A new perspective on workload

So I've been putting in some pretty long ass days in the saddle hoping that lots of saddle time will result in quicker race times, not the case. Although it can work for some, everyone responds differently to various training methods. The fun part about training is finding the way that works best for you, at the same time, switching things up to adapt to what point you are in the season and to avoid a plateau. Going in to the Good Friday race, I had defenitely put in more training than 95% of the field but what does that mean ? So I've been on my bike a lot, big deal, maybe if we were doing a 6h endurance ride I would have been one of the strongest finishers. A 6h endurance ride !?!? That's not a race, so I've got to start training for racing and not for riding.

Since workload is durantion x intensity, if I were to keep putting in the same amount of time on the bike but just raise intensity my workload would be too much to handle and I definitely wouldn't make it to the end of a 3 week block before my body gives out. Less time, more kicking the shit out of myself then adding more time and more kicking the shit out of myself is how I hope the next couple months go if I respond well, if not, simply back to the drawing board.

Another thing I did wrong was putting in 15hrs in the last 4 days of my rest week while adding intensity and having a cold on top of all that. Coming into this week, first week of my 3 week Base 2 block, I'm fatigued and still trying to get over a cold. I'm cooked. A very wise man (The Coach) once told me; "Those hours, they don't come free you know." Words to live by.

Since Monday, I've put 5 hours on the bike and as I type this I still feel very tired. Yesterday was a good workout on the trainer, warmed up then did 5 reps of 5on/5off (minutes that is) and cooled down for a while. Today I was struggling trying to get some easy spinning done, both days were on the trainer because the temperature has done a huge drop and there's no way I can handle it the way I'm feeling now. Especially if I want to race this weekend.

Tomorow I'm going to meet the club in Jordan and push hard until Smithville then I will take in a massive amount of calories and spin home the flat way at a pace so slow I might even tip over.

Oh, and although I can take credit for some of the realisations, 90% of what I just wrote was what Nathan Chown told me. He doesn't read this so I could have taken the credit, but I told him that one day he will read it, and he will. Even if he doesn't get through a whole post, this page WILL be displayed on his monitor.

For those of you that do read, see you around.