Getting it wrong

Thus ends my weak of easing back into training.

Looking back I think I can say the week went really well. I got through all my sessions and they were all quite successful. Sitting here at the end of the week I am tired, but not completely shattered, so that is a good sign too. Certainly feeling ready to move forward another step with training next week.

Training today was a bit of a light brick session. I say light, because brick sessions are often quite intense affairs and this one wasn't. 70 minutes of recovery spinning followed by a walk/run. In the end the ride part was the exact opposite of yesterday. Yesterday I didn't think it was that wet and it was. This morning I thought it was going to be wet and it wasn't. Not really anyway. Because I thought it was going to be wet I jumped on the trainer. Turns out there wasn't all that much rain around. Oh well. Doing a recovery spin on the trainer is similar to doing one on the road anyway.

The good thing about doing the session on the trainer was that I could put my money where my mouth is about actually doing a RECOVERY session. I have said a few times that the thing I struggle with the most isn't working hard during a session, but actually the opposite, easing back when I am supposed to. My recovery spins often end up becoming just shorter high intensity sessions as I chase an average speed or an average power, or a pack of cyclists out on the road. It often sounds counter intuitive to people, that to get faster sometimes you have to work less, but it is true. Proper recovery is just as important as the hard stuff when it comes to training. It doesn't mean all sessions can be recovery. Unfortunate as it is, getting faster does require you to hurt at least a little. But the trick is that it doesn't require you to hurt all the time.

Anyway, with the above in mind I put a careful heart rate cap on my trainer spin today and tried very hard to stay below it. That was the one advantage to the session being on the trainer, I seem to be able to stay within a given heart rate zone more easily on the trainer. I guess there are less things to get distracted by, like other bikes etc. In the end I had mixed success with sticking to the heart rate I had chosen, but on the whole I think the session worked. I kept the intensity down for the session and hopefully did some actual recovery during my recovery session.

The run part of the brick went well too. Still very early days but so far the return to running is coming along nicely.

Tomorrow it is back on the bike for another recovery spin to start the week off. I haven't got the bike off the trainer yet, and looking at the forecast I don't think I will. I might be surprised like I was this morning, but when you have forecasts like this:

Cloudy. High (80%) chance of showers, most likely in the early morning. Rain and showers, heavy at times about the southern suburbs in the early morning. The chance of a thunderstorm in the early morning. Damaging winds possible in the early morning. Winds northerly 25 to 40 km/h shifting west to southwesterly 25 to 35 km/h early in the morning.

Chances are that you are looking at a wind trainer session. Lucky I like my Kickr so much.