For those of you that have multiple activities in your life how do you “periodize” or plan to avoid overdoing it?
In my case I have a few gravel and mountain bike races this coming season. My A race is The Vermont Overland with a Saturday gravel race and Sunday 15 mile trail run. In addition to running and biking I lift weights 2-3x weekly and I live with an hour of multiple ski reports so downhill skiing anywhere from 1-3 times a week. My winter plan is to treat lifting and skiing as the higher stress activities and stick to tempo or lower for bike/run (snowshoe run). My bike/run volume is currently <5 hours a week and I was doing 8-12 hours last summer so certainly not overdoing that. The hardest thing to quantify for me is the skiing, so the follow up question is for those with skiing experience- how do you plan your other activities around skiing?
This is me to a T. Short answer - you have to pick what matters most, and you CANNOT do or expect yourself to be able to prioritize and do everything at the same time.
Biking has been big for me the last couple years, but I try and keep up a lifting routine, I’m trying to add in some heat training / Sauna, I’m a Skier, Hunter/Fisherman/Boater, Golfer, etc.
What I’d recommend is this - if you’re skiing in the winter and that’s important to you, then you have to cut back on and make other things secondary. Less biking, less intensity, more train now, maybe a low volume plan. For me - the fall I scale back biking and do other things, and if I’m skiing in the winter, I dial back the biking and training for it.
Skiing absolutely can be tough on the legs and full day basically needs to get treated like a moderate-hard lifting session or a moderate-hard bike workout. You can’t expect to come home that night and knock out a hard intensity workout or even the next day. But - feel it out. If you’re light cruising groomers vs. a day of Sierra Cement and bumps, those are going to register differently.
For me - I pick times of the year where on-the-bike work takes priority, and then times that it doesn’t. Prioritize what makes you happiest, but you can’t prioritize it all.
You’d be surprised that it isn’t necessarily the case. The vacuum of “work” quickly fills up with other things and more recovery time is needed when you get to retirement age.
I can easily believe that this is generally true, but there have been a few retired guys on the endurance Internet who hit some pretty inspirational (to me, at least) training volumes.
This is a much wider problem for me than just physical activity. I have a difficult challenging job that always has to take priority as it pays the bills. I did cut to 4 days a week but can’t afford that really so often end up working 5 or 6 days a week, albeit with much more flexible time.
I have 6 horses I care for and their welfare obviously needs to be a priority. I also do agility work with them but I no longer stress about how often I do this and instead just focus on doing what I can, when I can. We no longer enter agility courses online as the course prep and monthly championship was so time and energy demanding. They still get regular fun time but I no longer worry about how I’m going to teach a certain trick in a couple of weeks. I just remind myself they are happy, healthy and better off than if I hadn’t taken them on. Especially this little one who was off for slaughter. He’s holding his favourite fetch toy, incase you were wondering.
I paint. That’s totally on the back burner and it can take weeks or months to complete a painting for myself. Quicker if I am doing it for a gift. I quite often draw pictures for people rather than paint as I can draw with my legs up resting, and its easier to pick up/put down. whereas painting requires sitting at an easel making a huge mess that needs cleaning up.
I have a 92 year old elderly mother with alzheimer’s who lives an hour and a half drive away. I try and fit visits in with work or cycling when I can. I rode there over Christmas, for example. Its particularly hard as the care home dont really like visitors after 4 pm and often, even when working in the area, I finish too late to get there.
I have two dogs to walk, although they are lucky and have a lot of space to run around where we live, I often feel guilt for not taking them further afield.
So when it comes to cycling and strength the pressure is already on trying to fit in:
increasing endurance for my favourite long events.
mtbking technical riding
social riding so I actually get time with my friends
structured training
strength work for longevity
plyometrics for bone health
And then resting. When am I supposed to do that? Mostly it happens when I blow up and have no choice.
