Yesterday was a really good day of training for me.  As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, I swam my fastest ever 100 yard interval.  Today, my workouts didn’t go so well.

I had an easy Zone 2 run for 35 minutes at lunchtime.  With all the snow and ice outside, I chose to do this run on the treadmill.  The run went quite well, but I didn’t feel on top form.

This evening, it was time for the hardest bike session of the week.  After some warm up sprints, I had a 10 x 1 minute interval set, doing them as hard as I could, but with high cadence. 

During the warm up sprints, my legs felt totally dead. My quads were feeling fatigued and starting to hurt.  I was feeling bad and I hadn’t even started the main interval set.  Sure enough, the first couple of one minute intervals were very painful.  I just couldn’t push the kind of power that I feel I normally can and my quads were dying.  

The thought of quitting the workout crossed my mind, but I decided that it would better to do the interval set at lower power than normal, than not doing it at all.  I was working my legs hard, even though the results were not there, and that is the key.  Adaptation and getting stronger, comes from pushing your muscles to really work hard.  I was definitely doing that.

I did finish the intervals and the last two of them, actually showed better results, even if they were very painful.  It was such a relief to get to the last five minutes, which was an easy effort cool down and the end of my workout felt even better.  My quads are still ‘burning’ now, a few hours later.

These past few days are a great example of why it is important to stay level headed during training.  Some days will be amazing and others with feel terrible.  Most will be somewhere in between.  Consistency is the key however …  do the work and the results will come over time.