% of workouts completed for a successfule week?
With the Jan OS in full swing now, what % of the workouts completed do you consider to be a successful week? Obviously in a perfect world, we'd all hit 100% of what's laid out for us, but life is what it is.
I always focus on making sure I get in the "high priority" workouts, and even the "med priority", but sometimes the low priority get away. I track each week based on what's planned in total vs what I did so I'm just curious where everyone else thinks that % should fall for you to consider it a good week.
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I'm not going to beat myself up for missing a workout intentionally, but I'm going to unforgiving if I simply sleep in and miss my workout.
That is dangerous thinking. The OS is hard from the start and it only gets tougher. It's serious work and it takes a lot of effort. Please please please don't start judging yourself about the percentage of workouts completed, the intensities met, the interval paces kept... There's not enough room in your head for that stuff. Soak up the mojo here and know that everyone, and I mean everyone, is going to be challenged by the OS. Listen to your body and know that it is your best coach. This work is going to pay off for you.
I personally get up and start my workout everyday unless I am actually sick. Doesn't matter how tired, sore, lazy, etc I am. BUT if I still feel horrible after a warm up or something feels off doing the warm up, I will throw in the towel and not do the work out. I find that most days once i get on the bike or treadmill, i get it done and there are very few times I skip a workout since i got out of bed and got started.
I also do my key workouts first thing in the morning because that is the only way I can ensure they happen. Once work starts all betters are off for lunch or night workouts.
On a side note, a few years ago I was very proud of doing 100% of the EN OS workouts, plus some extra running and other hacks. What it got me was a great early season and a burned out finish to the year.
Like the plans say " Do the main sets " and you can cut sometime off of a training session if your pressed for time. If your beat up, well the 4th discipline to Tri training is rest and is just as important to training and balancing out your life.
Lastly, you will get out of this OS what you put into it. Try to hit the 100% if needed cut the workout time down to the MS and if your really pressed cut the MS down. Do something each day.
For me I want to get all the workouts in, does it happen? I have not succeeded in 5 years. This year I've already pulled the plug on a Vo2 thursday ride. I got on the bike was coughing and it got worse and I warmed up. Having done 5 os having a percentage, especially 100% can push you over the edge requiring more time off getting sick etc.
For me the workouts that I get mad about missing will be when it on me for doing stupid stuff and getting tired or being lazy.
(I'm writing that based fifty percent on belief, and fifty percent because I'm staring down a cold LT run that I need to not skip.)
Once last piece ... just my personal reflection, but the seasons that I have felt were my best were also my most consistent. Those I was most disappointed with were my least consistent.
My two biggest issues have been not pushing through the discomfort required to make significant progress, and simply missing workouts without a good reason (poor time management, or laziness).
+1 on Dave's comments. What I was driving at when I said, above, "If I get in today's workout, I consider the day a success. Once a day is over and done, it's off the radar screen, and has no bearing on whether I can be successful on the next day. My goal every day is to be successful." Or the saying, attributed to Woody Allen, "90% of success is just showing up." This has absolutely been true in my life.
To build on what Brett says, it's amazing what you can accomplish if you just get started, and then keep going! I can always come up with a reason to delay or avoid a workout. The trick is to not listen to myself, whether it's the first thing in the morning, or feeling sluggish after lunch, etc.
On race day, we talk about honoring our training selves by executing well. The opposite also applies - our goal races are important to us, we're spending a lot of time and $$ on them, our training selves need to honor that.
I am in no position to comment...too new to this and too prone to skip workouts myself. That said, I continue to improve the "percentage" of workouts done that are prescribed.
I'd like to tag on a similar/related question, with hope for some feedback. I find it hard to tell when I'm "overtrained"...or how to "listen to my body" vs. I'm being a wuss and just need to suck it up and get it done. I find myself struggling with the guilt I often feel after skipping a workout, and the guilt now starts even when I'm having the debate with myself about whether to do said workout. Specifically, sometimes, like today, I'm sore. My quads and calves were definitely sore today. I think it's due to overcooking the bike on Saturday (beautiful weather, got outside, felt like a rocket and just rode hard the whole 2.5hrs because I felt like it) and then running 75mins on Sunday with 3TP miles (which also felt good and strong). So, I realize now that I "dug a hole" by being stupid and impetuous. So, what do I do today, when I'm supposed to run 60mins with 3TP miles....but I'm sore and tired....is this my body telling me to back off/rest, or am I just being a wuss?
Is it OK to run/ride when I'm sore? Soreness = muscle damage/need for repair. So, is it counterproductive to proceed? Should I wait until the soreness is gone?
I think the answer is: give it a go, and if it hurts more than usual or I think it should, then cut it short/bail. If after warmup it feels OK, proceed? That's what I did tonight, and it felt surprisingly pretty good. Hit all my TP paces....was not as fresh at the end as usual, but I got it done. Yesterdays Z4 bike intervals were much harder than usual too.
Sorry about the stream of consciousness format, but any advice/perspective appreciated.
Thanks for starting this thread.
At the same time, it is even more important, IMO, to avoid over-cooking yourself and digging yourself into an overtraining hole. If over-training was an Olympic sport, I would be representing Australia (as Coach P knows only too well as he has helped me get out of a number of such instances).
You need to always keep in mind that it is how well the body recovers from the work that leads to improved fitness, rather than the work itself — if it was just the work that leads to improved fitness, then over-training wouldn't exist!
While I'm not a huge Joe Friel fan but agree with him that we should do the minimum training necessary to induce continuous improvement in fitness — it is a sustainability issue.
As everyone has a different fatigue and fitness response to each dose of training, it seems highly unlikely to me that everyone (or even most for that matter) would get optimal fitness results from following 100% of any EN plan.
The trick is to recognise how much training stimulus your body can handle and to back-off when fatigue is building too deeply. Now the 'backing-off" might be to dial down the intensity, and thereby contribute towards the consistency goals mentioned. That said, sometimes, you just need to rest.
Finally, it is the OS with its huge emphasis on intensity that it is very easy to become over-fatigued and end up over-trained.
In relation to Jeff's question, you need to learn to recognise the symptoms of the early onset of deep fatigue. I recognise that this isn't very helpful in an operational sense, but I have taken quite a few years to now be able to get some idea when I am getting myself into fatigue trouble. Some people have had some success with taking their waking heart rate — a rise of, say, 5 bpm, could indicate the onset of fatigue (or a cold, or lack of quality sleep etc).