Being Careful

It’s really getting to the business end of my World Champs preparation now. I developed a good, solid base of fitness, increased my strength and now I am working on some speed before adding in some more race specificity. However, I have been tinkering with my final training plan, for the next 5 weeks, before flying out 8 days before the event on September 7.

I have felt the need to re-arrange my training as I have noticed some signs of overtraining such as; general feel of lacking some energy, a slight head cold a couple of weeks ago and, now, another infection which has affected my chest and sinuses but almost gone, feeling poor during some sessions and not feeling properly rested after my normal amount of sleep.

My plan to combat this while ensuring I complete desired sessions before flying out, will be to have an extra recovery day between my hard rides and runs. This simply means that instead of performing two hard rides and a weights session each week, this will be spaced out over about 10 days. This will be similar for my running. My swimming will be focussed on the days where I don’t have any hard rides or runs and a couple of easier swims on the harder days. I will continue with easy riding and running for active recovery on easy days, also.

An example of this new layout will look something like this:-

·         Day 1: Ride 3 – 4 hours with several 8 – 10 minute hill repeats and an easy 2 – 3km swim.

·         Day 2: 60 minutes easy spin and Run 2 hours – long endurance run with a few above race pace efforts in the last half an hour. Core strength.

·         Day 3: Ride to and from the pool (approx. 90 minutes total) and swim 4km with a strength focus.

·         Day 4: Ride 90 minutes – 2 hours with a lot of short, high cadence efforts. Then, a leg weights and core strength session.

·         Day 5: Ride to and from the pool and swim 3km with a speed focus.

·         Day 6: Ride 60 minutes easy. Track run session working above race pace for various length intervals building the speed throughout the workout. Core strength.

·         Day 7: Run 45 minutes easy with some drills. Swim 3km with race pace focus and practice sighting.

·         Day 8: Ride 4 – 6 hours with the last 2 hours practicing race pace over extended periods and simulating race day nutrition. Run up to 30 minutes off the bike at race pace.

·         Day 9: Ride to and from the pool and swim 3km using drills and focussing on technique and kicking.

·         Day 10: Ride 60 minutes easy and run 60 minutes easy. Core strength.

The aim of spacing out my key sessions further is to ensure I am well rested prior to key workouts in an effort to produce the best possible sessions. Also, to prevent the possibility of overtraining so close to my goal race, I will take extra rest on non-key workout days where necessary by excluding a swim, light ride or easy run and ensure adequate sleep is not sacrificed.

With only 4 and half weeks of training left before leaving and beginning my taper, I will be more focussed than ever at ensuring I am in peak condition.

Be sure to follow me on Strava and check out some of the longer sessions I have done and will do from now on.

Happy training folks.

Lincoln.