Brett asked whether I do 2 workouts a day. Most days, yes.
Part of becoming a good athlete is consistency. Meaning you do the work, day in and day out.
It also helps if you are able (and this comes from my coach, amongst others) to keep to a consistent schedule, week in, week out. Meaning you have a pattern of workouts that you follow Monday through Sunday. What's good about this is that you can plan other stuff (life!) around knowing which days you need to be in the pool, etc., and your body can get used to a regular schedule, much like being used to working Monday-Friday, for example. It also makes it easier on a coach to write a training plan if he/she can count on you doing specific workouts on specific days.
Right now I have a weekly pattern that is a little off from my standard one, due to the fact that I'm training for a marathon that is going to be on a Sunday, and I'll be doing a 1/2 marathon the day before (yikes!), and also it's winter so I'm doing 2 quality bike interval workouts per week in an effort to raise my power.
Here's my current pattern:
Monday: AM Swim, PM Run Strides
Tuesday: AM Lift, PM Bike FT intervals
Wednesday: AM Swim, PM Run Tempo
Thursday: AM Lift, PM Bike FT intervals
Friday: AM Swim, PM Run Easy
Saturday: Bike Long, short Brick run
Sunday: Run Long, Recovery Swim
My normal pattern, which will commence in January or February, looks like this:
Monday: AM Swim, PM Run Strides
Tuesday: AM Lift, PM Bike FT intervals, possibly short brick run
Wednesday: AM Swim, PM Run Tempo or slightly easier
Thursday: AM Run Long, Recovery Swim if time, PM lift
Friday: AM Swim Long (meaning "most yards" or perhaps a 1.2 or 2.4 mile TT), PM Run Easy,
Saturday: Bike Long (2-4 hours) including quality work, Recovery Swim
Sunday: Bike Long (3-6 hours) endurance oriented, Transition Run up to 40'
My schedule is what would be considered "advanced," given I've done 7 Ironman races and train at a relatively high volume (700-800 hours per year).
When do I take days off? I can always take one whenever I think I need it, but by sticking to a consistent schedule and (for the most part!) doing only the intensity that I need to do (i.e., if I'm supposed to go easy, I GO EASY, ha ha not yesterday), getting plenty of sleep, eating nutritionally and getting a massage once a week, I recover pretty well. My coach only schedules rest days for me right before or right after a race or epic training weekend. If I feel I need a rest day or I become sick, I try and rearrange things the best I can so that I get in my long run, long swim (if I'm doing them) and a long ride.
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2 comments:
That's a very solid training schedule. This puts u at roughly 15-18 hours per week, I'm estimating??
I'm curious, what's your daily nutrition like? How many calories, how many meals, etc....to sustain that workload.
I'm also somewhat curious how this would vary during the race season, how much volume you're doing in the middle of IM prep.
Care to share?
Hi, JP. I've had my RMR measured and I have pretty good estimates of my burn rates by sport, so I have my calories dialed in in my personal training spreadsheet. I pretty much eat something every 2 hours. Right now I'm training 14-15 hours per week, I average 15-16/week/year; I'm a little high because I'm doing a lot of running preparing for Goofy Challenge. At 15 hours with the mix of sports I'm doing right now I need about 3400 kcal/day.
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