How do you Hack/Tweak the Plan to get recovery
Turning 50 next year so I thought I'd post this here. How do others adjust their plans to get enough recovery to complete the key workouts? Do you do "recovery" workouts or just take a day off? Do you cut back one out of every four weeks for recovery? Test weeks? I need to have a better strategy then I had this past year when I "followed the plan into a brick wall". I know about the wko priorities. I'm also thinking that a longer time in the IM plan would give me a mental sense of less anxiety as 1-2 weeks easy out of 15or 16 weeks vs 12 makes those weeks less "key" to IM success. Avoid the worry of "If I miss that woorkout it will ruin my race".
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Returning to the sport after a 20 year layoff. Returning to the sport after being completely sedentary and overweight for the better part of that 20 years and being 45, I knew adjustments would be needed in order to survive the season.
1. Adjusted nutrition for optimum energy and recovery.
2. Based on muscle physiology, would schedule an easy week every 6/7 weeks.
3. Easy runs/ workouts were always heart rate dependent to ensure not over doing it.
4. Mondays were off and Fridays were easy
5. Listened to my body and its response to activity and adjust accordingly
Specifically, I am meticulous about fuelling before and during wkos, as well as a quality recovery drink. Also try and average 8 hours sleep a night.
Last season I was in a huge fatigue hole that Coach P helped me out of with just 5 weeks before my A race (IM). While I didn't have a great race, I was able to finish with a smile on my face.
My takeaway from that experience was that rested always trumps over-tiredness. Meaning that when the signs appear of over-tiredness/overtraining, I rest! When I fell I am recovered, I resume training with emphasis on the key wkos.
In this current OS (Southern Hemisphere) I have inserted a weeks rest between weeks 6 and 7, and 12 and 13, with excellent results.
Btw, I am almost 62.
I'm 58. During the OS I take every Monday & Friday off. I want to make sure I'm well rest before & after the weekend. I'll do stretching & foam rolling, and sit in the hot tub if schedule allows. And if I'm traveling for work, I'll take many of my travel days off too.
During IM training, I never do the Friday run after the long run on Thursday. I'll only swim on Friday so the legs have time to recover for two days of riding on the weekend. I listen very carefully to my body during this time, and if I feel abnormally tired, I REST no matter what the plan says. Take a complete day off. In my mind, a recovery workout is a myth. You're either resting or stressing your body by working out, no matter how hard/easy you go. When in doubt, I rest.
This year for IMWI I strained my rt calf 17 days before the race. I completely shut down my running for 10 days (maintained bike frequency at reduced effort, and substituted more swimming for running) and only did 2 short, 4 mile runs the last week before the race. Result: calf was fine for the entire IM, ran a 4:08 marathon to finish at 11:26. 32 minute PR. Rest can be a magical thing.
As I've gotten older, I find I need both more and less rest. Let me explain. I need more rest between hard workouts on a daily basis; hence no Monday or Friday workouts in OS. But I need less rest over a span of months. By this I mean I need to have a consistent workout pattern to maintain muscle tone & fitness. For us old guys, as Al Truscott would say "Use it or Lose it." This means I never really take "a month off" as I'd lose fitness really fast and it would take forever to get it back. So I maintain a consistent workout schedule year-round, with more rest days during non-race season, and more volume during race season.
I also found that a weight lifting program helps year-round. 2x per week. Light weights & more reps. RnP say it is ok for old farts to lift smartly to maintain muscle mass & tone. Hope this helps.
Late to this party as I'm cleaning out my inbox.
I've found that FEWER, not more, weeks in an IM build works better, at least from a recovery stand point. Building on two points others have made, intensity and consistency are real keys here. So as long as I am doing about 10-11 hours a week of training on a regular basis, even during the OS, weeks which include 1-2 hard sessions each in s/b/r, and one each "long" bike and run (3 hours, 1:40), I can pop into an IM plan 8-10 weeks out and have no fear about being ready. I particularly hate to lose swimming fitness. I'm more likely to injure myself building that back up than I am running or biking, for some reason.
I tend to take a day off (or a lot easier) any time I get the slightest hint of any of the following: weight loss, cold symptoms, "tweak" in a muscle or joint, excess grumpiness coupled with sleep disturbance, etc.
Eg, yesterday, while swimming, I stopped the 7 x 400 after the third interval, when I noticed by left should, which has been a little dodgy in the rotator cuff the past three weeks, was increasing the tenderness. Went to the hot tub for ten minutes to work it out, and tody, I'm just fine. Also, the 30 minute run yesterday didn't happen, as the 2:15 long run the day before left my outer calves just a little bit too sore more my comfort. Ran this morning with no problems, will swim tomorrow and anticipate smooth sailing.
I'm still a whippersnapper at 42, but I got diagnosed this spring with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis (Hypothyroidism) and have had to be very careful about fatigue and recovery this year in order to keep going. Its a difficult process to tune in the needs of recovery vs putting in 'more work', but I've found that the more I really listen to my body and level of motivation the better my results.
I have come to trust that when I feel 'low' motivation to do or finish a workout and can't hit my numbers, its not because I'm being wimpy and need to HTFU, its because there's something wrong or I'm fatigued, and so I give myself permission to back off right then and there. Often I will then look downstream for the week, and prioritize WKOs based my perceived level of fatigue, stripping out the low priority stuff. This seems to have led me to a 2wks hard, 1wk easy cycle during the ADV IM plan, where I do most or all WKOs feeling great for 2 weeks, and then throttle back to the minimum for the 3rd. Usually, and happily, I find my big gains come in the beginning of the next cycle: I'm rested, fresh and recovered. Of course this is classic periodization training, and there's evidence that as we get older that periodization cycles should get shorter, for more recovery.
I really had to work on this because our culture is built around the HTFU ethic and 'just work more' in order to succeed, and for any driven person it can be really hard to accept that you are not just giving in and slacking off. I have to tell myself: "you are not a slacker, you are just fatigued." I've found learning to trust that rest is not wimpy, and its okay to back off when you're feeling unmotivated is the correct response, and results in better gains, than just pushing through. I think "rest" is really the 4th discipline of triathlon.
I do use the Restwise subscription, and found it immensely helpful for validating that when I felt low motivation it was because I was fatigued and not just wimpy. Now that its been 6 months, I find I rely on it less and less, I can pretty much guess my score when I wake up. I probably wont continue its use after the subscription runs out, but it did really help quantify, calibrate, and validate my perceived fatigue, I think thats its real value.
#EDIT#
I think that if you've been through a season to two of EN, you full well know what hard work is, and shouldn't doubt your ability or desire to work hard. At that point its time to start think about your ability to rest hard when you mojo flags, and your body is screaming for it. In reality most of the time you risk a lot more by pushing than by resting.
I see three elements, building off the great comments above:
1 - A daily ability to "make the call" on any individual workout before you do it. No one single workout is worth the rest of the week.
2 - The ability to learn "what works" so you can craft a manageable schedule that you can repeat, especially over the final 8-10 weeks.
3 - The ability to train less and get more.
#3 is dodgy but I am with Al. The more you play the game, the less total time you need to build...but you need to stay fit at a reasonable level year round. I would rather see you sign up for a 1/2 marathon, 1-2 spring classic bike events, and a big bike camp en route to Placid, for example, than have you start IMLP training 16 weeks out...