2006 Challenge
Originally posted on the main site blog.
I think my biggest trouble meeting racing goals is consistency. Looking back over training logs, it's clear that the best plan in the world would do me little good because I'll only follow a small fraction of it. So I decided to try a few experiments.
1. I want to see if a personal record will motivate consistency.
2. I want to see if consistency benefits my performance as much as quality.
To tackle #1, I decided to see if I could workout 365 consecutive days for at least 20 minutes. Now if I only do the minimum, about 120 hours, the total volume will be far below a normal year. So obviously I'll have to train more than this but I guess that 20 minutes is possible to fit into any day, regardless of circumstances, so 365 consecutive days should be possible. It is also widely known that if you train hard every day, you eventually will burn out and no longer make any progress. So there will be some days when I need to rest and a 20 minute spin on the bike will fit the bill perfectly. Keep in mind all of this is relative. A very competitive athlete may scoff at the idea of calling 20 minutes a workout (I actually started with 30 but sort of cheated and redefined the rules) and a sedentary person may not think 20 minutes on a bike is rest. These definitions may only fit my current situation and that of a handful of other folks. But the question is, will I do it? Will I prioritize this record enough that no matter what, I do something every day? Will I find myself only doing 20 minutes a day and most likely have the worst season of my life? Or, as I hope, will I maintain a constant level of base fitness and save time ramping up from inevitable fluctuations? All this leads to #2 above which will be difficult to measure. I'm still working on that one. I am hoping that even if #2 proves to be false, a side benefit will be more well rounded fitness. I'm starting to get a lot of aches and pains from atrophying muscles that get neglected during cycling. Since one challenge here is to add workouts in odd places and times, I should be doing more non-cycling activities since I won't always be able to ride. I should be doing a lot more plyometrics, core strength and the like. This is something I've severely neglected in the past few years.
So...I started this record 3 times. The first and second attempts were pathetic. I'd get 2-3 days under my belt and something would come up (travel, sleepless night, bad mood, etc.) and I'd just think, what the hell, I'll just start over since I've only lost 2-3 days. So it was obvious I needed to clear some hurdle to make starting over less appealing. Turns out, that hurdle was 5 days. Starting on January 30th, I went a whole work-week without missing a day. Now this started to seem substantial to me and ever since, most my motivation has come from the record. I'm on day 29 right now and I've pulled some "maneuvers" to keep going, like changing the rule from 30 minutes to 20 minutes.
Day 18: By far the most logistically challenging. I had a 6AM flight on my way to Israel. I wasn't due to land until the next day so I either had to workout in an airport during a lay-over or get up ridiculously early to get in the 20 minutes and still make my flight. I got up at 3:30AM.
Day 27: This was probably the hardest and most typical challenge I face. I'm still working on a little jet lag from the Israel trip, Michelle's grandmother is literally deathly ill so the whole family has been in Denver visiting, I get home with the kids and wait till the end of the day to even think about doing any sort of workout. Any other day I would have put the kids to bed and crashed out for the night myself. It was so tempting. I started rationalizing quitting in my head. How beneficial is this going to really be for me? Just one day? One thing I've learned is getting started is 99% of the challenge. Once going, I usually want to keep going. I had to just start. I grabbed a yoga book from the library and found a beginner's routine. Yes, I'm counting ANY physical activity for this record but normally I don't count stretching in the time I record for a workout. This yoga routine seemed arguably close to stretching. I get started. I throw in some core work to extend the very simple yoga routine a little longer and when 20 minutes roll around, I have absolutely no interest in going on. I clearly have no motivation and I feel conflicted about counting the day's activity. But a 27 day streak is just too hard to break. So I'm counting it, vowing to stick to my more "acceptable" routines in the future, as well as working out some more respectable yoga routines for those days when leaving the living room is a challenge.
That's it. First race of the year is Saturday. Just a little crit in town with absolutely no importance to to me. I know I'm no where fit enough to do well or maybe even keep from getting lapped. Typical for this time of year but racing is just plain fun and always gives me a big kick in motivation. I'll surely need it in the next 336 days.
And if anyone feels like checking up on me, I record everything in my online log. You can view summary graphs at http://www.trainingpeaks.com/trpropst.
