interestijg discussion. how do I actually know that I need rest? naturally my legs hurt or are somehow tired after a couple of days with workouts. but as we all know: once you are on the bike and start pedalling the “pain” mostly flies away and it just feels fine.
so how do I actually know that the body would need rest or a day with easier workouts?
It’s hard to determine on your own. Going by feel is difficult. Performance on your workout days may be an indicator as well as monitoring your overall training stress.
However, there are some tools like a Whoop and Oura ring that now use biometrics during sleep to tell you whether you are rested or not. I think these can be useful tools to determine when to skip a day. Obviously it’s an investment, but this does connect your body to data to help make better decisions. I skipped my Friday rest day because my Oura ring told me by recovery was poor (Readiness 62). My group ride Saturday (Readiness 79) was amazing. I felt like I could pull all day long.
thx russell,
does strava offer such analysis too?
or some smartwatch, or sportswatch like Garmin etc?
I generally ignore recovery advice from devices. I cannot imagine their algorythm can be accurate for everyone.
It’s difficult but I judge by “feel”. If I am hitting my targets, sleeping well, not feeling lethargic then I don’t take any rest days.
In a 7 day period 1 day is Lazy Mountain which is “active recovery” and 2 workouts are Z2. Assuming no other life stresses this is sustainable for 3-4 weeks.
In May I rode about 60 hours and 1,000 miles for the month. I took very few days off for the month but did replace usual off days with Z1 or Z2 rides. My weekly time on the bike went up by about 5-6 hours on average which yielded my all-time high FTP or roughly a 20 watt bump after the high volume month. 15 hours a week is beyond fun for me so I enjoyed the peak but am not willing to put in that work to maintain the FTP increase.
I think Z1 or low Z2 rides once you reach a high level of fitness (can’t quantify that really) equate to rest days for those with lower fitness levels.
Sounds like you can handle it and mentally if it works for you just keep rolling. Eventually your body will want a rest day and be sure to listen to it especially if you’ve gone a bunch of days without one. I would also pull out intensity on recovery weeks so those are refreshing and prime you for the next three weeks of work, even if you ride all 7 days during those recovery weeks.
What is your life like outside of training?
If you finish your training, and can put your feet up, then you shouldn’t have an issue sustaining this schedule. Especially if you have easy days and recovery weeks built in.
If you are skimping on sleep, or have other outside stressors/commitments during the day, and you’re trying to jam in the half marathon training plan alongside the bike training just to check workout boxes, then it’s probably not sustainable.
One thing to consider would be a bike/run double day. Maybe Fridays run moves to Saturday, which would leave you with a full day off.
Wow - i am just wondering how you guys fit such schedule into your daily life, family, job, time off…? Is there any time left for anything else than workouts?
With fulltime job, wife and two kids I dont see more room than 1-1,5h per day.