Tuesday’s trip was an extended exhausting one so yesterday was a straightforward restoration day, simply over 90 minutes close to residence. It was nice and my legs felt higher afterwards. The trip is right here on Strava

Periodization

Periodization is various your coaching in the course of the 12 months to emphasise various things. Now I’m getting into a part the place I’m growing my mileage, so it’s a good suggestion to compensate by reducing again on depth. On exhausting biking days I used to be doing multiple kind of intervals, plus some sprints, plus “on-bike power coaching“. I’m dropping the intervals for now and simply concentrating on cardio coaching with extra regular using. However this neglects the bigger fast-twitch muscle fibers in my legs, and at my age I can’t afford for them to atrophy. So I’m nonetheless doing the sprints and on-bike power coaching, each of which goal fast-twitch muscle tissues. After I’m finished in a few months or so with my longer distance challenges, I can change issues up once more by lowering quantity and including extra depth again in.

I observed one thing fascinating again once I was working marathons. Main as much as the marathon I’d be closely centered on growing the size of my runs in coaching, and lower means again on every part else. After I’d run the race, I’d get better for a few weeks and once I’d resume coaching I’d emphasize pace as an alternative of distance. Inside a couple of weeks I might all the time set a private document in a 10K race. So the several-month interval of excessive quantity, decrease depth acted as base, on which I may shortly add pace. I didn’t invent any of this, it’s a basic periodization idea going again to Arthur Lydiard, nevertheless it’s good to know one thing works for me personally. I’m hoping the identical thought will for me in biking. That is referred to as base coaching adopted by race-specific coaching, however I’ve by no means construct as excessive of a base as I’ll be doing within the subsequent couple of months.