Le Plan

Every year that I commit to racing I like to have a training plan. In my triathlon days I subscribed to Joe Friel's notion that there's only one thing worse than a bad plan and that's no plan at all.

With long distance racing its often been more of a flexible list of good intentions - I've treated it as an indicator of where I should be each week rather than a definitive set of must-do sessions. I still don't have a perfect plan but this year I seem to have improved my ability to make it into something relevant most days of the week.

I try not to get too worked up about missed sessions because the important part is being happy riding my bike - or whatever else I've chosen to do. This doesn't always work out. For instance, I've had a particularly productive turbo session today and it has been like a gateway into the future.

I improved my fitness. I got the fast twitch muscles moving. I spun my legs around in circles. I got the Waltbike app working on my phone. I got my music playing on a new phone. I got the measurements sorted on the Watt bike so next time I can just walk up to it and get going faster.

I learned I increased my mobility afterwards (which I wasn't expecting). 

I learned I need to remember a sweat towel and a dry bra for the walk home.

It was about a quarter of what I had planned for the day but nevertheless it felt great and I will still feel great tomorrow instead of feeling smashed.

• • •

Still my brain will punish me against the plan but without the plan I am nothing.

Then I remember next week is a rest week or as I call it - an opportunity to catch up on all the hours I've missed this week.

You see, I'm tricking myself because by planning nothing in my rest week I can have four more sessions just like todays, still be ready for next week and the mathematician in my brain can be silent and consider itself well and truly caught up.

• • •

I learned that at this point there everything to be gained from a quick spin at intensity or just turning the legs. No harm in getting out just for a couple of hours and I learned that there 25 weeks to go which means the next 4 weeks are baseload.  It feels less important.  Before this kind of racing my longest plans were 20 weeks long.  HT is 6 months away and I don't even know if I'm in yet but I start here, I try not to flogg myself too much and we start chipping away.

What's important is to ride and love riding, run and run freely. Breathe.