[sgw]

In the 2nd book (TftUA, I have the german edition) I chose the “idealized plan for 50k for cat. 1 runners”.

There the Y-axis is the distance per week (in terms of “horizontal” kilometers to run).

In my next step I hopped to chapter 13 and looked at the example week for mountain runners. The days in this example week are described relative to the ascent (“vertical” distance) per week … which I don’t know from the upper macro cycle plan.

Is it correct to “convert” my days like:

instead of “15% of the weekly ascent” I took “15% of the weekly distance”

etc

?

For my case this resulted in:

6 kilometers for the shorter runs, 16k on sunday … -> about 40k per week
6.75 … 17.2 -> 43
7.2 … 19.2 -> 48

(you see my Excel-skills? ;-))

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on December 21, 2020 at 7:44 am #48416

That’s not a problem. So long as strength and higher intensity sessions aren’t impacted by residual fatigue, you can re-schedule the long sessions as required.

[sgw]

sgw on December 21, 2020 at 10:23 am #48436

Great to hear, as I prefer that long run on saturday right now.

And it feels easier to me (maybe just mentally) to run those 2+ hrs on the day following the hill sprints.

The increasing distance scares me each week, but so far I am capable to run it without major issues, so that feels *good* and builds confidence!

[sgw]

sgw on January 8, 2021 at 1:23 am #48989

So maybe I was too impatient, or simply tired:

didn’t wait for saturday and sunday for the back2back long runs and did the first part (in my case currently ~25kms) yesterday. I had done exactly that run 2 weeks before, without much problems (it was quite easy to do). Yesterday was different, after a few kms I saw already that my HR was a few strokes higher, and I couldn’t “relax” really.

It got a bit better over time but the run was slower and felt harder than 2 weeks before.

I relate that to bad sleep the days before, had some stress with work issues and lied awake mid-night. This night now was better and even though my Garmin tells me to rest for 56 hours (yes, we don’t listen to statistic recommendations 😉 , right?) I actually consider doing the 2nd long run of maybe up to 20k today.

This is where I am *not* experienced: should I rest or should I go? My head says “yesterday wasn’t that good, maybe skip it”, on the other side I think “I slept way better today and feel as if I could do the 2nd part today”. And as far as I understand it’s the objective of back2back to learn and train that tiredness, right?

I will do some work and see how I feel and decide in a few hours. I tend to go.

[sgw]

sgw on January 9, 2021 at 3:50 am #49043

And that 2nd long run went surprisingly well: I was as fast/slow as usual, stayed at 140bpm average HR and even tried a (not disciplined) sprint kilometer in the end.

So I am quite happy with these 2 back2back days. Not even especially sore today.

I plan an easy 30min run later today, just to get everything loosened.

Now that I couldn’t do my hill sprints on friday and very likely shouldn’t do them today:

should I do them tomorrow, then rest on monday and start “special week 2” on tuesday?

Sounds good to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on January 18, 2021 at 6:51 am #49401

My sense from your posts is that you’re concerned about less-than-perfect training which pushes you toward aggressive conclusions in the short-term.

In contrast—unless you’re on the starting line of a race or at the base of a goal climb—your main concern should be training too much, getting too tired, and losing more consistent improvement over the long-term.

You’ll progress much more steadily, and end up with a better result, with the latter approach.

Don’t ask yourself the equivalent of, “Can I add this session and get away with it?” Instead, ask, “Is what I’ve done close enough while allowing a margin of safety for recovery?”

[sgw]

sgw on January 18, 2021 at 7:20 am #49411

Yes, I understand and agree, thanks for the explanation.

It’s not only that I have to learn physiological stuff but how to keep it safe and reasonable.

[sgw]

sgw on January 18, 2021 at 7:46 am #49420

I think that is partially related to me being a (IT-)technician … trying to do things right and follow instructions in a very detailled way. “perfectionism”. Not really applicable to a human body that is not a machine 😉

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on January 21, 2021 at 2:15 pm #49608

Good observation!

Think about it as server or memory load. What happens when a server or memory capacity doesn’t have enough of a buffer to handle load spikes? #badthings

Recovery (and improvement) happens inside the buffer. And life will conspire to use up server resources without notice.

But then on “game day”, VPS all the RAM you can get and maximize the usage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on January 21, 2021 at 2:16 pm #49609

With respect to sprints or any high-intensity, you’ll get the most benefit when you’re fully recovered (which won’t correspond to the greatest fatigue).

[sgw]

sgw on January 25, 2021 at 8:29 am #49708

Basically I understand … but 😉

What plays a role here is that I applied some “streak” thinking here:

do this or that every day, don’t skip a day … once back it was some xmas-40-day-run-challenge, or meditation every day for 2 years or something like that.

And I somehow applied that to cycling and other things as well.

But I learn and see, I start week 15 of my UA-program now, and it works out great. I make progress, and although I accumulate some fatigue and some muscular soreness now and then, I had no injury so far … and I absorb the runs quite well: I am not destroyed anymore by the long runs, the body seems to adapt and improve. Which is great to see!

So I am not complaining at all, just learning to trust the process.
thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on January 28, 2021 at 7:01 am #49936

Streaks are a great approach. Just make sure that you choose the most helpful metric to streak. X hours or Y intensity isn’t it. A constant streak of making the best daily training decision is what you want to maintain.

Great work on trusting the process and seeing the gains.

[sgw]

sgw on January 30, 2021 at 9:08 am #50097

A streak of making the best decision. Yes, that’s a nice plan 😉

Today I gave myself a bit more freedom and was not as disciplined as usual.

Did that 24k run again, now I know that I can do that I wanted to run it a bit faster. Not racing in any way, just increase the pace a bit and see what happens.

I am honest: I wanted to improve my half marathon time. Just PB, nothing to mention in general.

I felt quite good, didn’t need to stop anywhere (ok, one “technical break”) and most of the time was able to nose breathe (I also used that as some kind of tempo check).

OK, not exactly Z2 only, a bit above.

http://tpks.ws/5LZ3JFQEGZUHDTI4FEYTRMETSU

I still assume I could adjust my AeT above 142 … and (honest again) I somehow don’t want to do that 10% test … I could tmrw, when I do another HM, this time slower.

Today my prio was: get some fun and motivation out of doing the same workout a bit faster. I think this won’t hurt in the long run, fun is important as well 😉