Club Sessions - integrating into EN Plan
Call me anti-social(!) but I've never been a club type person plus I've always trained with power and being time-poor, always saw group training as non-specific and a bit of a 'wheel-spinning' exercise.
However, lucky to have 3 good Tri specific clubs locally and feel that they may benefit - my main thought is that considering I work from home and don't have work colleagues or friends that are into sports I need some social contact! It does seem that my only social interaction is on the phone with either people that want something from me or folks I'm selling too!
However, how easy would it be to integrate into my individual plan? How does everyone else manage all this?
Speaking with a guy in the pool last week, he mentioned his club do pool session Monday evening & now doing OW swims 3x /week at the local beach. Also, do a once a week track session for speed work.
From what he was saying, all seemed very loose without a real agenda - guess the problem with a group session? Apart from swimming, I couldn't see group cycle training working well - perhaps specific track speed work would be good.
It would be good to interact with other athletes - my family & friends just think I'm nuts and still fail to fully appreciate whats involved.
Any thoughts?
Cheers,
dave
Comments
Structure - no. Most of the guys use the typical volume is king method so we are on different wavelengths. However, we do bike sessions on Tues/Thurs mornings that really are challenging and have me sucking some wind. I am in the OS plan right now, so, I have substituted these sessions for the prescribed bike intervals and feel I am getting a good substitute because of all of the hard work and high z intensity.
Pool - this is a big help, though I don't use it much since I AM in the OS...I DO hit the pool Mon and Fri when I feel strong though. That OW stuff you mentioned would be completely awesome and ideal...hit that up for sure!
Track work - great...that sucks anyways, so, that should bring your workouts to life. You can be there with them and still do your own thing.
With a club, I have found that I needed to locate a few people that I could do some things with, then, I take responsibility to saying "I am training on XXX day and I am doing XXX if anyone wants to join" and then if they come, they do MY workout. You can't and won't do all of your training with them, but, some is nice; and group bike rides (when others are stronger than you) are a huge benefit!
Good luck with it!
That's it right there. I no longer really train "with" my tri club. Instead, I have friends from the tri club that I train with, doing our own thing, which is usually much harder and/or longer than what the club does. If I am going to ride with the club I'm sure to do my own thing first. Yesterday I met a guy at my place, we did an hour of tempo riding before meeting the club on their route, rode with them until their "it's on" portion of the ride, then we did our own thing. We ended up having a solid A-group of about 8 of us vs the 15 they usually have (their A isn't very A).
Again, the value is in finding those 4-6 peeps that like your style of work and then they do YOUR work, and start on time. This is a big one. For me, if you're the new guy and you're late to the first ride, you'll never hear from me again.
And, like many clubs we have a variety of capabilities and speeds, and if I don't push to stay with the lead group - who are faster and stronger than me - I end up in no man's land between the faster and slower groups. So I do my best to make sure I get my workout in, while also getting what I consider to be that extra pop by trying my best to hang with the faster folks.
The value of connecting with others, in my opinion, goes well beyond precisely hitting the prescribed workout.
I'll echo what what everyone else says, but throw in a slightly different twist. First, I think any swimming with a group is a positive. This seems to be the least impactful on your plan and can provide a good social outlet. Plus, OWS will pretty much NEED to be with a group. Might as well use the local resources.
What Rich and others say about rides is true. I DO like the social atmosphere to a degree, but you won't get YOUR workout in with a club. Make sure you do YOUR workout first if you plan to ride with the club.
FWIW, all of my local friends are people I've met through my tri club. I don't have any civilian friends, in other words
Anything you can do to make it easier is a good thing. I love masters swimming just cause when I go there I actually swim for an hour. Always go longer and harder than I would if I was on my own. Just do.
Our club has a tuesday night training thing which is essentially a sprint race. Swim open watter for about 15-20 minutes with 100 or so people, Hammer the hilly 18 mile ride trying to get in 40 minutes worth of "work" in the place of doing intervals on the trainer or something else blinding and then run 3 pretty hard. Plenty of people to chase/race with. Always get a lot of ftp time and it is much more fun than doing it alone at o dark thirty. Would it be "better" to do 2x20 on the trainer every tuesday instead? Maybe? Do I care, nope...