I just got off of the trainer, and finished the final week, besides the recovery week, for my Base Phase 2. I do low volume and do Tuesday, Thursday (90 min), and Sunday workouts, with cross training at Orange Theory on Wednesdays.
I did Leconte on Thursday, and did well, and noticed that my average heart rate dropped 4 bpm, and my NP went up by 4 watts from the comparable 90 minutes the week before.
I took my two days off, and tried to tackle Lamarck today, and it just wasn’t happening. I was able to do the first interval, but 8 minutes into the second one, my cadence just dropped heavily (93-94 average) and I spiraled and couldn’t recover. I dropped the power 5% and basically ground (75-85) the gears to the finish. My heart rate didn’t even hit the levels it would normally go to when I am pushing it extremely hard. A bit disheartening considering the previous workouts. I have been seriously looking forward to this recovery week, since physically and mentally I have been feeling exhausted with the efforts.
Should I just count this one for “Fatigue caught up to me?” This happen to anyone else?
IMO Sweet spot base 2 needs to be split up. Having 5 weeks before a recovery week is tough. On a personal level, things start going south in weeks 4/5 and I usually have to take a few days off and then complete weeks 4 & 5 again.
Going forward I’m going to complete weeks 1 to 3, take a recovery week, then do weeks 3 to 5 and a recovery week.
If you only failed the last workout, don’t worry about. Take a well deserved recovery week and move on to build.
Lamarck kicks a lot of people, I shouldn’t worry. Leconte isn’t exactly a walk in the park, so I suspect that, and the accumulated fatigue from SSB2, just took your legs. Easy week, eat well, and wait for the FTP gain!
Edit: HR not quite getting there even when working ‘flat out’ is a classic fatigue sign. So I’m fairly sure that yes, ‘fatigue caught up’.
This is exactly where I am right now, and I have come to a similar conclusion. I struggled through the mid-week threshold workout, and cracked early on Carpathian Peak +2. I swapped to Looking Glass. Juneau -1 was OK today, but typically I find that workout super easy.
I am going to insert a recovery week and then do the last two really hard weeks, recovery week. This is my second time through base 2. In Nov I was wrapping up high volume base 2 and felt awesome. I had a failed transition to build, then mixed results on a mini VO2 focused build, then started MV 2. I’ve failed a few workouts already in the MV plan…the hard workouts are really, really hard.
