In training, you’ll have good weeks and you’ll have bad weeks. There are weeks you will go in thinking you can do anything, then fall flat on your face. There are weeks you’ll be too cautious and you’ll be ready for anything. This is part of the process, with a lot of practice, you’ll better be able to predict how your body will react to different stimuli (training and otherwise) so you can make better choices. No matter how much you practice, there will always be unexpected things that creep up and throw off your plan. Regardless of what happens, keep doing your best, learn from your mistakes and move on.
This Porridge is Too Hot
At some point, probably many points, you’re going to get too ambitious and set too high of expectations for yourself. This might be when you’re adding something new to your routine and you are excited to jump in with both feet. This could also be when you’re trying to train around another life event, maybe travel, maybe a busy week at work, maybe in laws in town for the holidays. When I don’t think I can get out and do what I planned, I try to push myself to get out and do something, but even when that doesn’t work, I try not to beat myself up too much. There is a lot of red on my TrainingPeaks calendar, I don’t like to see it, I know those are missed opportunities, but I also understand that all I can do is try to do better moving forward.
This Chair is Too Soft
For me, it’s not as common, but I’ve also had training weeks where I complete everything according to plan and am hungry for more. These tend to happen when I’m over compensating from some weeks where I didn’t complete the planned work. These look great on TrainingPeaks since they’re all green, but I know I could have done more. These weeks are okay too, but you want to reflect on them and hopefully push yourself a little harder in the future.
This Bed is Just Right
Some weeks will feel great, you completed things as you expected and know you left it all out there. These are the weeks you’re feeling great with your training, you’re feeling stronger, you know you’re on the right track and you can’t wait to keep going. These are great weeks, but after them you need to be careful to not set up something too hard. Keep going on the same track with small increments into difficulty to try to stay the course.
Continual Learning
No matter how long you plan your training, you’ll never plan a perfect week, every week. As you go, you’ll get better at planning for upcoming things that could impact your training and you’ll have a better idea of how to introduce new things or make changes. If nothing else, you shouldn’t miss by as much as when you were first starting out because you’ll know yourself better and you’ll be able to estimate an appropriate amount of work for yourself. A trainer I worked with briefly suggested aiming for 80% completion of your workouts. This can be a good target because it gives yourself more of a buffer. When you’re having a good week, you can go up to 100%, but when something unexpected happens or something expected happens but hits you in an unexpected way, it gives you room to pivot. What won’t work is if you shoot for 80% which means you can skip your long run, every week. You’ll still need to use some discipline to complete your workout or at least do something when you can.
Summary
Planning training is one of my favorite parts of the process, though it can be one of the most difficult, especially when you’re starting out. You’ll get ambitious and want to do it all and you’ll get lazy and not want to do any of it. Learning to balance pushing yourself hard enough while giving yourself some grace is part of the fun. Finding out how to make the most of the time and options available to you is fun as well.