5 Training Thoughts for the Week

5 Training Thoughts for the week

1. Make sure you have a goal at the beginning of every training session. This will provide focus for the workout vs. just slogging through some miles. We all know this and I am as guilty as everyone else to just put in some miles for any of the various disciplines. Of course easy aerobic days are necessary for recovery sessions but I think if we all look at our training schedule we tend to lack enough high quality workouts.
2. Get away from all the technology for a few days: no heart rate monitor, watch, cyclocomputer, GPS, etc. Just go out with a goal in mind on a different route than normal. Don’t worry, not monitoring avg. mph, watts, heart rate average, calories burned, miles, time, etc. will be ok for a few days!
3. For each of your workouts this week, consider adding an extra 10% of additional time on each workout. For those of you who adhere to point number 2. without all the “tools” just do a normal route and add some more distance. It’s surprising to me that just by adding such a small amount of time per workout can have significant benefits in overall fitness (consistently over a 6 week period).
4. For the hard bike or run session of the week (ok, yes it’s fine to pull out the technology tools for this session!), set a baseline distance to evaluate in 6 weeks: Example - 5 mile run at 80% target heart rate used to monitor in the future or hill repeat on bike or run – set a baseline and monitor in 6 weeks for next test.
5. At the end of each the training session, write down the following:
a. 3 things that you did well for the workout
b. Based on the session what do you need to improve
c. What is the one thing you could do differently that could help make the mentioned improvement (above)

Summer racing season is coming soon, hope you’re all fired up!