Mid-season slump, Fatigue rut, Recovering from Injury or Just Time to HTFU?
This is my first full, muti-event season and I find myself dragging. My first big event was Wildflower on May 5. I took May fairly easy although I had a few epic rides and runs, I was really just freestyling. Then May 28th I took a fall at the end of a 10 mile run and landed on both knees. The next day I did a century and was bascially limping at the end of the day. That sidelined basically all running for the last three weeks and has limited my cycling workouts to just some key rides I didn't want to miss and what I need to do to keep my weight in check. I am still 6-8 pounds heavier than Wildflower. Otherwise, it has been swimming, advil and ice.
The cycling I have done has just been sub-par. Since my fall, my knees have hurt everytime I ride and a result I have taken some multi-day streches off. The rides I have done while in pain I can't seem to make the watts I made before Wildflower. I guess that is to be expected.
I rode Saturday and felt okay, but still took 4 days off from running and riding trying to put this thing behind me. I rode the this AM and the good news it that is was the first pain free ride I had since late May. The bad news was the workout just sucked. I couldn't get fired up about getting out of bed. I made good watts, but the heart rate was off the charts and I couldn't do all four intervals. I bailed feeling like I wanted to puke have way through the 3 third FTP interval. The whole thing was a disappointment.
So, my question is, should this be expected after an "injury/ take it easy couple of weeks". Is this a mid season rut on top of eveything else? Do I need to just change up my routes, routines and days?
Is there a prescrition to get back in the saddle or do I just need to Hulk The F@ck Up and get through this?
Thoughts and personal history appreciated....
Comments
Dino - sounds to me like the combination of irregular/absent training and healing following injury means you have lost significnat fitness in the 7 weeks since the first of May. So you need to consider re-booting your season. Rich should be able to give you advice based on when your races are, but my experience with re-boots in the "middle" of a season is that the 8 weeks of the Get Faster plan (start with two weeks @ Int, then go to Adv) might be just the ticket.
You should *not* expect your fitness to be what it was when you did WF, considering what you've done/not done since then. So the HTFU aproach is just an invitation to further fatigue, frustration, and possible prolonging injury.
One other though beyond Al's comments. When I take stretches off few day's to a week or two at a time off I can come back very flat for the first day or two. Given the time off and the injury don't try to push the watts from Wildflower just start getting back in to consistent work if your injuries have healed.
Gordon
Retest -- and, sometimes, I "quit" triathlon for two or three days. I just have a normal life and then, magically, I usually want to train and am a much happier athlete.