Tucson - We came, we saw, we conquered...did we recover??

Kori Martini

While I am well aware that I absolutely positively did NOT follow the instructions provided to me for recovery time after the Tucson camp, it seems that even people who DID take some down time experienced quite the struggle with returning to routine training. I thought I was the only one, but I've received PM's and also read other people's comments in the forums that lead me to believe I had company in my post-AZ slump.  I think it's worth while to capture everyone's feedback on:

-Level of training going in to the camp?

-Down time after the camp?

-How did you respond to your regularly scheduled program post-Tucson?

The reason I ask these questions is because I absolutely did not have any issue recovering from other training camps that were later (and harder!) in the season in previous years. My thoughts are that if some of us are on a lower-volume plan going into the weekend (even a handful of 2-hour trainer rides may not cut it?) we may be giving our body quite the jolt that week/weekend. I realize that this is the point of the camp and wouldn't change it a bit. Rather, I think the prep work (or maybe the recovery??) needs to be specified so no one digs a hole early season. Granted, I also realize that recovery directions only work if followed.  ;-)

Since there's much talk about this, I took Rob's suggestion and popped it into its own thread....looking forward to everyone's input! 

(BTW, I'm back to normal now. Downtime is a GOOD thing!)

 

Al Truscott

My data:

• My early season A race is 6 weeks after the Tucson camp, so I expect to be in the fatigue zone during the three weeks following the camp. and I saw the camp as a rare opportunity to get a bike bump in March for an early May race.
• I had been gradually building my Chronic Training Load from 56 TSS/day to 77 TSS.day over the six weeks prior to camp. I've learned from past experience that  more than doubling the TSS/day during a volume bump usually leads to overtraining symptoms.
• The camp was FUN, and I wanted to enjoy myself in concert with others who were working hard.
• My Training Stress Balance the morning of the camp's start was positive 1.1, so I SHOULD have been rested going into the next four days, but ...
• For the 4 days of the camp (I ran 80 minutes on getaway day), my TSSs were: 170 bike/49 run, 166 bike, 223 bike (Mt Lemmon), 95 run
• I came back on Mon and did a regular swim workout, and an bike VO2 wko with 9 min of ON time, then...
• Tue & Wed, I stood down with mild cold symptoms, followed by full swim workout Thurs, run intervals Friday, a harder than usual (213 TSS) Saturday bike, and a 2 hour run on Sun (148 TSS). So I missed 1-2 run wko, 1 swim, and 2 hrs of biking that week.
• This week, I've been scrambling to keep up, luckily the rain has kept me from doing full bike workouts outside, and I work on Sat, but I did manage a 90 minute/11.33 mile run today, which is the fastest long run I've done since Sept 2010, when I was in the best shape of my life, and my long swim (6 x 400) was right on the money as well.

My conclusion: The camp was fun, I'm glad I did what I did, and I'm VERY glad my body saw fit to provide me with the overt evidence of cold symptoms to make me stand down for two days afterwards. I attribute my current fatigue to the usual one might expect 4 weeks out from an A race. But next time, I'll make sure to keep within my known limits, which are keep the daily TSS no higher than twice the CTL leading into the camp, and make sure to get a mini-taper going in (as I did this year) to get a positive TSB.