I’m currently in week 2 of a MAP building block. Tuesday I did 9 hammers, yesterday a recovery session. Today I’m scheduled for Attacker, followed by two more easy days.
Right now, I feel pretty tired (not helped with a bad nights sleep). Does it make sense to move Attacker to tomorrow, or is this designed specifically so that I only get one day rest after 9 hammers? In other words, am I supposed to be tired going into it?
I’ve done attacker before, and not found it too bad (definitely not compared to 9 hammers!), So I’m not worried that I couldn’t manage it.
@Leon_99 Lack of sleep never helps. You could stay on schedule today and do the workout at reduced targets or flip it with tomorrow’s workout. Only you know the answer but in similar situations I would probably flip workouts, concentrate on hydrating, eating well and managing stress and then going to bed early and see where things are in the morning.
My gut feel is absolutely to flip the session, but since I’m new to these training plans, I wasn’t sure if they are designed to build fatigue over days, in which case I should feel tired and should do the session to get the intended effect. I’m actually surprised in some ways that the load seems quite low. Attacker tomorrow, then two days of easy sessions, then A Very Dark Place on Sunday.
So despite everything above, I started to feel a bit perkier as the day went on. Sometimes I think I just feel bad because I am working !!
I didn’t have any problem.with this session. As I found last time, the attacks just don’t seem that hard to me, so it tends to feel like a bunch of FTP intervals.
The best thing to do is to track how you feel after working out over the weeks, as well as as @JSampson says hydration, sleep, eating, and stress. Remember that the body is affected by both exercise and real life stress - it does not know the difference.
Eventually, you will see the patterns in how your body feels.
Turns out I should have listened to my body in the first place. The session went ok, but it turned out I had covid. Was poorly enough to have a few sofa days, then a very gradual return to the bike after about 10 days. That last session probably was not worth very much in the big scheme.
I’ve started tracking HRV now. I’ll be interested to see if that correlates with how I feel, and I I’ll try to pay more attention to my body next time.
@Leon_99 I use HRV. Unfortunately HRV by itself isn’t foolproof. You have to test consistently each day. But it does provide a data point that you can look at and compare with overall training load and your own gut check to make decisions.
That’s what I was thinking. Another data point to help me differentiate feeling meh because of work, and meh because of over training or illness.
My glands were up before though and that was the most obvious sign that I ignored.
Cross season restarts for me on Sunday, so I’m going to try and pay more attention and make the best of thankfully the bulk of the season still on front of me