Advice suggestions before a holiday/cycling training camp

Training
, , , ,
1

Hi Everyone.

The past few weeks have been a nightmare. I had to admitted to hospital due to infections on my fingers and toes that required emergency chilblain treatment. I needed to be in for 5 days and in that time the nutrition was sparce to say the least, i was dosed on drugs and really tired. I definitely lost weight from a very very low bar (~61/62kg @ 180cm) :frowning:

The first week out I tried a few unstructured rides then thought I’d try and get back into it with Antelope. It was a struggle to honest and had me questioning my indoor bike fit for lack of power. I have been really struggling to recover, even the endurance rides at the weekend were done at a power that I would normally be ok at (~140w Avg) but felt hard tbh.

I am due to go to Mallorca for a holiday and taking my bike (I marked this as a stage race with day after day longish miles depending on weather etc, I would like to do some long rides but it’s really just a final base mileage top off.

That leads me to this week. I am not sure how to approach it, so I am opting for a taperish style week. I did Anticosti on Tuesday but got absolutely obliterated, I would have rated at Very hard if it didn’t have such low recovery bounds. I was struggling to hit and hold the power definitely. Is this a fuelling issue? or simply a weakness thing. I am respecting todays yellow day with 1hr at a very low wattage (Bald -2).

My final question is to ask what would you recommend for tomorrow (Thursday). I am unsure whether to go for:

  1. A 20min opener followed by a 30min easy spin,

  2. Opt for a shorter VO2 on off style to get the system primed for a week of hotter miles in the hills.

  3. An interval workout as would be prescribed in the base phase of the training plan (workouts I deleted for this week/likely Sweetspot).

  4. full rest/like walking etc

I am due fly very early on Friday morning so plan to do a bike set up and acclimatisation ride on Friday afternoon (~90-120mins) to make sure me and the bike are all above board.

Any thoughts on how to approach my training calendar this week, the week in Mallorca and advice to build up from a poor few week of stagnating performance.

Calendar → Calendar - TrainerRoad

Best wishes,

Michael

2

If you are like me, I’d avoid any intensity on Thursday which would keep me awake all night. I’d vote for option 4, you’ll have plenty of intensity when you get there. Id just take Mallorca how it comes though and enjoy it.

PS I hope you are on the mend! I’ve been through the dramatic weight loss my self in the past but thankfully I’m a pretty stable 62-63kg at 175cm these days. I think during chemo I was 47kg at one point. Ironically during my previous illness that required that chemo which the symptoms are rapid weight loss I had none and the opposite was true a very slight weight increase.

The other time I had a weight fluctuation, was about 30 years ago when I took Pancreatitis and went from 73kg to 50kg in a month. After a spell in hospital it miraculously cured itself and I was discharged.

3

Rest

4

Thanks everyone.

I’ve been extremely low on confidence since the middle of February when I did galena successfully and Starlight -2.

I’m not looking for any intentional intensity in Mallorca. Just trying to enjoy it without feeling bad about my numbers.

Hence my desire to do some kind of achievablely hard session. Such as 4x5min threshold with long low recovery periods. Just a session I hope I could achieve that get rid of the notion that my body is going to the dogs .

I won’t be doing anything more than 60-90min on the day I arrive due to travel, bike set up etc.

Isn’t there any wisdom to the notion of keeping intensity and reducing of moderately intense mileage?
Hence the one hr z5/6 efforts with v low recovery arts on Tuesday. But only 1hr.
V easy 1hr yesterday and then 1hr with 4x 5min threshold?