{"id":20613,"date":"2015-12-10T06:21:47","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T06:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/?p=20613"},"modified":"2015-12-10T06:21:47","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T06:21:47","slug":"back-to-basics-with-the-triathlon-training-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/2015\/12\/back-to-basics-with-the-triathlon-training-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to Basics with the Triathlon Training Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s back to basics this week with my triathlon training plan, thanks to a bout of illness. A nasty cold, chest infection, man-flu, lurgy, whatever you want to call it, I had it and it wasn’t much fun. I obviously stopped training as soon as it developed fully and then left it for just over a week. There was no way I would have been able to do any training for much of this time even if I’d tried to force it. However, after more than a week of this I was beginning to go mad<\/a> and was worrying about losing all those hard earned gains I’d made over the previous few months, so just had to do something.<\/p>\n

Back to Basics<\/h2>\n

After a weekend in Bristol I was still feeling a little under the weather and the session at Air Hop<\/a> tired me out and didn’t do wonders for my back either. However, Monday was the start of a new week, so it was time to get back to basics with my periodised training plan. It had been going well and the usual meso-scale periodisations of a low volume, mid volume, high volume, recovery week progression had been suiting me well. A week of no training thanks to the lurgy had obviously disrupted this and my carefully\u00a0worked out plans had to change. I decided to start back with a recovery week in order to get myself back in the groove. A typical Monday on a recovery week for me is an easy hour on the turbo trainer all in an aerobic zone, and a 20 minute easy run, so that was my plan.<\/p>\n

\"Suited<\/a>

Suited Up<\/p><\/div>\n

Monday morning dawned and I still didn’t feel 100%, but thought I’d give it a go anyway. Shem then phoned and asked if I wanted to go for a surf – I couldn’t really say no, so first I donned my wetsuit. I was still feeling a little vulnerable so wore my boots, gloves and hood too.<\/p>\n

The surf was OK but not that good so after about 1 and 1<\/sup>\/4<\/sub> hours I got out and headed home ready for my bike and run.<\/p>\n

The bike and run didn’t feel too bad, both were at and easy intensity and therefore slow pace and I did feel a little sluggish and tired but that was to be expected. I completed them though and felt quite good about finally having done something again. That was short-lived though as I soon felt terrible again. Aching all over, very stiff, terrible headache and the lurgy was back in control.<\/p>\n

Take Two<\/h2>\n

I was up much of the night coughing as well so didn’t get a great deal of sleep, but by Tuesday some of the aches and pains had subsided so I stuck to the revised plan with a 1.5 hour easy aerobic session on the turbo trainer. Again, I completed it but it wasn’t the best of performances. At least the aches and pains didn’t come back too viscously that evening.<\/p>\n

Time for a Test<\/h2>\n

Don’t worry, I didn’t decide to really test myself on Wednesday, but my usual recovery workout on a Wednesday morning is a MAF test run on the track. Essentially I run around the track keeping my heart rate in the 135-140bpm range and record my pace per mile. I’d been seeing some improvement in this pace over the past few months<\/a>, with it dropping from over 8 minutes per mile down to 7:43 minutes per mile. So, Wednesday morning dawned and I was on the track at 7am. Track running might not be the most exciting of pastimes, especially at this intensity, but I do quite look forward to these sessions as they are easy but are used as a gauge to improvements. Unfortunately today\u00a0my pace was terrible. I may have gone back to basics with the training plan, but it seems as though I’m back to basics in terms of performance too. I kept my heart rate at around 139bpm, but could only manage a pace of 8:17 minutes per mile – right back down to where I was 3 months ago in September.<\/p>\n