Fatigue: better to shorten interval or slow pace?
The volume has caught up with my legs. Just this morning, I thought I was hammering a z5 on the bike only to look down at the Joule and see barely a z3! Same with running. Question is: on interval sets (biking or running) should I
A) Focus on holding the prescribed zone at all cost, and decrease the time of the interval (maybe by 25-30%)
-or-
Drop down to one zone slower, but keep the interval time as prescribed in the workout
IOW, on interval sets (5 wks til race) what's more important: intensity or duration?
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I agree with the others, you need rest/recovery more than a half-assed workout at this point. If it were me, I would skip this week's run and bike intervals, and maybe the sprint session of swimming, I'd make sure I got in the Thursday long run and the Saturday brick. everything else would be secondary until I felt ready to go. Usually it takes me 36-48 hour of backing off (like, one day totally off) to get back in rhythm at this stage of an IM build. And I would make doubly sure I had enough fuel on board as well as fluids before, during and after any workout.
You can break a 2 x 1 (running) to a 4 x .5 etc. and/or increase the RI. Same for the bike change a 2 x 15 to a 3 x 10 etc.
@Cary - thanks for that tip, I'll look for that post...but that makes sense.
I've taken about 4 full days off the past 2 weeks, thinking that would do the trick. Legs just feel like lead despite the extra rest. Coach Patrick really wants me to do the run test this Thursday. Unless there's a miracle happening that I don't know about, I think I'm gonna bomb it.
@Mac - it was the July 07 2010 Podcast, here's the direct download
I would do one of three things, depending on what I felt was the source of the power outage (fatigue, motivation, heat, etc), my relative strengths across the sports, and downstream workouts and their priority: