Saturday morning I woke up knowing that there was a mere 20k run standing between me and my easy week.
My body was more than ready for an easy week so, of course, the last 20k run was anything but. I could tell as soon as I headed out the door. My legs were in good shape but they were just plain ol' tired.
The little voice in my head kept up its singsong chanting as I fought the headwinds and the hills:
'only 18k until easy week'
'only 12k until easy week'
'only 5k until easy week'
'only 300m until easy week!!!'
I made it but every step was hard-fought and I was ridiculously relieved to spot our purple front door. What a difference from last year though. I didn't walk one step of the 20k and my finishing time was a very respectable 2 hours and 8 minutes. It's pretty neat to see that even when I'm tired and fighting, I'm still stronger than I was a year ago.
So now it's easy week.
When I was a one sport wonder, easy weeks were pretty simple affairs. Drop the weekday runs to 30-40 minutes of easy running and run 10k on Saturday. C'est tout.
Now I'm a seven day a week, three sport wonder. What exactly does easy week mean now?
Saturday evening, I sat at the kitchen bar, a platter of cheese, crackers and paté in front of me, a glass of wine at my side and a t-bone on the barbecue. "What would you do?" I asked Doug.
"I'm not a good person to ask" he replied (he is not a big fan of easy weeks).
We worked it out. Swimming is a pretty easy workout for me but it does tire me out because of the early hour I have to be up. And, unlike running, it's not worth it for me to do a shorter swim. So I'm going to drop the frequency and only swim on Wednesday morning.
Cycling - I'll cycle on Sunday because it's a great way to recover from a hard run but that's it for the week. No basement adventures trying to bend crank arms for me this week.
Running - I'll do a short run on Tuesday and then run my 10k on Friday since I have a sister date on Saturday and we like to meet up bright an early to squeeze as much into the day as we possible can.
Seven workouts down to four.
I'm feeling more rested just thinking about it.
The philosophy for easy weeks when tri training is basically the same as easy weeks as for running: do a similar number of workouts/days but bring the intensity and duration way down.
ReplyDeleteSwimming fewer days is probably okay, but consider whether you want to give yourself an excuse to swim 50-70% of your usual distance *and* do something like do drills or practice flip turns or learn a new stroke. You know, something fun/challenging but not terribly energetic.
Just be careful cutting too far back on your cycling. You want to give your legs enough of a rest that they have a chance to build back up their glycogen and mend, but you still need to stress them a bit to keep them ready for your next "normal" week. So maybe go for a half-hour easy spin or choose a (shorter) long weekend route that doesn't include any big hills and that you take slowly. But still get some time in the saddle.
Plus ça change...