Mike Denzien's Macro Thread
Hi Rich
I got my season roadmap and it looks good. Also became a full member just today. I took a look at both the intermediate and advanced out-season plans and ended up loading the intermediate as you suggested. The advanced looks almost doable but it has 5 runs a week. I'm in my mid-50s now and I read some advice elsewhere about limiting yourself to 3 runs per week once you hit 50. I'm OK with 4 but I think 5 is a stretch.
My main question right now is about swimming during the outseason. I've been swimming 5 days a week working almost exclusively on technique for the last 8 weeks. Do I have to give up my technique improvements by quitting swimming during the outseason, or can I add a few (easy) technique swims a week? If we did that, what days would be best for swimming?
The other question is about where to run. It's cold here (Wisconsin) and when you run hard outside you just get bronchitis right away. I have a 400 meter indoor track 45 minutes from here by car and I could make it there on the weekends. Should I be looking at a club where I can run on the treadmill until the weather gets warm enough to hammer outside?
Thanks
Mike D
Comments
Another question: how important is the sequence of the workouts within the week? For example, would it make much difference if I did Wednesday's run on Tuesdays, and Tuesday's bike/run on Wednesday? Same idea for swapping Saturday's and Sunday's workouts. (All the other days would be per the plan.) If the swaps are OK, I can ride with a good group that's following the EN plan but with altered workout days.
We've put a LOT of thought and effort into perfecting the order of the workouts. That said, the order/sequence of the workouts becomes more important as the volume/intensity/cummulative training load increases with each week across the plan. So, for example, you can get away with it for pretty much all of the OS and likely deep into the HIM plan. But you'll start encountering a lot of recovery friction (?) if you mess with it too much in, say, the last 8wks of the IM plan which is where things are their most stressful.
Hi Rich
Got underway with my first "official" EN run today - slipped it in outdoors before the 6-8" of snow we're expecting later, and looking forward to bike segment this afternoon. So, the next topic is what to do about workout logging/tracking. What do the EN folks tend to use for logging/tracking workouts? I usually have a Garmin 310xt device file for runs and bikes, including power data for the bike. I have a Garmin Connect account and a free account on Training Peaks. I loaded my last week or so on to Training Peaks and it seems like a snap to work with. There might be an occasion later where I might want to show you and/or Patrick some of my data. Any suggestions for what to use to facilitate communication with you guys?
Mike
I suggest you search or put up a post in the Gear Forum re preferred training logs.
Just a quick question on how to splice together training plans leading up to USAT nationals on Aug 9. I completed my first olympic of the year this past week at Chicago. Up to that point I was following the short course advanced plan. Now I've cut over to the get faster plan. The get faster plan goes hard through week 7, with week 8 as a testing week, so I probably want to adjust the last 2 weeks to do somewhat of a taper going into nationals, which is my second A race this summer.
What do you recommend for those last couple of weeks?
Thanks!
Mike D
Hey Mike,
Good luck!