Bumps in the Road...

"Those aren't bumps in the road...they are the road." -Michel Mirowski MD, Holocaust survivor, inventor of the Implantable Cardiac Defibrillator.

If you read many books on training, somewhere along the line you will see an approach to planning out your year that goes something like this:

1) Identify your Key (A) races, for which you want to taper and peak; your Intermediate priority (B) races, for which you want to minimally taper; and your Training (C) races for which you "train through".

2) Based on this race schedule, plan out your Base, Build, Peak and Taper phases for your annual plan.

3) Fill in every workout for the year, taking into account your limiters and test results.

Now I applaud those with the drive and organizational skills to complete all 3 steps of this plan, but personally, I need the flexibility to adjust for all the "bumps" that occur throughout the year. Many of us face demanding and dynamic work schedules, personal and family challenges, and injury/health complications that pop up throughout the year. Knowing this, I approach my year by completing steps 1 and 2, and fleshing in step 3 every 3 weeks or so. While I resist doing so, sometimes I have to modify step 2...

It was with mixed emotions that I scrubbed my trip to Italy to compete in the Gran Fondo Sportif. Training and racing in Italy has been a long time goal of mine, and it looked like this was finally going to be the year...However, delays on my research study pushed the peak patient enrollment period right over the Gran Fondo, so while I was happy and excited to finally start on this critical piece of research work, I was extremely disappointed to miss the Gran Fondo...and I was now faced with rearranging my race schedule. I had taken a planned break after the New Orleans IronMan 70.3, with the goal of rebuilding my aerobic base in May and June prior to the Gran Fondo. While I continued re-building my base, I quickly cobbled together a June "C" race block in place of the Fondo, which included the SC State TT (4th in my AG), Festival of Flowers Olympic Distance Tri (6th in AG, but 3rd in the run split for AG), and the Candlelight 5k run (2nd in AG). The point of these races was to gauge my limitors at the end of this aerobic block, and I learned quite a bit: 1) a disappointing result in the State TT tells me I have to focus on cycling muscular endurance during the build period, 2) a strong run split in the Festival of Flowers Tri tells me that I am relatively strong in the run, but more importantly, I can probably go harder on the bike and still be competitive in the run. 3) The candlelight 5k tells me I can build enough speed from aerobic run training that I don't need any true "speed work" to be triathlon competitive, and thus I can avoid the risk of running injuries. This is why I feel "C" races are so important; it could be a local sprint tri for the multisport athlete, or the Tues night SC TAC races for cyclists, but you learn so much by testing yourself in a race situation. Also, it's so important to be flexible, and not have your season totally derailed by the "bumps", after all, who knows...you could travel all the way to Italy and encounter a weather related race cancellation, then you will REALLY need to be flexible...