Steve Harley Micro Thread

Steven Harley

I’m looking forward to being a part of the EN team this year!  My plan is to be plugged in as an EN team member at least through IMWI.  For now, I would like to know if it is ok for me to follow the Advanced OutSeason / Run Durability Plan instead of the intermediate version.  I’ve been nailing the intermediate plan for the first two weeks and have gone ahead and experimented with the advanced version for this current week.  I've adjusted the days of the week one day, as I need Sunday to be a rest day.  With the exception of a schedule conflict for the Wednesday run (yesterday), things have been going well.  Hard, but well.  Historically, however, I have found that my body needs that second day of rest, which means I’d like to eliminate the Friday run.  But, since my run is my strongest leg, I’m hoping that won’t be a problem.  What do you think?

Coach Patrick

@Steven Harley -- I love it. You've earned the right to go big with the Advanced plan, but give yourself a few days to adapt. Remember, it's more running so that's where the stress will build. 

Can you check in with me in a week or so?

~ Coach P

Steven Harley

I've been on the Advanced plan for 3 weeks and I've had my first "fail."  From the beginning, I've modified the plan to include an extra day off, which eliminated the Thursday run.  I have found that my body needs that extra day.  My run durability is fine. I just finished a marathon 1/29/17 (3:28) in the rain and I ran the Twin Cities Marathon twice (8:58) in the same morning back in October.  I'm not worried about the run leg.  My bike leg is the problem, which is why I"m doing everything I can to get it where it needs to be.  I'm telling myself that if I can get my FTP to 270, then I have a good shot at a podium at Madison this year.  That said, I am very bike focused right now.  However, I don't want to screw everything up, either.  My fail this week was that I could not finish Main Set 2 (2x13' @ Zone 4).  My legs just wouldn't get up to Zone 4.  So instead I just finished out the session in upper Zone 3, which was a chore.

My question is do I need to just take a break for my legs to catch up, is this just the ebb and flow of hard training, or is this just something that we'll have to see if it continues in the next week?

For what it's worth, on Strava my Fatigue score is 197 and my Form score is -66.  I don't know if that's normal or not.

On the upside, I can see that I'm training at a level that I could not have done just weeks ago.  Work works!

Coach Patrick

@Steven Harley -- I just sent a request to follow you on Strava to see your training sessions. That would be a good chance for me to review the delta.

At at the start of every training phase there's an adaptation element that you need to overcome. Think of it just like climbing the hill… at some point time that he'll gets really really hard and you need to back off effort. Once you've gotten over the top of that hill things get easier again but we have to be patient until we make it to the top. 

I like how you modify the training plan to remove the long run from Thursdays although there may be some cost associated with that in the future. I am not sure which bike workout you're talking about specifically, but since neither one of them fall after a rest day, and biking is your priority right now, you might want to rethink how your week lays out so that your quality bike workout comes after a day off. Example, if you want to be successful on Saturday bike ride perhaps you take Friday off. If you're taking your Thursday is off from not long runThe doesn't help you with any one of your particular bike workouts.

Personally I would rather have you take Friday off after your long-ish run see you can be successful on the weekend. 

Let me know what you think about adjusting that we could plan. In the meantime, if you get into a workout and you are suffering as you did you have two options:

Option one– reduce the duration of the interval so that you can achieve the effort. Instead of 2 x 13 could could you have done 4 x 6by six?

Option two– if FTP is simply not an option, then go to zone three as you specified.

Let me know what you think!

~ Patrick

Steven Harley

Thanks for the feedback and I just accepted the follow request.

You'll see that I've moved the plan days by one day.  The plan's Monday off is my Sunday off.  I've also removed the "Friday" run day completely for my second day off.  I misrepresented my off day in my last post.  I actually did take the day off before my weekend bike day, which is what got me concerned.  I had a day of rest.

When I switched to the Advanced plan 3 weeks ago I was grinding out the main sets at the low end of the zones.  I've now progressed to the top end of the zones.  I'm happy with the progress, but don't want to mess anything up, either.

I might just be overreacting.  I'll see how tomorrow goes.  I mainly just wanted to know if my stress scores are too high and if I'm pushing things a bit too much.  I try to listen closely to what my body is telling me, but this might just have been an off day.

Thanks!
Steve

Steven Harley

WOW!  What a whiner I am!  Apparently I just had a bad day.  I guess that happens sometimes.  

I just finished my workout that included the 3x13' (2') and it went just fine.  Hard, but fine.  I did pull it back about 8 watts.  However, since I have been working at the top end of the zone, 8 watts put me in the middle.  In addition, I got off the bike and went on the run ending with 3x1' hills.

Looking forward to test week. 

Coach Patrick

@Steven Harley - It's all relative...way to get after it!!!  

~ Coach P