I use Ascent to track my training recorded by the Garmin Forerunner 305 Since it organizes by weeks, months and years, when Jan 1 rolls around a new training year begins.
I actually bought the 305 in February 2007, so 2008 is the first full year I’ve recorded. I was just short of 200 hours in 2007, so I would have accumulated somewhere around 215 had I started Jan 1. I started 2008 wanting to average at least 5 hours a week, which would be around 250 hours. As it turns out, I did 242. Had October and November been more typical and consistent, I would have topped 250 pretty easily.
In 2009, a 10% bump seems to be an attainable goal, so I’ll shoot for 275 this year. I hope to put some of the lessons I learned this year to good use in attaining it.
What did I learn?
1. Consistency is the single most important factor for improvement. In December my fitness for running built nicely with 5 or 6 runs a week with most sessions under an hour. By using daily, moderate to easy runs as the base pattern, I avoided days or weeks off due to longer recovery or lack of motivation. The overall energy level was good.
2. Keep working at a given level until adapted. I have a tendency to push myself to the edge of my state of adaptation continuously. I think I need to consolidate gains by staying more consistent within a comfort zone.
3. My greatest weakness is muscular endurance. I’ve always had pretty good stamina, an ability to work at a level of intensity for a long time. But I’m not a gifted athlete. No matter how long I work at low levels, I don’t see large improvements. My workout schedule is limited by time.
I’m going to try to keep the slot on Sunday as my long session at lower intensity, but I’m going to push intensity to the upper aerobic level for the other weekday workouts. This month I’ve done that with running exclusively and am getting more comfortable with working for 20 to 30 minutes at about 80% of maximum. I’d like to be able to push for an hour at that level on the bike during training sessions.
This is the upper end of what Joe Friel calls Zone 2:
Joe Friel’s Blog: “Maximize 2-zone training time each week. For now, try to get about 40% of your training time each week in this zone. “
At this point, with a constant power output, my heart rate drifts up after about 20 or 30 minutes. I don’t have the aerobic fitness that I should at what for me is a higher level of effort than I usually awm working at. During the summer I’ll then see whether the longer rides are faster having spent as much time as possible around aerobic threshold.
4. I’m better off mixing up the training modalities. I lost out because I stopped the bike abruptly and started running. It took too long to build up running ability to maintain my overall fitness level. This year I’ll try to switch gradually to the bike through March, but run at least once a week through the summer. Then I’ll transition in fall to mostly running, but stay on the bike weekly.