Noboby says it better than Joe!

While reading Joe Friel's blog, this post hit home!  I hope you enjoy it.

Seriously?

I spoke at a cycling camp offered by Aspen Sports Performance this past weekend in Moab, Utah. The riding was spectacular and the athletes were all quite impressive, especially given that it was the “off season” (whatever that means) for most of them.

On Saturday during a break in the ride at Arches National Park  (what a beautiful place to ride!) I talked briefly about the purposes and methodologies of training. This prompted one of the riders to ask if he should be “serious” about training year round. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that exact question before, but a lot of athletes have implied it. Here’s what I told him.

How serious you are, which I take to mean how focused you are on training to improve race performance, depends on a couple of things. The first is how challenging your race goal is. It’s okay to take a long break and have a low-key season occasionally in which you do races—if any—just to have fun. If they’re only social outings and you don’t care about the outcomes then there is no reason to be serious with training. In fact, it may not be “training” at all as that implies having a focus on outcome. Instead, all you need is an exercise program. Do what you want, when you want. Totally non-serious.

For seasons in which you are focused on achieving high goals, your level of seriousness can depend on periodization. This following table provides a rough guide as to how serious you might be during each period (see my Training Bible books or search this blog for more details on periodization). In this table, “serious” means, to me, doing workouts that are laser-focused on performance. Not every workout in each period needs to be that way. In any given period some may be 100% focused and others not focused at all. So if half of them are focused the serious-non-serious balance may be 50-50. The non-serious workouts are, essentially, “play.” You’re simply having fun by exercising with friends, exploring new territory while riding or running, exercising in ways that are very much unlike your sport (for example, a cyclist who runs or a triathlete who XC skis), or even taking a day off just because you feel like it.

Period	Typical Length (in weeks)	Purpose (in common order of importance)	% Serious	% Non-serious
Transition	2-6	Rejuvenate	0	100
Preparation	2-6	Prepare to train	60	40
Base 1	3-4	Skills, force, aerobic endurance	80	20
Base 2	3-4	Aerobic endurance, skills, force, muscular endurance	90	10
Base 3	3-4	Muscular endurance, aerobic endurance, skills, force	100	0
Build 1	3-4	Race-specificity	100	0
Build 2	3-4	Race-specificity	100	0
Peak	1-2	Maintain fitness, shed fatigue, race specificity	100	0
Race	1	Shed fatigue, maintain fitness	100	0

Now you can be serious all the time, if you want. I know many athletes who do that. I tend to be that way myself once I get into the base period, so I understand. But if you are this type you need to closely monitor your psychological status. Burnout is common with such athletes. For whatever reason, I’ve met a lot of Ironman athletes who are this way. These few triathletes don’t merely train seriously, they are serious all the time. They wake up thinking about training. They eat thinking about training. They think about training at work. They go to bed thinking about training. And I’m not just picking on Ironman triathletes as I’ve known a couple of other athletes who are this way who aren’t triathletes. Ironman seems to attract highly focused people. And, again, that's okay. Just be sure to monitor yourself. It's easy to dig a deep trench if overly serious.

So, does having this table mean you have to follow it? No, not at all. It’s just my thoughts on how to train if you have set high performance goals for yourself. The key idea here is that the higher your goal, the more serious you must be in regards to the training purpose column above. This becomes critical in the last 12 weeks before the race. During this time you must be serious if you have a high-performance goal. But if you feel the need to take a break from serious training, even though it may be Build 2 and you’ve set very high goals, then by all means just “play” for a while. You’ll race much better if you are enthusiastic and highly motivated but not quite race fit than if you are the other way around.