“Recovery” Training

By Euan Lees, Director of Coaching

Traditionally in mid-September the club enters a “Recovery” phase of training. As you may have heard your coaches say before, training and racing break us down and it’s only during recovery that we actually get stronger (the body adapting to the stimulus that it has received).

In the same way that athletes should have at least one day off training every week and an easy week every month, we should also have an easy month every year. I recommend a few weeks of minimal (preferably no) running, steady social cycling and plenty of technique work, particularly in swimming. You’ll see this in the sessions.

As has been mentioned, we have finished with Tuesday track sessions for the year, and for a few weeks there will be no Tuesday running at all. Thursday running will have a fun theme for a few weeks, then technique work will begin on Tuesday 16th October.

Obviously not everyone will have exactly the same break in their season (e.g. if you’re racing Hawaii) but for most people this is about the right time and it’s important that everyone in the club knows what we’re doing and why.

We also have cross-country on Sat 13th Oct, which is fine – we run hard on the day (if we want to) but it’s part of winter training and not something we explicitly peak for. Equally, you can turn up at cross-country for the social element and run round at whatever pace you like. It’s more about building a club spirit. Also the cake.

What we do plan to introduce this year are a few off-road bike and run sessions (cue much hilarity in coaches’ e-mails talking about “dirty weekends”). We will do at least three easy off-road Sunday Runs in the weeks before cross-country and will sprinkle some mountain bike rides in there as well – await more details from Richard and Natalie.

The Saturday rides will return to an 08:30 start from 22nd September and will include some traditional Box Hill / Windsor routes but also a “Virtual Tour de France” hill rep session once a month. In order to build new member confidence on the bike we will also introduce some introductory Richmond Park rides on Sundays, in parallel to the Sunday Run and allowing all riders and runners to meet in the café afterwards.

I hope that explains a few things around the current timetable. Further mails will follow on the specifics of some of these sessions and then on Novelty November. Grab me or any coach if you have questions arising.

Yours,
Euan (coach@fulontri.com)