Dear Coach, this week training sucked. Now what?

Triathlon Forum
1

For one reason or another (mechanicals, stomach flu, family obligations, work) I have either missed or had to cut short my workouts for the past five days. This has included some key workouts sessions. It may sound silly, but this is the first time I have had to deal with this since I have been following a “plan”. SO-now what? Keep going as if nothing happened? Use that time as a false recovery week and redo what I missed next week? How do you handle/tell others to handle unexpected time off from a plan? I am asking because the plan I am using doesn’t come with coaching (I know that will set many of you off, but let’s not get too sidetracked by this). I am also asking in a hypothetical sense because my wife was sick during a huge week in her marathon training (last big run). Suggestions?

chris

2

Just go back to training as usual.

jaretj

3

5 days won’t kill you. Just reenter the plan as it is scheduled. As always, listen to how your body is reacting to the training and adjust if you find you can’t handle the additional load. If you can handle the load, you’re fine.

Life happens. Don’t waste emotional time on things you can’t control. Spend your time controlling your actions (executing your training) and your attitude.

Good luck,
Puskas

4

quit triathlon…

no, seriously…5 days isn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. Dont worry about it

5

this is why i dont schedule rest days any more. I just let them happen

6

I was thinking the same thing. Plan for 7 days a week of structure and at least one will go in a handbasket for family or work reasons.

5 days isn’t disastrous unless you’re doing this for a living.

7

A year and a half ago I interviewed Coach Jack Daniels for a paper I was writing on running. Here is what he said.

No problem if you miss a day – nothing will be lost. But you can’t miss days every week, or you are reducing your training on a permanent basis and will de-train.
So carry on with your training and call it a recovery week. Resist the temptation to squeeze in extra workouts to make up for it.

8

Ok, unscheduled rest week it is.

chris

9

What are the key workouts that you missed last week?

What does this week look like?

Email me if you like if you want more help, or want me to bring over a pot of soup or something :wink:

10

End of last week cut short(various problems):

  1. Long bike by 1.5hrs.
  2. Long run by 1hr.

Beginning of this week missed (the flu):

  1. Long swim
  2. Short bike
  3. Short run
  4. ?

My stomach is still not feeling 100% but I think I am going to give my long bike a go today.

On a brighter note I may never eat ham again in my life. I’ll stop at that. Thanks for the offer of soup!

chris

11

I had chicken broth yesterday, easing my way out of vegetarianism for some health reasons. It was in stuffing. No soup yet. Soon.

If it was illness, you need to ease back into training. If you just had life stuff get in the way I’d try to reschedule your key workouts but no reason to go from nothing to workouts with a relatively high stress. So I’ll agree with others, try to get back on track as far as frequency and consistency this week and try to get back to normal duration next week.

That’s my coach in training (really!) opinion at least.