June has seen the continuation of my zone two training which is basically MAF level training to develop my aerobic and fat burning ability. June also sees a little event right smack bang in the middle, an event that should really send any persons heart racing – our wedding!
Now I hear you say that you are not seriously thinking of still using ithlete during your wedding and honeymoon are you? Well the thing is that ithlete is so easy and simple to use I’ve really no excuse not too! Early June was pretty uneventful, I did the test, had my breakfast and looked at the result on ithlete Pro. The results then set the training for the day, be it rest, training light (Aerobic) or have a HIIT day. Most of the results were green in the normal zone with a few light zone results. This training is not really stressful enough to produce a response to training and I suspect that the lighter days are a result of work pressures and early mornings.
So the wedding soon came up on us and the two of us, and our two dogs travelled up to Gretna Green for a long weekend! We had booked a holiday cottage in the Lake District for our honeymoon for a relaxing week and some long walks with the dogs, we dropped the dogs off for a fee nights at some kennels on the way to Gretna. The morning of the wedding I actually had a green result, well it was a pretty relaxed event with just the two of us and a few coach loads of Japanese tourists of course!
As expected the day after we both were a little worse for wear resulting in a light training day and my new wife was really supportive in my HRV taking activities! I definitely wasn’t training anyway this next week so I just wanted to keep the data consistent for future weeks.
During the honeymoon Keen had a cold but my HRV was not affected and even after an epic 7-hour hike through the Lake District on the Wednesday my HRV remained in the green. The last two weeks of June I continued training in MAF and had mostly green results as the efforts, although all over 2 hours, are not particularly intense. I could almost predict the result, depending on my shift pattern, late nights at work and if i had any really early mornings.
In the last w
eek of June I rode in the first round of the summer cyclocross series, a mass start of vets and seniors. The morning of the race I had recorded a lower than usual HRV that indicated in ithlete Pro for me to take it easy. As this was a training race and I’d not really rested for it, usually I’d of had an easy aerobic ride of around an hour to recover, but as I’d paid and wanted to race I decided to go ahead. Maybe it was nerves that reduced my HRV knowing I was racing that day? I hadn’t done any big efforts in the days before and my sleeping and eating habits remained the same. Nevertheless I rode the race and actually felt really powerful, the 2 months worth of Z2 training, developing my fat burning ability and listening to my body using ithlete Pro had really paid off. Now I never won or got in the top 3 – I came 7th out of 70 riders and achieved my highest ever sprint power on the final push to the line – 1320 watts.
Why was I happy with 7th!? Well I’ve not even started any hard efforts yet and this result was on the back of sensible training using ithlete Pro, listening to my body and allowing for correct recovery. July brings me the introduction of some sweet spot training for the next two months as my build up continues – let’s see how my HRV will respond to this increased effort.