Consistent base training for 6 months- did not miss a single workout. I made huge gains in uphill speed from the high volume program. All of the sudden after stupidly deciding to wear new shoes on a Rainier speed solo ascent, destroyed my heels with giant blisters and was forced to take 9 days off. 2nd day back training, and holy cow I lost a lot of fitness!
Three primary training adaptations- aerobic enzymes, capillary density increases, and mitochondrial mass development, right? In TFTNA, we learned that aerobic enzymes drop rapidly starting pretty much immediately. That plot of cytochrome C drops off at a scary fast rate. Do we know what the drop off rates for the other adaptations are when you go from big training volume to sedentary?
Im wagering a guess that my big drop in uphill speed for mid Zone 2 HR effort (been tested, know AeT HR) after being sedentary for nine days mostly comes from a drop in aerobic enzymes? Am I right in that? How much could drop in fitness be due to loss of mitochondrial mass or capillary density?
How long to get back to where I was in terms of adaptation progress? Looking for anecdotal experience perhaps, but my sure someone is gonna say “well that depends”.
My come-back plan is to basically use the 1 day easy/short training per training day missed progressing to longer and higher HRs within aerobic zone. Basically planning to revert back to the previous mesocycle. 9 days of being sedentary will essentially have cost me a month of training in terms of progression of volume. Does this sound reasonable? Does my plan sound okay, or might it be too conservative?
