Am doing my first tri in ages next month (70.3 Goa), and my planned 5-6 month program got shot to pieces due to an old sports injury flaring up in my eye, which led to a long period on steroids (not the make-you-faster kind). That completely wrecked my fitness and I only got better with about 11 weeks to go with an effective fitness level of "untrained rider/runner".
I've crammed in a pretty decent training schedule which has paid of reasonably well given the limits and some weird freaking medical issues that have keep cropping up (not training related), although nowhere near where I'd like to be. I've achieved this as follows:
- a 4 week @ 700-900 TSS/week block focussed on VO2/FTP, followed by a recovery/rest week
- a 3 week 750-950 TSS/week focused on FTP/SST, followed by a recovery/rest week
- a 2 week 1300-1500 TSS/week block focused on longer SST/tempo efforts & longer race pace efforts --> 1 week (13 hours) done, second week (14 hours) started today
- 2 week taper planned after that - 5/6 hours week 1, and then 3 hours or so in the week leading up to the race
I've been monitoring my fatigue levels and until now, they've been holding up. I am entering the second week of this last block, and i am finally starting to feel the fatigue (it didnt help that i had to have a small surgery in the middle of my rest week before starting this last block, with full GA and the works).
This is what i have left (excluding around 7000-8000m of endurance swimming):
Wed: 2.5 hr ride/75-90' brick run
Thu: 2.5 hours with 90' @ SST --> hit a peak TSB of -57 after this workout
Fri: 6x5x5 running speedwork @ 5k
Sat: Rest
Sun: 2 hour race pace bike ride in the morning, and a 1:45 run in the evening (or a brick, depending on how hot it gets - it's been 34C by 9am recently) -- > ending TSB of -35
Wanted to get your advice on what i should do in case the above tires me out too much. If i cannot handle this workload, then i will reduce my overall hours and essentially start the taper earlier. But i would like it to be more than just maintain fitness/reduce fatigue, if possible - I'd like to keep making some fitness gains, if possible.
Given that, what would be the best bang-for-buck workouts i should focus on this week, which will still have a positive gain by Oct 20th? I can figure out the overall volume and intensity based on how i feel - just wanted to know what to focus on: stick to SST/tempo but lower volume, or go with VO2/speedwork...
Also, for the penultimate week - given my lack of base - is there a recommendation on how to structure the taper?
TIA!
--
Those who are slower than me suck.
Those who are faster than me dope
I've crammed in a pretty decent training schedule which has paid of reasonably well given the limits and some weird freaking medical issues that have keep cropping up (not training related), although nowhere near where I'd like to be. I've achieved this as follows:
- a 4 week @ 700-900 TSS/week block focussed on VO2/FTP, followed by a recovery/rest week
- a 3 week 750-950 TSS/week focused on FTP/SST, followed by a recovery/rest week
- a 2 week 1300-1500 TSS/week block focused on longer SST/tempo efforts & longer race pace efforts --> 1 week (13 hours) done, second week (14 hours) started today
- 2 week taper planned after that - 5/6 hours week 1, and then 3 hours or so in the week leading up to the race
I've been monitoring my fatigue levels and until now, they've been holding up. I am entering the second week of this last block, and i am finally starting to feel the fatigue (it didnt help that i had to have a small surgery in the middle of my rest week before starting this last block, with full GA and the works).
This is what i have left (excluding around 7000-8000m of endurance swimming):
Wed: 2.5 hr ride/75-90' brick run
Thu: 2.5 hours with 90' @ SST --> hit a peak TSB of -57 after this workout
Fri: 6x5x5 running speedwork @ 5k
Sat: Rest
Sun: 2 hour race pace bike ride in the morning, and a 1:45 run in the evening (or a brick, depending on how hot it gets - it's been 34C by 9am recently) -- > ending TSB of -35
Wanted to get your advice on what i should do in case the above tires me out too much. If i cannot handle this workload, then i will reduce my overall hours and essentially start the taper earlier. But i would like it to be more than just maintain fitness/reduce fatigue, if possible - I'd like to keep making some fitness gains, if possible.
Given that, what would be the best bang-for-buck workouts i should focus on this week, which will still have a positive gain by Oct 20th? I can figure out the overall volume and intensity based on how i feel - just wanted to know what to focus on: stick to SST/tempo but lower volume, or go with VO2/speedwork...
Also, for the penultimate week - given my lack of base - is there a recommendation on how to structure the taper?
TIA!
--
Those who are slower than me suck.
Those who are faster than me dope