Load Analysis

Okay, small admission, I didn't get on the bike last night.

Call it being slack, or being human, or something in between, but once I got home yesterday I just ran out of steam and wanted to crawl into bed and read my book, which is more or less what I did once the kids were in bed. Like everyone else, I am human, and sometimes after a long day at work it can be hard to find the motivation to push yourself further. That is more or less what happened yesterday.

Still, it last night wasn't all slackness, there is a slight method to my laziness. Looking through my training logs since Ironman WA, they look a bit like this:

Week 1 - recovery, so not a lot
Week 2 - still recovery, medium load
Week 3 - Christmas, medium load
Week 4 - Start of year, a build week, but nowhere near full load
Week 5 - Got sick, light week
Week 6 - Still sick, very light week
Week 7 - Better, build week, near full load
Week 8  - build week, near full load
Week 9 - testing week, lots of high intensity, heart episode at end of week
Week 10 - heart uncertainty, light week
Week 11 - now

Looking at those training records tells me a number of things. First thing is that in the 11 weeks since Ironman WA I have about 2 weeks of proper training. Those 2 weeks came at the end of 6 weeks of light training, very little build, just bang, lets get straight back into it. Call it an athlete's psyche perhaps, that bit of the brain that says that because you used to train in a certain way, you should be able to go straight back to training that way.

Another thing the above training log tells me is that at the end of trying to train at full pace for almost three weeks my heart flared up to its worst. It had been bugging me for a while in the previous weeks, but the end of week 9 is when it hit properly. In hindsight perhaps it had been getting worse over weeks 7, 8 and 9, the weeks after I was sick.

The above also tells me that I went from having one of the worst colds I have had in a couple of years to trying to go back to full on Ironman training. Looking at it like this it seems obvious that that was probably not a good idea, but at the time I remember having no doubt that I could do it and just wanting to get my training back on track after being ill.

Hmmm, all interesting stuff, but what is the relationship between this and me not getting on the bike yesterday.

Well, the experimenting I have done over the last 4 or 5 days has given me a good idea of what training I can do and stay within my hearts limits. Now that I am getting a feel for what training I can do I am keen to get on and do some. However, the one major lesson I am taking away from the above analysis is that as I build into some form of training over the next few weeks I need to be careful to build the load sensibly. I can't simply step from 10 weeks of broken and inconsistent training back up to a higher load of training. That simply won't work.

The other reason to be cautious with the load build is that while I have got a better idea of my intensity limits in training, I don't really know my training limits in terms of volume. I want to be careful how I build volume so I don't find myself standing in the pool with my heart pounding out of control again.

So that is really why I wasn't on the bike last night (as well as being a bit lazy). I knew I was riding this morning (which I did) and in the back of my brain there was a little voice telling me not to over do it. So I didn't.

If I am not careful I may actually be learning from my past mistakes. Heaven forbid.