Active Recovery and Field Testing

I am just finishing my first block of the build phase of my training. We have been adding some intensity on the bike for the first time this season, as well as upping the quality of the weekday runs. Since this is the four week of this block, the first part of this week was dedicated to recovery. Not recovery in the sense of sitting on the couch, but active recovery. Active recovery, for me, includes easy spinning on the bike and light jogging. I believe that active recovery stimulates my body to respond to an increased training load in the days and weeks to come, as the main point of training in cycles is to stress the body greatly, and then allow for it to build itself back up during the fourth week of a training block.

At the end of this week on Thursday and Friday, we will be doing some field testing. Field testing is a chance for me to test my level of fitness. The last time I did some field testing was during the last block of training (1 month ago), and I can use those workouts to compare them to this current round of fitness testing. Quite simply, field tests allow me to have objective data to look at and assess if my training plan is on track.

This morning, I completed my first field test in the pool. The plan was to warm up then do 15 x 100 on a 1:30 interval. When looking at the workout, I realized that my goal was to swim the 100’s at a pace of 1:20. I am pleased to say that I hit my goals. I swam all 15 intervals at 1:19 pace, which was faster than my prior swim test one month ago. Next up was a running time trial. My running field test is a 5k at a heart rate just below threshold. The numbers from this test were much better than last test. My 5k time was 17:35, an average pace of 5:39. Up from 18:07, with an average pace of 5:50 from two months ago!! I always have some sort anxiety when doing field tests. To me, starting them feels much like toeing the start line of a race, butterflies, nervousness, etc. Maybe I put too much emphasis on them, but nevertheless, good results in these tests equals new levels of motivation, and more opportunities for my fitness to improve!

More on the bike test later (it went well too!)……..All for now.

SJI