The over and under on final TDP training.

I've read with intrigue about the dangers of overtraining.  According to Joe Friel's book, The Mountain Biker's Training Bible, overtraining is defined as "a decreased capacity for work that slowly develops from an imbalance between stress and rest."  He goes on to say that "the overtrained athlete experiences declining performance and a nagging exhaustion that no longer responds to a few days of rest." 

My original response to this is, "What a joke!"  Seriously, what working adult steps back and says, "You know, I think a trip to the gym would be bad.  I better sit on my butt and watch T.V. instead if I really want to be at my best this weekend." 

The last time this concept actually made sense was during the grind of college basketball, where every Sunday I would go to my grandparent's house, do laundry, study, eat, and laze around and watch T.V.  And that one day of rest was most glorious and equally imperative for the survival of the proceeding week.

The difference, however, between the two differing attitudes I've previously had equate to, well, namely age and job description.  The difference between a twenty year old whose only responsibilities are to go to class and play basketball, and a thirty-three year old with a full-time job, are significant.  So to get to a level of training in my current life where I actually need to take some time off is rare. 

This week, however, I got close.  Since my training motto has been "ride as much as you can" and I'm one of those humans with strong OCD tendencies, I've been pushing quite hard for the last 5 weeks.  As soon as I received the green light from the orthopedic surgeon following my knee scope, I have hit the ground with one goal in mind:  survive 3 days in a row of being on a bike for over 6 hours.  Again, I do not know really how to train for this.  In my attempts to do so this week I experienced the warning signs that overtraining was creeping in.  I had ridden hard for 3 days, took a day off, then repeated 3 hard days.  By that final third day, my legs were extra heavy and my desire to get out and ride was dull and negative.  I needed to take a break.

I have tried to use Friel's concepts to train for my dabblings in competitive mountain biking.  It always gets skewed during basketball season, though, when I should be putting in serious base mileage for the spring races and instead I do good to get on a bike once a week.  Anyways, he uses periodization training.  In short, since this blog post is way too long (it's raining outside), a biker should use 3 weeks of a month to work and build, then one week of slowed training in order to recover.  This pattern is followed with variations for the year, including an entire month built in for recovery and rest.  Since I get 4 months of "rest" during basketball, I try and follow the 3 on, 1 off method for the spring, summer, and fall. 

At the beginning of this past week, I had 5 weeks in a row of hard training under my belt, and my body was craving some rest.  However, I knew I would be taking the week after next easy because it is the actual week of the tour, aka 220 miles in 3 days.  I was trying to decide which was better, to train hard for 7 weeks in a row and risk going into the ride "overtrained" and fatigued or to listen to my body and rest some this week, even though the OCD in my brain kept repeating my training motto.

I guess I did both, in a way.  3 days this week I put in some solid ride time (7 hours total), but I also took 3 days off (played a little disc golf).  Today had the potential to define the week as a rest week or regular training week.  I had planned on doing a long, tough trail ride at Northshore, which would have made this week the latter.  But since it was raining, I guess a rest week was in the forecast.

So with less than 2 weeks until the Tour de Pink, my plan is to train hard next week, then taper and rest going into California, and then simply enjoy the ride, taking in as much of the sights and memories as possible.  If I'm lacking for endurance, my plan is to simply seek inspiration from the ladies around me.  That will be enough.

Enough rambling for now!  That was my final training report.  The next "report" will be from California, hopefully with some sweet pictures and tales from the Pacific Coast Highway.