Day 0
Personal Recovery Rates
Predawn run then an open water swim with Albert.
Later, I’ll ride easy for a couple hours up to La Clusaz.
The idea is to keep the body moving.
Recovery Rates
Yesterday, I introduced fatigue management at a high level.
Fatigue has many components:
The training we have done with each sport.
The intensity mix we have done.
Torque and elevation change.
Nutrition, sleep and other factors.
It’s a complex, multivariate systems. To make things more challenging, some components are invisible to the coach & athlete.
Another reason why prediction is impossible.
That said, over time, we can learn how we tend to respond. Something I pay attention to is:
What types of fatigue clear the fastest?
What types of fatigue create strain and require extended recovery?
In the next section I explain a little how I see things between sports.
But it’s not just what we do…
Emotional state has a HUGE impact on adaptation, recovery and fitness.
Probably the most famous example is the lift the Yellow Jersey gives a rider in the Tour de France.
We can’t model, or predict, the boost when our stoke is high.
Tough to measure.
Straightforward to train and strengthen.
Paradoxically, I’ve witnessed athletes perform at a world-class level when their personal lives are in a shambles.
We simply cannot predict what will happen.
Yesterday I mentioned I kept my overall load up.
While doing that, I was cautious with run load (bottom left in picture two).
From experience, I know run fatigue is an area where I need to watch myself.
Before leaving Boulder, I had a 24-hour block where I did 3.5 hours of running (track session then hilly run).
That type of specific stress (density) does not show up in the TrainingPeaks model. It was 16 days out from the Alpe d’Huez Trip and 7 days out from the start of camp.
I would have preferred to keep my swim load up higher but that didn’t work out with my travel schedule and pool access. Not a big deal as the Alpe Tri swim is only 2 km.
I’ll be off weights for two weeks leading into the Alpe Tri. I only like to do that for an A-priority event (Camp/Tri). Even then, I prefer to keep things rolling, mainly because I don’t enjoy the soreness that happens when I restart.
It’s easy to overthink the above. Given our inability to predict, I simply try to avoid doing anything stupid.
Ultimately, consistent work drives performance gains.
Made it to La Clusaz.
Outstanding day.
That last one is the view from my room. We’re here for two nights.