The Daily Grind

For the first three or four years of my triathlon "career" i followed a training schedule that I found in a book, or online, to the very last detail. After I had competed in a couple of half-ironmans though, i fell into a pattern of both on and off season training that was pretty rhythmic. the training pattern i fell into for the off season was really not much of a "downgrade" from my half ironman training. sure the intensity was toned down a bit and I was less concerned about a missed day or two of training, but I would say the number of hours i put in were not that different, even considering that i was technicalyl "off season"

now that I am getting geared up for the June-Sept season/ironman training period i have found mysel thinking back to my prior training practices and reassessing how i shoudl incorporate them into my current routine. the one thing i want to hold on to for my current training pattern is the number of hours. right now i would say my base hours are at half ironman level and by june i shoudl be geared up for comfortable long course racing even though my first two races are a sprint and an olympic.

the thing i need to change though, is incremental increases in my instensity/hours and recovery weeks. I forget sometimes that the one day off a week is not enough, and that back in the day when i followed a really set schedule, i woudl take one week for a recovery every 4 weeks. this means less hours, less intensity but same format.

this recovery week is crucial and something that I should really consider as i do feel the effect of my workouts by the end of the week, and taking time off always makes my "comeback" better. So from now on ill probably hve a format where weekdays stay the same but may vary in instensity, and then sat and sun will have incremental increases in lenght for 2-3 weeks before hitting a recovery week. this way no only do i build and increase endurance, but i give my muscles adequate time to recover and respond to the extra training.

Ill probably come up with a clerler example of this in the next couple days and post it.