After BBW - What is the recommended recovery?
BBW last week is now in rear view mirror. Week 10 of IM Adv begins today. Plow ahead? Do less inensity but same volume? What is recommended?
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BBW last week is now in rear view mirror. Week 10 of IM Adv begins today. Plow ahead? Do less inensity but same volume? What is recommended?
Comments
Hard to wrap my head around this. Understand I need to rest/recover but in the back of my mind I hear voices saying: "You haven't done mile repeats in over a week because you were doing BBW" and "If you take it easy for a few days then you won't get a Mile Repeats or Bike FTP workout until 7-9 days from now."
-the downside of the BBW seems to take a week to express itself. Week 1 is fine, week 2 is not.
-as others have said, 2 days off entirely on return.
-very clean diet
-sleep, sleep, sleep
-rest like it's a taper week
-gentle yoga.
-get a mental break as well ... no newsgroups, no slowtwitch, minimal EN.
Although it might be too late for you this go around, I want to state my opinion that the in-week recovery is just as important - if not more important - than the post-BBW recovery.
As I approach my own BBW next week in Majorca Spain, I find that a post-ride ice bath in the pool (with a frosty adult beverage in hand, of course), followed by a hot shower and compression tights overnight, REALLY helped my day-to-day recovery. And this helped further down the road after the BBW itself.
Just my $.02.
Makes me question the real value of a BBW. Sounds like many treat this as post race recovery. As if I had done an HIM or something. If it takes that much recovery and sidelines the athlete for that much of the following week I have to wonder if it's really worth it.
During recovery is when you get stronger. The harder the effort, the stronger you'll get when you rest. I've found that I need 48-72 hours of easy workouts - e.g., one travel day completely off, one day to swim, lift weights, and one day for an easy bike/brick, then I'm ready to ramp up again.
Constantly doing the same stuff day in day out, week in week out will NOT improve race performance as much as a series of good hard stresses followed by judicious rest. If you need a whole week after a BBW to get back to form, then, yeah, you worked too hard.
So this is the plan following BBW.
Mon - Swim + short Run with Strides
Tues - Swim + Medium Run with 2 X 1 Mile
Weds - Off (skipping Bike FTP workout)
Thurs - Long Run
Friday onward - as scheduled.
So it will effectively be 14 days between Bike FTP workouts (last FTP session was Saturday before BBW & next FTP is this Saturday). Am I going to lose FTP gains? Or will the BBW even though it was mostly Zone 2 and high volume keep me in the game?