December will be a few weeks of preparation, with a plan to carry out an FTP test over Christmas. To start the week was 90mins constant higher endurance on the turbo. 1st and 2nd had good readings, 1st was a rest day, so on the 2nd it was a 60min lower endurance session, but added in 4 x 30 second max effort intervals with 3 min recovery between. No doubt the reading on the 3rd was due to the intensity, but this was a good thing as it showed it worked. 3rd was a rest day, 4th was a 60 minute session with varying endurance levels, and included 1 x 10 min low tempo interval. 5th was a scheduled training day but missed the workout due to commitments. 6th was a small group ride, 2.5 hours, which was quite intense due to a strong wind on the return.
Bit of a mixed week below, but good to see the HRV is climbing back up slowly, compared to last month. 7th was a scheduled training day, 75 minutes of endurance with 1 x 10 min tempo effort. This on top of 6th hard group ride gave me a low energy reading on the 8th, which was a rest day. 9th was back in the normal range, and continued the scheduled 60 minute endurance but with 2 x 2 minute FTP intervals plus 3 x 30 second max efforts with 3 minutes recovery between. Again the 10th was a lower energy reading, but was a rest day. The 11th bounced back but resisted doing hard intervals as suggested, instead 60 minutes endurance with 2 x 10 minute tempo with 7 minute recovery between. This was due to the prospect of a heavy weekend of parties on the nights of the 11th and 12th. So avoided the group ride on the 12th , but managed to be up in time for the group ride on the 13th; again a high activation as usual for me for group rides.
Good readings this week, with 2 days in the high recovery zone. But as the week started on lower energy, I waited until Tuesday 15th, which gave a favourable reading for higher intensity work, so it was a 1 hour turbo session with 1 x 10 min sweet spot effort, recovery, then 1 x 10 min tempo – the remaining time including recovery was in endurance. Time was short this week, last full week before Christmas, so didn’t get to ride again until Friday 18th, which happened to also be a favourable day for higher intensity work. However it was a pre-planned social ride; but the mince pies were good! 19th was a planned group ride, went hard in parts plus a fairly strong wind meant a good workout. Energy was only slightly lower on Sunday 20th, but lack of opportunity meant a rest day. However, energy dipped again on the 21st, so stuck to a low endurance turbo session for 1 hour to hopefully avoid dipping further in subsequent days.
Opportunities are going to be scarce over the coming weeks no doubt!
Andy Dolphin – Profile
I am a recreational athlete, who has around 5 to 8 hours a week to train (season dependant). I have a family with 2 young children and run a business. Therefore the ethos of my training is to use training principles that elicit the best results in minimal time. By comparison to my cycling friends, I would class myself as average