Poor example

Sorry folks, I wrote this blog last night and I swear I clicked publish, but apparently not. Anyway, apologies for the missed blog, but on an upside, here is a nice early one. Enjoy.

It is strange but for somebody who is so intent of planning, sometimes I am pretty bad at it myself.

At Front Runner we use the TrainingPeaks software to plan out all our programs. The main reason we use the software is because the brains behind it makes it great for tracking an athletes progress, fitness, form etc. All very useful stuff. However, the other reason I really like using the software is because entering the training programs into the software allows you to forward plan an athlete's progress, see where they are going to end up in a week, or a month, or even a year if you can manage to plan ahead that far. It makes long term planning, taper planning really easy.

Despite the fact that I do that for all my athletes, that sort of forward planning is funnily enough not something I do for myself. I have a pretty good idea of what sort of training I want to do and what I can fit in and also roughly where that will get me, but I don't build the program out in TrainingPeaks, I am largely working by guesstimate and gut feel.

Guesstimate and gut feel have been fine up until now, after all, my training has mostly been for fun. But at the moment I am doing a couple of races and so I would rather like to get my taper right. For my race yesterday it would be fair to say I didn't really get the taper correct. It didn't really matter as the race was quite low key, but in the end I train to race well and part of that is tapering properly. If I am not going to bother tapering properly, what really is the point of the training. I can taper pretty well by guessing, but I have a tool at my disposal to really hone that taper in and so it would be silly not to make the most of it. Kind of common sense really.

The real power of using something like TrainingPeaks to plan a taper is that it takes the guess work out of it. At the moment I think about my training and try and decide whether or not I should really be doing a session. During a taper week I will often want to train, but will be unsure if it will perhaps be a bit too much work. Often I will err on the side of doing the training, which might mean I reach the race day more fatigued that I should be. The opposite is just as bad, resting too much and reaching race day feeling lethargic and out of touch. Using the smarts of a product like TrainingPeaks means I can reach race day in exactly the spot I need to be. I know just what sessions I should be doing and when. No more uncertainty and unknowns.

That, after all, is the power of a plan.