My training blocks typically involve three weeks of demanding workouts, followed by a week of recovery.  I have always wondered if I could push the hard workouts for longer before recovering, so five weeks ago, I started a big training block.

It has been an interesting experiment.  The focus of the block was cycling. I did five rides a week, four of which involved high intensity.  Half way through the block, I added in three runs a week; mostly easy effort running.  I did not swim this block, because my pool has been closed for repairs.

The cycling workouts have been tough, but I have made significant gains over the course of these past five weeks.  It is only during this past week that my legs began to feel really tired, and they felt it the mostly on the run.

My last workout of the block was a long run yesterday.  I ran with the City of Bridges Run Club in downtown Pittsburgh.  I might look like I am having fun in today’s photograph, but I felt miserable.  It was one workout too far for my legs. They were destroyed after six miles, and I abandoned the idea of running a few more miles.

Although the run was tough, it was good in the way that it told me, I had reached my training limit for a single block.  I am not sure I will do many five week training blocks anytime soon, but four week blocks might work quite well.  

The key will be how I feel after a recovery week. I’ll know by the end of this week, just how successful my big training block experiment has been.