Following the Santa Barbara 100, I had planned a couple of weeks of low volume training, followed by the start of the first foundation training block for the 2022 season. Somewhere along the line, I became demotivated, and I did not feel like getting on the bike. In the process, I also lost a bit of fitness, exacerbating my feelings of frustration.
When the new training block started, it hit me like a brick wall. I struggled to complete the 4×20 sweet spot intervals. I started to question why I was “torturing” myself like this. The first week of the block was a real nightmare for me, and I did not stick to the plan. This only made me feel worse, because now, on top of feeling bad about having lost my motivation, I also felt guilty for failing to stick to the plan. I felt like I really let myself down.
Now, I am half way through the second week of the training block, and I feel like I am starting to turn the corner. I had a good training session yesterday, even though my execution score was only 68%. I think it was a good session for a couple of reasons. First, I started to feel like my fitness is coming back. Second, and perhaps more importantly, during the workout, I was able to tune out the negative/critical thoughts and focus on positives, encouraging self-talk. I told myself that fitness will come, and it is not the end of the world if my training session doesn’t go as well as I would like. This is something that I need to get better at.
The workout was another 4×20 minute sweet spot interval. I was able to hit my power target of 260 to 277 watts for the first three 20-minute intervals. But a little more than half way through the fourth interval, I cracked and I was not able to hold my 3-second average power in the prescribed range. At around five minutes into that fourth interval, I began to feel like I would not be able to complete the interval. I had run out of water, and my heart rate started to spike up. My legs were on fire and feeling weak. However, I encouraged myself to press on, and I was able to go another seven minutes until I finally cracked. At that point, rather than stop the session, I completed the remainder of the workout, with about 20 minutes of recovery.
The “win” here is that I walked away from the workout feeling like I was starting to get “back on track”–whatever that means.