I guess I enjoy writing my own training plan for the same reason I used to write music. The difference there was the social aspect. I did compose a couple of pieces just for me, but what I really enjoyed was figuring out what to put down in the score to get musicians to create a unique and satisfying experience.
At first I had very specific ideas about what should happen. I wanted to control every aspect of the sound. To accomplish this I piled on lots of dynamic, tempo, and articulation marks, as if any time a musician were to execute what I notated perfectly, the piece would sound the same.
I think it was during a summer music festival between my sophomore and junior years that I had a profound insight. I was not treating the performer as an artist. As an equal. A good performance will always be a partnership between the composer and performer. I began to see composing music more like writing a play. I create the core and the musicians embellish, in much the same way as actors and directors, costume designers and set designers give a fresh rendering of a play.
I am beginning to see where coaching is a lot like composing. And, having said that, I can see how different coaches with different styles may not enjoy developing training plans as much as I do. Who knows, maybe when I retire I should give coaching a try.
My latest project is how to accommodate the changes that normally take place as we age. I read Joe Friel's Fast After 50 when it first came out, but never really absorbed much of the details other than the need for more recovery time. When I took on the challenge of long course triathlon I purchased one of his plans designed for older athletes. It worked well and I might have done better had I stuck more closely to his plan. When I did not get the results I had hoped for I became an 80/20 convert. I must admit the Matt Fitzgerald plan I followed last year worked well and I had my best race ever, by far. I was following pretty much the same plan since February this year when a series of setbacks resulted in me deciding not to do Honu this year. And, as you know, Honu was eventually cancelled anyway.
It was while I was struggling with my eyesight issue and my poor marathon performance -- I saw more doctors this winter than I typically see in a decade -- that I realized that turning 70 was a significant event. I decided to go back and read Fast After 50 again. This time I paid closer attention. The result has been a complete shift in my approach to training.
Before I get to the specifics I must point out that Friel's book covers much more than how to schedule workouts. He has gathered an enormous collection of facts and study results that pertain to the senior athlete, and includes many guest authored sidebars that shed more light on what it means to be old and remain active. In short, if you are past 40 and an endurance athlete, you need to read this book. Someone (not me) asked him on Twitter if he was considering a sequel, like Fast After 70. I thought that was a great idea. Joe replied that he had approached his publisher with that very thought, but his publisher thought the audience was too small! (As I write this I see hints he is working on a book about coaching. Hope that comes true.)
Early in the book Friel points out that senior athletes typically fall into the habit of doing exclusively long and slow workouts, often referred to as LSD (Long, Slow, Distance). This results in a significant loss of aerobic capacity, as typically measured by VO2Max. We cannot stop the natural decline in VO2Max, but we can decrease the rate of decline by doing regular workouts at high intensity. Specifically, intervals with equal duration work and recovery segments, at or near VO2Max effort (meaning very hard).
In a similar way, the senior athlete often experiences a loss of lactate threshold. And, as with aerobic capacity, he describes in great detail how to perform interval sets to stimulate LTHR and FTP. There is no getting back to being in your twenties, but there is a lot we can do to hold onto what we have an keep going strong.
A third category of workout is good old LSD. He classifies these workouts as aerobic threshold. Harder than a Sunday bike ride with your family, but not much harder.
Last but not least comes strength training. The aging athlete will struggle to maintain muscle mass due to the natural decease in testosterone and other hormones. Lifting weights triggers the body's natural muscle development process and increases the levels of the hormones that contribute to successful performance. This is not go to the gym and get pumped strength training. He gives specific examples, and there is more in his Triathlete's Bible.
Next he goes into dose. How much work to do. He simplifies this beautifully by creating three dose ranges, high, medium, and low. For high intensity workouts the variable is reps. For aerobic threshold it is duration.
It is at this point that his genius really comes through. He assigns each workout type a priority based on the length of the target race and the training period -- base, build, peak, etc. All of these ingredients are arranged in easy to use tables. All you have to do is determine which period you are in, the priorities that apply based on the duration of the race, and lay out a week. This gives you three or four key workouts every week. After that it is up to you to fill in some additional low intensity work. Note that he does not specify which sport to use. He does explain when cross training works and when it does not. Above all he stresses the need for recovery. To reap the benefits of these hard workout days we must allow more rest time than we did when we were young. That is why senior athletes drift into doing LSD exclusively. A well done aerobic capacity or lactate threshold workout will leave you feeling drained for at least a day.
What I am trying is an alternating emphasis. I use a three day mesocycle, two hard weeks followed by a week that starts with plenty of rest and finishes with performance testing. I make the first week run intensive and the second week bike intensive. I do the anchor workouts in the featured sport and fill in the easy stuff with the other. The exception is the aerobic capacity workout, which for now is always done on the bike to reduce the risk of injury. Later, during build, if the run will be hilly I will do these as hill repeat runs.
In my last post I mentioned that some workouts are better done on the turbo trainer. To be useful, the high intensity workouts need to be done at just the right intensity. This is hard to control on the road. The low intensity workouts can accommodate some variability, and spending too much time on the trainer results in a loss of bike handling skills. Besides, it is much more enjoyable to get out and ride, and here in Hawaii we can all year.
Here is an example of a run intensive week in the late base period.
Priorities:
- Aerobic Capacity
- Aerobic Threshold
- Lactate Threshold
- Strength Training
I put ST workouts on Monday, AC workouts on Tuesday, LT workouts on Thursday, and AT workouts on Saturday, regardless of dose. How much of each to do -- the dose -- is based on the priority for this period. So in this case ST will be low dose, AC will be high dose, AT will be medium dose, and LT will be low dose.
Fill those in and the week looks like this. (The encoding is mine.)
Mon
ST-FB-LD (FB means full body)
Tue
gdC-AC-HD-01 (do AC on bike, even in run week)
Wed
nothing yet
Thu
gdR-LT-LD-01
Fri
nothing yet
Sat
gdR-AT-MD-130
Sun
nothing yet
For a bike intensive week the Thursday and Saturday workouts are of the same type as above, just done on the bike.
The next step is to fill in some swim workouts and recovery workouts. For a run week the recovery workouts are done on the bike, and the reverse is true for bike weeks.
There is great temptation to fill up the schedule the way a typical triathlon schedule looks. Especially those Sundays. But the foundational idea is that senior athletes need more recovery time. Keep doing two-a-days and long weekends and in a month or two the wheels fall off.
I don't have a race to train for, so this is a perfect opportunity to try this out. I am just getting started, so stay tuned for progress updates.
