Posted by Today I had a both a run and a swim. I had to remind myself to keep both sessions easy because this is a down week.
The definition will differ depending on whom you talk to, but for us, it’s typically lower volume and lower intensity. We’re still active everyday and there will even still be some hard efforts thrown into parts of some workouts, but mostly it’s a week where everything is scaled back just a bit. The focus should be on recovering physically and mentally to prepare for the next block. It’s a key part of the periodization of my training plan.
Periodization is a common topic among endurance athletes. I first came across the subject as a triathlon newbie. That was a time when I trying to soak up as much as I could—a common pattern when I get engrossed in new pursuits. It describes methodology to training plans such that they’re subdivided into smaller cycles and include periods of high, moderate, and low intensity and/or volume.
The idea is to put your body under some stress for stretches of days to weeks, then allow for some recovery, and repeat while—hopefully—coming back a little stronger the next time around. There can also be different blocks of training weeks, such as the “Base” or “Build” phases, with different focuses. Much of the common theory of periodization for triathlon-specific training was popular by Joel Friel’s <a href="http://<span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@worldsbetweenlines?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Patrick Hendry</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/rock-climbing?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a>The Triathlete’s Training Bible.
There’s no way a plan covering months out can predict how individual bodies will respond to cycles of stress and recovery, and yet, there’s a still tendency to interpret a periodized plan too rigidly. My coach instead uses the plan as a guide but will make adjustments on the fly, week-to-week or even day-to-day, depending on our feedback and ongoing training results. He even encourages us to make the call ourselves.
So for the down week, you might think, Less work? that sounds great! But, it’s not always an easy task. As with most overachievers, I have a tendency to push myself more than I should. Not a good idea this week. There will be “up” weeks to follow and more down weeks as well. I might be able to get more out of my up weeks if I take my down weeks seriously.
So as a reminder to myself: make the easy workouts easy.
Photo by Gemma Evans on Unsplash
Out and Back 