I think my biggest trouble meeting racing goals is consistency. Looking back over training logs, it's clear that the best plan in the world would do me little good because I'll only follow a small fraction of it. So I decided to try a few experiments.
1. I want to see if a personal record will motivate consistency.
2. I want to see if consistency benefits my performance as much as quality.
To tackle #1, I decided to see if I could workout 365 consecutive days for at least 20 minutes. Now if I only do the minimum, about 120 hours, the total volume will be far below a normal year. So obviously I'll have to train more than this but I guess that 20 minutes is possible to fit into any day, regardless of circumstances, so 365 consecutive days should be possible. It is also widely known that if you train hard every day, you eventually will burn out and no longer make any progress. So there will be some days when I need to rest and a 20 minute spin on the bike will fit the bill perfectly. Keep in mind all of this is relative. A very competitive athlete may scoff at the idea of calling 20 minutes a workout (I actually started with 30 but sort of cheated and redefined the rules) and a sedentary person may not think 20 minutes on a bike is rest. These definitions may only fit my current situation and that of a handful of other folks. But the question is, will I do it? Will I prioritize this record enough that no matter what, I do something every day? Will I find myself only doing 20 minutes a day and most likely have the worst season of my life? Or, as I hope, will I maintain a constant level of base fitness and save time ramping up from inevitable fluctuations? All this leads to #2 above which will be difficult to measure. I'm still working on that one. I am hoping that even if #2 proves to be false, a side benefit will be more well rounded fitness. I'm starting to get a lot of aches and pains from atrophying muscles that get neglected during cycling. Since one challenge here is to add workouts in odd places and times, I should be doing more non-cycling activities since I won't always be able to ride. I should be doing a lot more plyometrics, core strength and the like. This is something I've severely neglected in the past few years.
So...I started this record 3 times. The first and second attempts were pathetic. I'd get 2-3 days under my belt and something would come up (travel, sleepless night, bad mood, etc.) and I'd just think, what the hell, I'll just start over since I've only lost 2-3 days. So it was obvious I needed to clear some hurdle to make starting over less appealing. Turns out, that hurdle was 5 days. Starting on January 30th, I went a whole work-week without missing a day. Now this started to seem substantial to me and ever since, most my motivation has come from the record. I'm on day 29 right now and I've pulled some "maneuvers" to keep going, like changing the rule from 30 minutes to 20 minutes.
Day 18: By far the most logistically challenging. I had a 6AM flight on my way to Israel. I wasn't due to land until the next day so I either had to workout in an airport during a lay-over or get up ridiculously early to get in the 20 minutes and still make my flight. I got up at 3:30AM.
Day 27: This was probably the hardest and most typical challenge I face. I'm still working on a little jet lag from the Israel trip, Michelle's grandmother is literally deathly ill so the whole family has been in Denver visiting, I get home with the kids and wait till the end of the day to even think about doing any sort of workout. Any other day I would have put the kids to bed and crashed out for the night myself. It was so tempting. I started rationalizing quitting in my head. How beneficial is this going to really be for me? Just one day? One thing I've learned is getting started is 99% of the challenge. Once going, I usually want to keep going. I had to just start. I grabbed a yoga book from the library and found a beginner's routine. Yes, I'm counting ANY physical activity for this record but normally I don't count stretching in the time I record for a workout. This yoga routine seemed arguably close to stretching. I get started. I throw in some core work to extend the very simple yoga routine a little longer and when 20 minutes roll around, I have absolutely no interest in going on. I clearly have no motivation and I feel conflicted about counting the day's activity. But a 27 day streak is just too hard to break. So I'm counting it, vowing to stick to my more "acceptable" routines in the future, as well as working out some more respectable yoga routines for those days when leaving the living room is a challenge.
That's it. First race of the year is Saturday. Just a little crit in town with absolutely no importance to to me. I know I'm no where fit enough to do well or maybe even keep from getting lapped. Typical for this time of year but racing is just plain fun and always gives me a big kick in motivation. I'll surely need it in the next 336 days.
And if anyone feels like checking up on me, I record everything in my online log. You can view summary graphs at http://www.trainingpeaks.com/trpropst.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home