Backing off: EN heresy?
A little background: this is my third OS, BUT....I'm not doing multi-sport anymore. After I finally popped a new IM PR at IMFL on 2009 I wound up rolling a full season of brevets in 2010. I figured I'd simply do a bike-only OS hack this winter to prep me for the upcoming long-distance cycling season and Paris-Brest-Paris, a 1240k brevet in August.
I started the January OS, tested to 210 watts (down from a season high of 240), and rolled out. I had success last year with the beginner's program so I selected the intermediate option. No running; piece of cake, right?
Two weeks into it I started to struggle; really straining to hit 95-100%FTP. Three weeks in my sleep started to get funky and my appetite went away. These two things are early warning signs to me; something's wrong. My legs hurt all the time and even two days off wouldn't clear up the lingering fatigue.
The Hindi have a saying: "When the student is ready, the teacher appears". I was bumping around the Internet and ran into a cycling coach espousing "sweet spot" training: 2x20@85%FTP, 2-3/week. This made sense to me and now I've been rolling this way for three weeks now. Much better! Sleep is blessedly sound and hunger is clear. Legs are properly worked but I'm recovering well enough. On Sundays I do a bit longer ride; last Sunday was 2 hours with 7x10{3)@85%. I find if I exceed 85% much my sleep suffers that night; a fine edge.
I'm interested in feedback; what say the haus? Am I fooling myself or is this a reasonable way to build fitness? Pitfalls?
P.S. An important nugget: I'm no spring chicken; two weeks away from my 56th birthday!
Comments
Us masters (I'm 45) athletes need more recovery. I learned that the hard way after doing IMMoo and IMAZ in 2009 then having a poor spring in 2010 after not taking a true recovery period after IMAZ. This year I did nothing but walk dogs in woods for 2 full weeks after Clearwater and felt much better for it. Just takes a little time to get back to my usual state of fitness but it comes back and I'll be stronger for it.
I'm not a WSM and they may disagree w/ my opinion and that's ok but I am a physician and sleep/appetite disturbances are surely warning signs commonly associated with overtraining/underecovery.
Best wishes for a speedy return to full training. Jeff
If you think about the amount of training stress you put up with 7x10 at 85%, it is right up there with the toughest FTP workouts. So, if you are recovering fine from that, then go with it. But pay careful attention, because it sounds like you're walking the razor's edge...
I did take two weeks off, twice; once in November, once in December.
But...I am still rolling 200k brevets once per month; full recovery from these takes at least 8 days. I'm trying to "normalize" the 200k distance, to make it no big deal. Mentally it's working but this path may be extracting a physical toll. During the height of last season's fitness I was drilling hilly 300k brevets, no problem!
200k is what, 120 miles, why does that take 8 days to recover from? If doing the FTP stuff makes you unable to sleep, stop doing it. Unlikely you are going to build fitness doing 2 x 20 at 85 but you might not lose any either. If you can do close to 100k (56 miles) at .85 and be expected to run a fast 13 miles after its not going to realistically be able to do much for you in short training intervals. But then if you can't sleep you. Can't really do anything so it doew not matter. Who knows, maybe all the crazy stuff you did last summer and are i guess still doing has caught up to you. Riding all night like that has to mess with you in many different ways. How about a month with zero biking? Just a thought.