Following the post-holiday blip, HRV has been fairly stable even considering my cold in mid-September. Mood and stress though have been an issue, particularly mood, most notably post holiday (expected) but also through the most part of September. I wander if this is down to the time of year, on-set of Autumn, as it seems a recurring theme – notice a similar pattern to this time last year (below);
HRV in both cases gradually improving going into the start of October.
Back to this year, I have to admit to being tired now, its been a hard riding year with the 300 mile charity ride and the training leading up to it, plus peak events following this. I’m not sure if my subjective fatigue in particular reflects this, comparing it to earlier in the year, as its hard to know how to measure it compared to more than a week or so previous.
Training has been more a case of simply enjoying the riding without any real structure. Apart from a Sportive on the 9th October, its been a case of getting in turbo work in the week and the club ride on the Saturdays. Peak fitness has reduced by around 18% from the summer.
Structured training started on 10th October which will be 3 months of base, hopefully allowing for a periodised recovery on the macro scale. However this will be more due to reduced volume, as intensity will still be the measure of this period. Then 2 months of build followed by 2 months of speciality, to lead up to the Tour De Yorkshire on the 30th April as my main event for next year along with Tour De Cambridge on the 4th June, just over 4 weeks separating them.
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.
Andy, how do you come to terms with a conflict in your subjective feelings and your readings? What I mean is if all your readings are positive, HRV is up, RHR is down, day, week & month indicators all look more positive, but you feel ?/><@£$%^? Do you then take a rest day or force yourself to train albeit at a lower level than planned?
Hi Sonja, apologies for the delay. I think that’s the real benefit of ithlete, that if you don’t feel good on a training day, but your readings are good/positive, then I will still go with whatever my training plan prescribes for that day. I have done this plenty of times. If I didn’t have ithlete feedback, then it would have been a wasted day in terms of me not training simply because I didn’t feel good enough. in fact I have had very good workouts in this scenario. Sometimes the mind isn’t right but the body is
Hope that helps