I’m weaning myself off of my coach. I’m on a “consulting” basis for a small fee while I build & taper for IMMOO. 2nd IM and 5th year in the sport. Been rolling and smoking my own plan, using her ideas, ideas from Friel and some Endurance Nation stuff. I’ve been sorta using a 16-5 day approach and feel good about my build. Matter of fact, my workouts the last 2-3 weeks have never been sharper or more consistent.
Today, coach calls me and freaks out because the last 4 weeks appear to have not much rest in them 13, 14, 16, 15 hours (actual numbers may vary but you get the idea). I’ve definitely had easy days in there and some rest periods where I’ve gone for several days with easy + Day Off rest. She’s kind of right, there’s not a ton of measurable rest in there.
So she tells me I’m on the verge of hosing my race by heading out tomorrow and capping a hard week (planning to start tapering mid next week - 2.5 week taper) and doing a 5 hr tempo Brick (4 Bike, 1 Run). Tells me doing my last Long Run inside of 21 days (I was planning on doing it Tuesday and then taper) is crazy and I’ll likely get hurt.
I respect her opinion, but want to hear from others what they think of this. I realize this is very little information to go on.
I agree with that… A T-Shirt with coach on it, or three years of racing, does not mean qualification for coaching.
Having said that MOST triathletes arrive at IM with plenty of training in them (fitness not being the limiter) but are tired. The value of rest is critical…
Do you use WKO or something similiar to show your CTL, etc. ? Not sure of your personal situation nor your coaches abilities, but at this point what can you really absorb from pushing it tomorrow?
As a side note–I’m working the med tent from 2-6 at IMMOO. If you stop in we’ll know whether or not she was right!
I’m not sure if I’m reading right, but are you saying you trained around 15 hours per week,.
Unless it’s your first season, you’ve got a rubbish diet, you don’t sleep, etc then you are not overdoing it.
You’re coach probably knows more of the situation then you’ve posted, however, 3 x Age Group worlds for a female isn’t very significant. Depending on year/age, location of the championships etc some females win cause they’ve got a half decent training schedule, decent body composition and can afford to get themselves to the world champs. The depth of competition just isn’t there.
Do you use WKO or something similiar to show your CTL, etc. ? Not sure of your personal situation nor your coaches abilities, but at this point what can you really absorb from pushing it tomorrow?
As a side note–I’m working the med tent from 2-6 at IMMOO. If you stop in we’ll know whether or not she was right!
More importantly how does it look when graphed next to your other two scores and the rest of your season? I guess what I am saying is that WKO gives you a pretty simple and easy way to see if you are “running too hot”. If you see some huge spikes in the wrong directions then you know no matter how you feel you might be on the edge of something bad. It takes the human perspective out of it. Also, don’t forget what I said about gains right now. You can’t really absorb anything more this close to the race. It is better to be 10% undercooked than 1% overcooked is what my coach always says.
Do stop in and say hi! I will also be running the Racers Against Childhood Cancer booth on Friday (along with my wife and five daugthers).
That is why I coach myself. There is no one to blame but me if I screw up and no one to berate me for my training. If your coach is freaking out over 15 hour weeks then my last 2 months of “crash” IM prep without any days off and most weeks in the 22-25 hour range would likely send your coach into a fit of rage
Hmmm…coach has me down for a 112/5 brick tomorrow, followed by a 15 mile run Sun. Last big weekend gearing up for IMWI, and then things mellow out. Either we’ll both be fine, or my coach (who is also my wife) has secretly upped my insurance and is trying to bump me off in a ‘training related accident’. You’re right that there isn’t a ton of info to go on in your post, but I figure now is the time to heap on the abuse and then back off to let it ‘take’. This kinda timing has worked for me in the past, so why mess with it.
13 to 16 hours can be a lot of hours if you do a lot of high intensity work. but it’s not many hours if two rides took up 11 hours out of the 14 you did that week. so, we’d probably need a lot more info to make an informed guess.
that said, i think a lot of athletes don’t do well unless they have 1 week out of 4 where they throttle it back a bit, because the body doesn’t improve in a straight line, and training shouldn’t be in a straight line either.
you’ve got 3 weeks and a day until the race, and if you were my athlete you’d be doing some of your longest workouts between now and the next 5 days or so. the problem is not that you need rest now, it was that you needed a rest period ending 2 or 3 weeks ago. maybe you got that rest period, so you’re okay to go.
My WKO numbers look okay to me. There is a string of weeks back to back though where there’s no significant drop in TSS. I kind of blew it two weeks ago when I had back to back days off due to work travel and failed to let that rest period extend for a few more days. I made a mistake most likely with not having some rest in there. On the advice of my coach I did my last long run this morning and felt okay. A bit tight. But fine. Pace was there. Energy was there.
So the net of this is I eliminated a long brick which means instead of eight long bricks in my build I have just seven. I feel like such a loser.
Gonna get a few days of real rest then peak taper And race.
My experience as a coach is that even the 1 out of 4 is not really interesting. Many athletes will be fine for 6-7-8 weeks, and will get a bit of a slump that 1-2 easy days, will easily take care of. On the other hand during very heavy phase, sometimes, athletes break down after 10 days to 2 weeks, and need either an easy week, or 1-2 days off…It’s really all over the place in terms of recovery, mostly because the stress is not only what you give training wise, but also what happens with the rest of the time…
Hard day/week at work, a couple of bad nights because a kid is sick, etc…
That’s why I never send more than a week at a time for the few folks I coach.
when i say one easy week out of four, that’s not all the rest i’m recommending. i also think one day off out of every 5 to 10, depending on the athlete and the work, and then some easy time (2 or 3 easy weeks) after 10 or 12 hard weeks, after which a new phase or campaign might start.
i probably like more rest than the average guy might advocate, but i also like a lot of work during work, maybe more than the average guy might advocate.
