Gotcha!

One of the most satisfactory feelings when training is to get a particularly difficult workout done to the details prescribed by the coach. It has happened to me several times, particularly close to race days when intensities go up in every sport and sometimes the body is under some strain. Two particular sets are usually troublesome to me but I've tamed them both on my last campaign so hopefully I'll know how to play them when the time comes.

One of them is to run 4 intervals a certain distance in 7.5min. The distance is determined by our results on a VO2 Cooper's test and the idea behind it is that we will be increasing the VO2 values for the next test and therefore improving performance when going anaerobic. It took me quite a few attemps to get it right and this past summer I got there, I did not celebrate property because I was knocked.

The second workout I can't get to do well is a set of 200's on the pool on a given time that allows for little more than 3 seconds rest. This one I managed to get around on the second attempt and the third, but the last time I failed again, a bit demoralizing but nothing to make a big fuzz.

Today I surprised myself with another particularly difficult set nailed. It's my last list at the lab and had to do a 20k TT (better times than 4 weeks ago, so no surprises there) and a 60sec Wingate Test after 5 minutes of complete rest and a bit of spinning to warm the legs up again. I don't know where the idea of a 60sec sprint came in, it's somehow a bit exagerated in my opinion, and I know my legs don't like it either.

But it's all in the name of progress and science, so I'm doing it (ha ha). The suprise came after the longer 60secs of the year so far, when I looked at the chart, it was a perfect descending............. straigth line!!, and all the other variables were OK, so it only meant that my strenght had decayed on a constant rate instead of a big dip, which is, to my interpretation, a big deal, because it means I already have some endurance back in the legs, and this is only the base period. So very happy I decided to do it all again. Not.

I went for a little swim instead, just to stretch, and glide.

Date: 4th May

Sport: Cycling /// Swimming

Time: 70min /// 45min

Dist: n/a /// 2km

Comment: Gotcha! /// pull bouy distance set