Something you should know about Rich’s approach if you haven’t read his stuff enough to picked this up already; he doesn’t use the “3-weeks hard, 1-week recovery approach.” Rich correct me if I’m wrong, but he comes from the Gordo philosophy of continuous / consistent training. If you are used to going hard (maybe a little over the top) and then using a week to regroup and recover, Rich’s/Gordo’s approach is going to be a bit of adjustment. With no easy week, you have to be very disciplined and not go too hard. In my case I think I slowly put myself in a hole. Many people think continuous training is the way to go in preparing for an Ironman, but I think the human body responds better to extra hard training with recovery; at least I do.
On the other hand, any plan is probably going to be an improvement over “seat of the pants” as long as you don’t over train. It’s a lot of time and work organizing a training plan yourself and only after you truly get into it do you realize the value in a canned plan.
If you have a power meter, then having some guidance as to the kind of workouts to do can make a big difference in your cycling performance in my opinion. This is something Rich has really figured out.
Hi,
Good thoughts, thanks for the discussion.
I learned a long time ago that the structure of a basic training week is much, much more important than self coached athletes often realize. Monday fits with Tuesday fits with Wednesday and so on through the week, with volume, intensity and frequency spaced out intelligently to form a template week that is repeatable week after week. The formation of this template week is the VERY first step in the process I use to start up a new one-on-one athlete. I start with the assumption that their current training week is the result of their life and logistics. I take this week, present them 2-4 options based on my training input and we haggle back and forth until they understand my reasoning behind the mix and schedule of workouts and we find a structure they can repeat week after week. This then becomes the template we use going forward, one that has been proven to work logistically first, as a training schedule second.We then take this basic week, schedule it out 2-3 weeks, and are in very close contact for the first month as we tweak it here, there, I teach them about how I do business, etc.
When you do this, recovery is built into the schedule, or rather the training load is distributed across the week in a well-thought out pattern that diminishes or eliminates the “need” to take a recovery week. I also use a reverse periodization model so that the highest training volume is closer to the race, when they, their family and real life are most prepared for it. And I should say I have ZERO weekly volume for any week in the training plan. I can’t recall the last time I looked at the left column of the TrainingPeaks calendar and said “nope, that’s not enough.” I only care about the volume of the long bike and long run. Everything else is time X because that’s what you have available on Tuesday morning, for example.
One major change I’m making to the IM plans is just a better weekly structure I hit upon over the summer, largely by using bricks as a time efficient workout option, allowing me to keep the run frequency I like to see while still building several no-run days into the schedule. I do schedule rest weeks but my keys are:
- Rest “hard” at the beginning of the week.
- Retain the key bike session, though this is usually abbreviated.
- Long bike/run volume and character are retained, most of the time. If you’re kickin’ it every 4th week, that’s 25% of your long bike/run potential. Instead we rest hard early in the week so we don’t lose this 25%.