Week 12 of 2010 Training Season

The beginning of week 12 forced me to take a good, hard assessment of the cumulative fatigue I was feeling and make a decision whether or not to back off a little or push through it.  Ultimately, I decided to pull back a bit knowing that it's still early in my season and that the long, hard stuff will be coming in a couple months.  From experience, I know that this VO2max work really sneaks up on you and can cause all kinds of problems if you don't listen to your body (injury, mental burnout, etc.).  I still did all the required workouts in my Endurance Nation OutSeason training plan but didn't do any of the "extra" stuff I had been doing (shorter recovery between intervals, longer FTP/VO2max intervals, an extra run here, an extra swim there).  This decision left my legs feeling much fresher coming into the weekend!
The other news of the week was that I finally received my new secret weapon that, I'd like to think, will make me a little more dangerous on the bike course this year: a high modulus carbon-fiber 2010 Cannondale Slice.  I had placed the order back in December and wasn't expecting delivery until April or May, so when the retailer called me to confirm the delivery address I was stoked!  Here she is:



I've been riding an aluminum 2003 Cervelo Dual (my first triathlon/road bike) for the past 7 years and discovered last year that it was completely the wrong fit for me, but I made it work.  This new ride fits me to a "T".  I can't wait to get it out on the road; but first there are several tweaks I need to make on the fit and components swap-outs

So, back to my workouts...here's my day-by-day log:

Monday: 2,300m swim in the morning with plenty of hard 50m intervals and 200m pull sets.  Took it easy the rest of the day to recover from the weekend (tough 2 hour Saturday bike ride on the trainer and an 8K run race on Sunday).

Tuesday: 5:30am trainer ride as 6 x 2' at 352 avg watts then 20' at 245 watts. Legs felt pretty dead.  Missed my targets a bit on the 2' VO2max sets as well as the 20' tempo set.  Followed with 30' brick run on treadmill at Easy pace with some strides.

Wednesday: 45' run outside with the birthday girl (my yellow lab, Abby) just before sunrise.  Did 2 x 1.5 mile intervals at 6:23 avg pace. Calves still very tight and heavy from Sunday's race but felt good to finally start doing some run intensity!

Thursday: 5:30am trainer ride - plan called for a duplicate of Tuesday's workout.  Since the Tuesday ride left my legs feeling cooked I stepped it back to 4 x (6 x 30"/30") today. Nice change to help my trainer mojo. 48' of work 88% of my functional threshold power - good stuff and much more manageble with the fatigue that's accumulated!

Friday: Complete rest day!  Did some core work in the morning but nothing else.  My legs needed this!!

Saturday: Up stoopid early for a solid 2 hours on the trainer with overall ride at 87% of my FTP and 157 TSS. 20' brick run at marathon pace followed. Nailed this workout!  My legs are back!!

Sunday: Nice Sunday morning 7 mile trail run in 50' with 2 x 1.5 mile intervals at 6:20 avg pace.  Abby kept up the whole time - I guess her winter off of running didn't affect her fitness!  She didn't move much the rest of the day, though.

For the data geeks, here are the stats for week 12:

Time spent training: 7:18
Time spent at or above FTP on bike: 47' (29' spent @ 110%+ FTP)
Avg bike Intensity Factor (% of FTP) = .85
Mileage: 100.0
Training Stress Score (TSS): 577
Chronic Training Load (CTL): 69.4 TSS/d
Training Stress Balance (TSB): -18.4
Weight: 172.0 lbs (up a little this week)
Bike Functional Threshold Power (FTP): 299 watts
Run Vdot: 53.4

Performance Management Chart (PMC) through week 12: