Wednesday, December 28, 2011

2011: Training by numbers


Notes – What's specifically done is listed elsewhere on the blog and can be found under "Labels". Most rehab work falls under Mobility. Cycling and climbing training means specific training. So a ride or climbing day might or might not be termed training. Indoor training doesn’t count as riding or climbing, only as training. All runs had a purpose. I don’t run for fun but do ruke on trails. A ruke is a hike/run, generally at ultra pace. Steep hike is generally fairly arduous, like hiking up a mountain. I don’t include hikes to climbing areas unless they are significant. Ski days all XC, classic or skate. Multi-sports days are two or more sports in a day, whereas multi-workouts are two different workouts done at different times (one is usually easy). A big day is something much longer than I’ve been doing in training.

Jan-Mar: Lots of travel or would have skied more. LA Feb-Mar for X2. Soleus work done early Mar, which is why there is a hole in the running days. Sick in mid-Mar. Hard to estimate recovery days because I often will use a different discipline to recover, like climb to recover from running and riding, which would be a training day.
April: First peak, Duathlon Nats on 26th.
May: A month “off”.
June: From mid-month real training began again after racing Mtb State Champs.
July: Injured hand in crash on 14th. Didn’t affect training, just climbing. By now, 2.5 hr ride considered recovery unless it’s hard. End of month S. France trip w/ 2 big days, Ventoux and run thru Maritime Alps.
Aug: Mainly specific training for World’s.
Sept: Injured soleus on 4th. “Training” became rehabbing through World’s on 25th.
Oct: The next goal for year was to test short training on some longer events.
Nov: All training focused around recovering from 3 12-hour days.
Dec: Play month but psyched and training a lot towards the end of the year. Used my scheduled workouts to fill in the last few days of the year.

Analysis – This may look crazy but look closely and it should be pretty easy to interpret. During the winter training was steady but volume low, hence there is less rest and more structure. Towards the two peaks (Ap and Sept), training became more sports specific. Intensity and volume increases dictating more recovery days. The months following each peak had little to no structure. Finally, during the epic fall marathons everything revolved around recovering between events as opposed to trying to get fitter. Moving into the off-season the winter pattern has re-emerged.

Only did four races but all were significant:

Duathlon Nationals 12th (though knocked to 25th w/ disputed penalties)
Utah State Mtn Bike Champs 7th
Duathlong World Championships 12th
Frog Hollow 25 Hour Race 3rd in duo division

Hardest climb: 12c (not impressive but at least it was on-sight)

Big Days include: The November Trifecta, Squawstruck, Ben's BD Challenge, Mt Ventoux and a long run in the Maritime Alps, and Sedona's Big Friggin' Loop.

No comments: