By the end of last week I was feeling rundown so I’ve decided to back off a bit until I feel stronger. Today will be back to back rest days (a first). I typically train six days a week. 250 miles (750-1000 TSS).
I have an A race in 20 days.
Training structure wise; What’s the best way to recover/adapt without losing too much fitness this close to a race?
Obviously I’ll have an 8 day taper. Which leaves me the next 12 days to plan for.
Notes: fatigue was likely caused by two issues, 1. Two added gravel rides (+travel) that were more taxing than TSS would suggest. 2. Ten day calorie restriction (500kcal a day). Now ended.
I’m getting Min 8-9 hours sleep a night. Have time off to fully recover so no work stress. Eat clean (back to normal calories). Good macro distribution.
On a related note, I did a hard anaerobic capacity workout on Thursday. Legs could only do 10 minutes of tempo on Friday. Legs smoked on Saturday, didn’t ride. Long endurance ride yesterday (Sunday), legs dead first half and then came to life on the second half.
Sore and stiff after the ride. Went to Costco for weekly shopping and they had a $9000 message chair. Spent 15 minutes in it and it was like getting a professional massage. Things different from every other massage chair - it worked the glutes, forearms, and hands. Marketing claims it’s used in recovery rooms of pro sports teams. Bottom line : immediately felt better than foam rolling and mobility work. Slept better. Recovered better. FWIW.
That sounds great to me; I might add eating in a surplus one or two days to help the body recover. You don’t have to go crazy but maybe eat something you haven’t had in a while that you really enjoy.
Great idea thanks. If I don’t work out I run into a slight calorie surplus. But I might add a little more. The last ten days I was in a deficit in workout days. But I’ll stop that now. A little off goal weight but not worth the risk.
I’m so paranoid of “burn out” that I’d rather edge on the side of caution. Hopefully come good by tomorrow and back off a little for the week.
Is it possible the 500 kcal restriction was a major driver to the increase in fatigue? And thus now that is gone, you will ‘bounce back’ fast; fatigue will fade quickly?
Don’t answer if you don’t want to, obvi, but: Why did you do this 10 day restriction? Trying to get your weight a bit lower in lead-up to the A event?
Yes. This sort of change is crazy to me. It doesn’t sound like much, but put in terms of percentage: on a 3000 kcal/day diet, it’s a 17% decrease. Hell, even on a 5000 kcal/day diet, it’s a 10% decrease!
Yes. I think so. I think it was a combination of a few things. I’m new to gravel and spend last weekend scouting the course. It was far more taxing on my system than I expected. I came into last week feeling ok but not great. Then I had some very hard interval sessions which I think cumulatively lead me to where I was on the weekend.
I let me weight creep up a little and typically about a month out from a race I’ll work on dropping 4-5lbs. At 500kcal a day that should be about a lb a week. But feeling the way I did on the weekend I’ve stopped the deficit. I ended up dropping 2-2.5lbs. But I’d rather carry the weight than be tired.
Better to be slightly undercooked than burnt out ahead of your event. Remember you only need to do about half as much volume, maintaining frequency and intensity, to hold on to the fitness you have. You’re not going to be able gain meaningful fitness gains in two weeks, you’re main aim is shed fatigue whilst holding steady on fitness.
