If you've read my last few posts you'll know I'm not exactly over confident in my abilities at the moment. Partly this is because of how I have felt out on the road, but also its because I haven't really known where I am (training plan wise) in the grand scheme of things.
A few emails with my coach has put me straight on this. I'm still in the "base" phase, working on endurance and getting my body used to using fat as a fuel. The rides I've been doing (while slightly frutrating from a "performance" aspect) have been spot on in the grand plan, i.e. sticking to the zones. Next will come the building phase when I will start to mimic the main goals (races), so I'll be hitting the hills big time. At this point I think I'll be begging for a nice zone 2 ride :-)
From this though my coach said a couple of things I found very interesting. At least coming from the usual "flog myself to death everytime" school I found them interesting, so I thought I'd share them with you. I'm sure he won't mind!
"Your goal is to maximise your time in zone when set and understand what it truly 'feels' like here at this exact intensity so that if you had no heart rate monitor or power meter you could ride the whole sportive on 'feelings' and 'emotions' alone.
"Training is an art form in understanding what intensities, heart rate, power / watts, cadences, breathing, technique, relaxation feels like to you so that you know what to do when things don't go to plan and so that you can keep going... and going... and going... and be able to surge, attack, climb strong, time trial without fear and knowing exactly what the effort will take out of you going forwards to the finish line."
Its certainly an interesting thought to know your body that well to always know exactly what you're current effort is. And I love "training is an art form". While I probably won't achieve it much I'm going to repeat that to myself over and over...
No comments:
Post a Comment