Danielle and I sat down and talked things over last fall. She said she had a good plan for implementing my training to take my performance up a notch or two. She went to work hatching a plan for me. She said the winter season would include some weeks of swim, bike, or run focus which would allow me to work on certain weaknesses and allow me to improve. It means taking a step back from one discipline and ramping up another.
Prior to my Disney races, I had a run focus week. This past week I had a swim focus week. I swam quite a bit and worked on a few things that we felt were holding me back. It also allowed me to do some more volume as well. The week turned out better than I thought. I was faced with some challenging swims and they really took me out of my comfort zone. I completed each workout and feel that it's something I can draw on in races when the going gets tough.
This coming week is a bike focus week. I've been working on improving my power output the last few months and I performed a benchmark workout last week. My power output showed that the numbers are going up. This week should really test my legs and help build some more power.
I also had the opportunity to view my training metrics that she maintains for me in WKO+. This software allows her to monitor how my body is responding to all the workouts she assigns. Without going into too much boring detail, she can see how I recover from workouts, how deep into a hole I am digging with my workouts, when I need a rest, when I'm ready to handle more volume/intensity, etc. We looked back over the last year and I was able to see how I went up/down throughout my heavy training loads. I have complete trust in her that she is looking at the big picture for me so I can just focus on my day to day without worry................
