A recovery week is an important part of a training regimen for triathlon and other endurance sports. You cannot keep pushing through with hard workouts, without giving your body some time to recover. During recovery, the body and in particular, your muscles, can repair itself from the ‘damage’ caused by working hard. Muscles get stronger during this repair process.
Another good thing about a recovery week, is that it typically gives you a little more time. I took advantage of the extra time this past week, to try something new. I have always wanted to try cross country skiing and last Saturday, my wife and I joined other members of the Pittsburgh Triathlon Club, on their annual trip to the Laurel Ridge XC Ski Center.
We couldn’t have asked for a better day. There hasn’t been much snow so far this winter, but fresh snow on Thursday and Friday, meant the trails were in great condition. Saturday turned out sunny, and temperatures were in the high 30’s; a little too high for preserving the snow, but great for us.
We had a fantastic time and really enjoyed our first go at this new sport. It won’t be our last time. Inevitably we both fell over a few times, but we survived without injuries and laughed a lot. We capped the day off with a fantastic late lunch on the way home.
Such A Fun Way To Spend A Saturday
The rest of my training week was relatively low key, which is the way it is supposed to be during a recovery week. Here are the workouts I completed:
- Monday – 60 Minute Endurance Ride on my bike trainer
- Tuesday – 45 Minute Aerobic Run
- Wednesday – 60 Minute Endurance Ride with three sets of 10 x 30 second sprints.
- Thursday – 60 Minute Endurance Bike Session
- Friday – 50 Minute Recovery Run on Trails
- Saturday – XC Skiing
- Sunday – 90 Minute Aerobic Run
I have to admit, I pushed quite hard on my Wednesday bike session. I was already feeling super recovered, and as you can see from the power chart below, I kind of ‘went for it’ at the end. I probably shouldn’t have pushed this hard, but I don’t feel it affected my recovery. I say this, because I felt fantastic during my long run on Sunday. I haven’t felt that good running, for quite along time.
This upcoming week, I am going to kick things up a notch with my running. I am going to introduce some harder effort run workouts, to try and improve my cardiovascular system. I expect to be breathing hard, and I’ll write about it in next week’s blog.
I Was Feeling Nicely Recovered When It Came to Sprinting On The Bike
