Today is officially four weeks before Ironman California. Yesterday's bike ride couldn't have gone better. I did everything I'd planned. Time on the bike: 6 hours and 11 minutes. Volume of riding: 111 miles. Time in Aero position: Well over five hours. Normalized Power: 138 watts; Average Power 131 watts: Average Heart Rate: 127 bpm. How did I feel. Aside from still being tired going into the ride, the ride itself wasn't really hard. I was tired after the ride, but was able to run a mile immediately and was beginning to loosen up and feel better, so I stopped. I ate, rested and recovered the rest of the day, and went to bed early with the intention of running this morning. I woke up feeling better, though not fully refreshed. My hips were tight during the night, but felt improved this morning. Still, the idea of running, whether short or long, doesn't fully make sense today. Everything this year has been different, so perhaps my taper should be too.
Prior to this past week, my coach an I talked about the idea of a "reverse taper," where I would "unload" this week and then ramp up again for my official taper. From a workout perspective, I certainly did this. From a stress perspective, not so much. Four days of babysitting didn't show up on my Training Stress Score (TSS), but it did show up everywhere else. The impact of 9 minutes of hard cycling on Thursday. The total fatigue on Friday. To some degree, even how I'm feeling today. My recovery from yesterday's long bike is actually pretty good, but it could be better. If I take today as a true rest day, then I actually have unloaded stress this week and the coming week could be a solid week of training leading into my actual taper.
Here's the plan. Rest today. Then, the coming week will include: 1) 50 miles of running, with a long run, 2) solid bike volume, w/ one more VO2 session, finishing the week with a 5 hour ride, 3) Three one hour swims. Writing this down feels right. And, that's truly why tapering is an art.
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