Not really sure why I’m posting this but just hoping I’m not alone.
This past week was my last week of build, so I expected it to be tough. But last weekendi think I dug myself in a hole that I just couldn’t get out of this week.
Last Sunday I decided to do an outdoor ride and complete a personal goal of climbing 10,000+ ft. Of elevation. I did 100 mile ride and completed my goal. Figuring I’d just push all my workouts back one day since I have a rest week coming up. Well I’ve failed to complete every workout to follow. Each workout has shown improvement but I’m feeling discouraged to say the least.
Obviously looking back, I should have at least waited to do my outdoor ride on the last day before my recovery week.
So now I’m worried that I’ve somehow lost strength and fitness because I’ve struggled so much this week. A week prior my workouts were pretty manageable and I was feeling great.
I have no qualification to opine on this stuff however in the best tradition of the internet I will anyway
Sound like you have overreached - maybe the 100mile 10k feet of climbing ride took more out of you than you thought?
I had a week back in December when I experienced something similar.
All the advice I received then was … take a week off - only do light easy rides during that time and sleep well, focus on recovery, eat really well and maybe do some stretching etc
You didn’t lose anything. You’re overly fatigued because you made a bad timing decision to do that ride during your training block. Continue through and honor your recovery week, and you’ll get back on track. But again: honor your recovery. You can’t fix what you did, and you don’t need to try to go back and redo the week. You’ll be fine.
I just did the same thing a few weeks ago! I was even failing my recovery week workouts. so I took a week of rest after that. Don’t expect any big increases in FTP.
I had a rough one this morning. It’s my fifth week of SSB2(low) and I have one more “hard” ride until my light week then reassess in about 12 days? I’ll be moving to SPB(mid). I’m not sure how everyone else defines a failed ride. I finished the ride but about 45 minutes into the 60 I had to drop the power target by 10% and I struggled to even get that. I didn’t stop early so i guess I have that going. I think I didn’t come into it with enough sleep last night and maybe not enough fuel.
The last FTP test that I took I made my largest FTP gain in absolute terms of my life. The test prior to this one put me up to my highest FTP ever, so these were gains on top of already peak gains. That’s the good news.
The bad news, I started the 4 week training block with failing both of my key workouts for the week (Tues & Thurs). I ride 5-6 days a week but 2 times a week are intensity, the others are generally structured but no intensity to speak of so they are not really pass/fail.
The following week I nailed both key workouts but it really put me in a hole, they were hard!
The third week I nailed one and failed the other. I failed the first and last workouts in the block, ouch.
So in 3 weeks I had 6 key workouts. I failed 3 and nailed 3. Week 4 was recovery.
My FTP test at the end of the 4th week really shocked me (new all time high) but it also showed me that sometimes pushing to failure can be beneficial. I wouldn’t want to push so hard every time that I was failing but, it is ok to fail and strength and growth can come from failing.
I didn’t reduce my FTP or change anything when I failed. I went into the week after failing with a mindset of doing everything I could to get through this block. The results really paid off even though, I failed 50% of my workouts.
You overreached on a ride and made the workouts hard and you failed. Congratulations! Not something you want to do so often you put yourself into a hole but stick with it and your body will adapt and if you do this again in the future, I’m guessing it will be easier to manage.
You can overdo things but this sounds like a bit of overreaching and I think more people should try to do that even now and then. Not over training, over reaching.
Well it’s a long story… I took the ramp test as schedule and my ftp went from 336 up to 342. I was a bit suprised myself. But at that ftp I struggled with the long vo2 intervals. 6min at 110% just buried me. I would hit my max hr on the very first interval. I’d complete the first one and that was followed by a downward spiral the rest of the workout. I could do the longer 85-95% ftp workouts at 100% intensity. So after much though I actually backed my ftp down to 330. I’m done failing and being discouraged. Workouts are still super hard but doable. I can increase intensity if need be but I’m feeling better just being able to complete the workouts.
I have this week and next week yet to finish specialty and then I’m going to go out and chase some kom’s and just go ride outside for a week or two and enjoy the fitness. Then most likely ramp test and back to mv base 2, in hopes to prep for some late season road races or cx.
At the end of the day I don’t really think I overreached that much, I don’t think fatigue is the issue here, I feel fresh, I’m not exhausted, I’m recovery quickly. I just think that I’m a prime candidate for over testing on the ramp test. Resulting in an inflated ftp. I’m still making gains as I’m destroying pr’s on some outside rides so that isn’t a concern. It’s keeping my mind right, and not being discouraged. I’m finding that is half the battle.
Thanks stringwise. Great Advice. I did back down the ftp but I’ll will keep that in mind for future occurrences. I failed some workouts throughout my last 2 ftp bumps. But I agree, pushing to failure or failing and trying, will def make you stronger, until the point in which it discourages you so much that you dread getting on the bike for your next workout. It was at that point, I decided to back things down.
Personally I think this is a great opportunity. Remember the sensations prior to getting on that first interval that you failed at. Write them down, how you felt, the tiredness, lack of motivation, excessive leg soreness, bad sleep or excessive sleep. So next time you dig a small hole, you can tell yourself, I need more then one day of rest.
I was at the same spot as you on sunday. I dug my self a hole from a 1125tss week. Monday after my recovery ride I had no motivation for the intervals on tuesday, I was sleeping a ton, really hungry, legs were excessively heavy. I cancelled the last week of SSHV and inserted a rest week. Remember rest is what allows the adaptation to occur.
