for the 1 km which surprised me a little. Because the training I have been doing recently has been slow easy efforts with no intensity in them what so ever. So it really goes to show just how effective aerobic training is for maintaining fitness.
So from now on until 6 weeks time or there abouts. Most of y riding will be done in the range of (Insert Figures here) watts, there will be time where it will go over that for sure. But the overarching goal is to keep the power in that zone for the majority of all riding. Once per week I will be doing a VO2 interval set where I will conduct intervals at (insert figures here) watts with periods starting quite short 60 seconds and building over time up to 5 - 8 minutes long.
My swimming efforts will be similar in nature as on the bike with all my basic endurance swimming being done at ( Insert time here) per 100 meters and my shorter intervals will be at around( Insert time here) per 100 meters.
As for my running I have graduated to being allowed to run 5 - 6 km 3 - 4 times a week, but I am not allowed to put any pace in to my runs as yet. So at the moment most of my running is getting done on the treadmill at a nice comfortable pace of 6 min/km. I have been working with a metronome to keep my cadence steady while slightly adjusting the pace on the treadmill. Meaning learning to adjust stride length as pace quickens and slows.
So for this week. My training is getting broken down in to 3 swims. 4 Bike rides. 4 runs.2 Gym sessions and 7 daily Rehab sessions.
The three swims this week will be comprised of 2 long aerobic swims with efforts ranging from 800 - 1500 meters long. The remaining swim session will be an interval session with a long easy warm up some drill work and then 300 meter intervals with a high pace. Followed by an long easy cool down.
The bike sessions will be 2 x 90 - 120 minute rides where I will do basically everything I can to keep the power with in my endurance zones. 1 session is going to be on my stationary trainer and comprise of shorter intervals in the VO2 zone previously mentioned. The final bike ride will be a long ride. I will try to do these with other people but again try to keep as much time as possible in the endurance zones. The exception will be a few hill efforts where I will push a bigger gear up the hill than I normally would and aim at around my FTP for what ever length the hill is.
The 4 runs easy running 2 on the treadmill and the other 2 on gravel all going nice and easy. Making sure I don’t load the hamstring up significantly yet.
I will cover my strength and rehab routines in the midweek blog to keep this one a little shorter.
Until next week team.
Mick