This is a great topic to blog about at this time of year! Pacing, pace judgement, ability to adapt how fast/ hard/ you should be training on any given session. How do you know you are training with the right level of intensity?
Your weekly training should include a balanced amount of aerobic endurance sessions, tempo sessions slightly below your identified race pace and importantly, the specific 'quality' workouts where you push yourself for short intervals at or above your threshold, depending on the progression of your overall plan. If you choose to train each of these above the desired intensity, particularly the endurance/ distance sessions, then it's very likely your aerobic capacity will be limited going forward into the race season. Has anyone experienced difficulty finishing strongly in races before, or negative splitting?
This time of year is critical for developing pace judgement by noting the prescribed intensity for each session, learning to listen to your body and interpret its 'gears', and using your training tools intelligently (HRM's, powermeters etc) if you have them. Regular testing, paced sets and time trials all help enormously to discover where your maximum effort levels are, from this you can derive what 'endurance' (easy), 'tempo' (brisk) and 'interval' (fast)pace feels like accordingly.
It all takes time to develop, so be encouraged that it's not always possible to get it right. As long as you are consistently trying to, that is a very good start!
'Good judgement is the result of experience, experience is the result of bad judgment' -Mark Twain
Go well!
Coach Fi
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