Structured Training

Of me: 17km yesterday in two runs, a test of the achilles to see how it copes. I have slowly worked up to 10km a day no problems, still just the one key session on Saturday, 80km per week. I think I am back to where I was just after I injured during 10km at AMA wearing spikes. I am able to train and even race but doing everything in moderation to allow the body time to repair. As it gets better I will slowly add more volume and another key session

In Bega: Keith 5 x 800m in 2:47, 2:48, 2:48, 2:46, 2:45 on grass oval with 200m jog recovery...not a dog in sight and almost summer form.

An excerpt from an excerpt on ''inrng''. One of the many great articles on this site.

""A day in the life
Michael Hutchinson’s book “Faster” details a discussion with Team Sky’s coach Tim Kerrison about a training session on Tenerife for Bradley Wiggins during his 2012 approach to the Tour de France:

“The details of a session would cover an A4 page… A big day. Six hours, with 4,000 vertical metres of climbing – we probably do 16,000m a week. Four efforts: the first on San Miguel climb, two minutes capacity, one minute recovery. Then into 27 minutes of mid-zone three, with nine minutes at normal cadence, nine minutes at 50rpm, and repeat.
Second effort is the same, except that it is 32 minutes; ten minutes of low-to mid-zone three, then a one minute spike at five-minute capacity pace, so you get zone three, a spike, zone three, a spike. Third effort of the day, on the Grenadier climb, is low- to mid-zone three, and ten minutes of normal cadence, ten minutes of torque. Fourth effort is on a different climb again and it’s more a high zone three, but this time every kilometres we do a sprint of progressively 15, 20 and 30 seconds”

That’s not an A4 page but gives you some detail. Note “capacity” is a rider’s maximum five-minute power and Hutchinson says the low cadence is designed to help riders cope with attacks in the mountains, to improve torque for “a sudden acceleration against a low inertial load”. If the plan sounds precise it’s also remarkably similar to a mountain stage in the Tour de France: six hours, beaucoup climbing and a range of efforts that go from being paced up a mountain by team mates to kind of efforts you make on the final climb with accelerations and even sprints.
If all these training efforts are trying to replicate racing why aren’t the riders racing? Because training is about creating structured efforts in a controlled environment. There’s a lot going on in a race and even more outside it. Avoid crashing and once the finish line is crossed the day is far from done, there might be a podium ceremony and press conference and then an hour’s roadtrip to a hotel before massage and dinner in unfamiliar surroundings.""