Gutted is an understatement…
A couple of days after completing the Tour of Sufferlandria (ToS) I managed to pick up a cold (see post). I was hopeful it would only last a couple of days and I would be back up and running by the weekend. Well I was wrong.
So 6 days after the start of the cold I finally felt like I could get back on the bike. I have missed all high intensity training for a week and missed 4 days of cycling all together… the impact this has had on my training and fitness is soul destroying. As a result of the illness my CTL has dropped from 95.5 to 83… only 3 higher than the start of the tour… basically making the last two weeks completely useless.
I returned to low intensity workouts yesterday with the view of returning to plan tomorrow. If I can hit 100% power then I know I will be good to go. If not, I know I’m going to have to back off a bit.
It’s a massive kick in the balls as I was feeling so strong at the end of the ToS. I was going to complete a FTP test last weekend as I thought I could break the 300W barrier. Instead I’m just going to concentrate on getting back to fitness and preparing for the first race on the 6th March. A 24m hilly time trial.
I need to reflect on this as I can use this to prevent illness in the future. At the end of the ToS I had a TSB of -38.8. It’s not the lowest I have ever gone so it is not a ‘no go zone’, but it obviously puts me at a higher risk of catching an illness. If I find myself in this zone in the future, I should be very selective who I come in contact with.
I have started to utilise the ‘metrics’ function on Training Peaks also… It is going to be most useful for understanding recovery and well being… as well as providing additional trending of weight related measurements.
Gutted for you Russ. Training peaks really did provided fascinating insight. My tsb got down to 56.6 at the end of the tour. I am guessing this is not good!
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