When you guys miss a workout (I know it never happens to slowtwitchers, but humor me), do you try and cram it in during the week on top of your regular workouts? I’ve missed some training because of work and don’t know if it does more harm than good to try and get every session in before the start of a new training week.
How do you guys deal with missed workouts?
Yes, I’m fairly new to the sport…
If you cram workouts in on top of other workouts to get them done you will often end up making rest days into non-restdays and therefore raising the potential for injury. Think of a missed day as a rest day. If you are missing easy days, don’t worry. If you are missing an important workout, I would tend to readjust my week to get the important specific workout in. 1 solid workout does me more good than 3 junk mile workouts. However, as a runner by nature who often judges himself on miles per week (bad habit I cannot help) I do my fair share of miles that other might consider “junk miles.”
I might try to get a run or ride in on a day that one was not planned. Otherwise I just pick up on whatever day it is. If it was a trackwork out I’ll move things around to get it in. After all triathlons are about the need for speed.
It depends a bit on what you are training for and where you are in the training phase. If it’s months to your next race, skip the day (or days) and pick up with normal training. If you are closing in on a race, you can sometimes get by by substituting intensity for duration. That is, instead of thinking of a four hour steady ride, do a hard hour followed by an easy 30 minute run. Basically, though, I think the best policy is to try to keep a small, regular workout of some sort going, even if it means just a 20 minute run on a treadmill in a hotel. But in the end, your body adapts pretty well to a few missed workouts. Don’t get so neurotic that you get steamed over a day or two off. Try reading “Working Out, Working Within”, which talks about the mental aspect of sport, and is one of the best books for any triathlete.
Good luck!
simple answer - focus on key workouts for the week, of which there will only be 3 or 4. Don’t miss these or better still arrange your week so you get them in. all other workouts are ‘padding’, extra training, easy / steady. skip these and don’t try and make the sessions up. making up for missed sessions is a sure fire way to get ill or injured!
try a strategy of x days / weeks hard, then schedule an easy x no. of days or and easy week. by doing that, i’m far less likely to skip a workout as an easy week is never far away…
When you miss a workout don’t stress. Welcome to life. You do the best you can and move on. Trying to make it up usually adds stress and doesn’t necessarily benefit you. This sport is about dealing with the cards you’ve been dealt sometimes. Sometimes one of those cards is not enough time.
Move on to the next day, as Tom D. stated: Welcome to life! If it is a regular thing then you need to re-asses your program. But the odd workout here and there… don’t stress. I tend to “rate” some training sessions, i.e. if i know i need a long ride the weekend and it is planned for Saturday morning, and it turns out that it’s impossible and I have a lighter training day on Sunday, I know that the long ride will be “worth” more in real terms. So I will skip the Sunday program and rather get my long ride in.
A missed work out is just that - just a missed work out. No big deal. Don’t try to make it up, just carry on as normal. Sometimes life gets in the way of hobbies. That just the way it is.
I’m just amazed at how upset some people allow themselves to get if their work out schedule gets disturbed. I know of one woman who was upset because she had to miss a workout weekend to attend her sister’s out of town wedding and another who made her (now ex) husband miserable because he wanted them to go away to a rented cottage for a few days. She considered her workouts more important than down time with her spouse and did nothing but pout the whole time they were at the cottage. These are extreme cases of misplaced priorities and obviously some sort of a compulsive personality disorder.