"I'm not dead yet!": Taking on Joe Martin (Trevor's N1 Challenge)

Races, Rides, Runs
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Hi @BikerBocker,

It’s a little tricky because you’ll never finish a recovery week feeling great. If you do the week right, you shouldn’t. You want to finish the week feeling flat and a little unmotivated. But the feeling you were getting yesterday is definitely a sign that you’re not ready yet. That dull pain is a sign there’s still damage that needs to be worked out.

There’s nothing wrong with giving yourself an extra day. I’m a big believer that it’s better to overdo a recovery week than to underdo it. One more day isn’t going to impact your fitness.

I’d wait until you’re certain that pain is gone. Then yes, doing some openers or neuromuscular work is a great first workout back. It will tell you if your legs truly are ready to train.

But also keep in mind that the first true interval workout after a recovery week almost always feels bad. The pain killers aren’t flowing. That’s alright. You have to get through that workout before you start feeling like a cyclists again.

Hope that helps!

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Thank you! That’s very helpful. I had a hunch that this particular feeling wasn’t right, but i also am used to feeling cr&p after a recovery week (or let’s say, “adaptation week”) so it’s sometimes a bit hard to know which bucket to put the feelings into.

One thing that so far seems to be correlated with readiness is how terrible i feel walking up the stairs to the third floor of my apartment. If i feel generally heavy and unmotivated but walking up the stairs feels fine, i’m ready to go. If walking up the stairs feels hard or hurts, i’m not ready. If it feels fine even before one cup of coffee, then i’m VERY ready

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@trevor, i guess one follow-up is re: this. Given that the painkillers are not flowing and maybe even some, quick to come, quick to go away adaptations have gone like blood plasma volume, when do you do your power/performance testing? Do you do it right after a rest week and some openers? Or do you personally like to do an interval session or two and then test?

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@BikerBocker, Glad you pointed that out about walking up stairs. I’ve noticed the same thing and heard it from many athletes as well. Does seem to be a good universal indicator.

In terms of testing, I actually do my testing in the week before a recovery week. I do that because I use testing to come up with my ranges/zones and I want to have ranges that are realistic - i.e. NOT based on my absolute best performance. So, testing before the bump in my form gives me good realistic zones moving forward.

But if you want to test after your adaptation phase, yes, I’d recommend getting an interval session or two in first. Find your legs and then test.

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@trevor how did you know that you needed to increase your recovery time? I think you mentioned you changed to doing 2 weeks of loading then 1 week of recovery. Were there metrics that suggested you needed this change, or was it more of a feeling?

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Hi Robert,

There was no specific metric expect probably the most important of all metrics - performance.

All spring I wasn’t improving at the rate I was expecting to improve at based on my history, yet I was frequently tired and struggling in both my workouts and races. That’s a combination you don’t want - kind of like a physiological stagflation.

So I was faced with a challenge where I wasn’t training hard enough to achieve the level I need to achieve in order to race Joe Martin. Yet, how could I train harder if I was already fatigued?

Ryan and I talked about it and noticed that I was training at about the same volume/TSS every week with very infrequent recovery periods. So our guess was that I could accomplish my goal by upping my regular training weeks to 18+ hours/900+ TSS but then take a good recovery week every two to three weeks.

I can’t say for certain that’s going to work. It’s based on our experience and my historical data. But ultimately time will tell. That said I just did my first block of two weeks at 900 TSS and am now on a recovery week and I seem to be responding well. Fingers crossed!

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N1 Challenge Update and Change

Hi everyone, I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted an update on my N1 challenge. In particular, I owe you a post talking about how my new training method (described on the podcast) has been working. Quick preview - much more successful!

But before I post about that, I did want to give a long overdue update on my status.

The reason I waited this long to write anything is mostly because I was waiting for some information myself. I finally got that a week-and-a-half ago.

If you’ve listened to our most recent podcast, you’ve heard about the experience my friend had with heat stress. What I didn’t cover in the episode is the fact that I sat for 2.5 hours in 110 degree heat giving my friend all of my water and making sure he was in the shade while I continued to bake. It sounds silly, but it never occurred to me until weeks later that I probably suffered some form of heat illness myself. At the time I was solely focused on my friend.

But, a week after that incident, I went out for a long ride in Boulder. It was also a hot day. The ride felt fine, but about five hours in, my heart rate started climbing, getting up over 150 BPM when I was soft pedaling. Worse, I could feel it, so I knew it wasn’t an issue with my computer. I pulled over and it continued to rise getting up over 170 BPM. It was very concerning, but it did clear after about 10 minutes and I then rode straight home.

I had hoped it was just the heat, but on my long ride the next weekend, the same thing happened… and continued to happen every time I rode over four hours.

By the end of June I was very concerned. I was able to get in to see a heart specialist and in July I did a full echocardiogram (thankfully normal) and then had to wear a halter for a week - a device that measures heart rate 24-7 and tracks anomalies.

I got my results just under two weeks ago and it appears I have mild athlete’s AFIB. I don’t know if the incident in Moab sparked it or just made me aware of it. The doctor said that I am fine to keep training but it is something I will likely need to address sooner rather than later. I’m exploring my options and downloading a lot of research. More to come…

However, as far as Joe Martin goes, it was not possible to train at the level I wanted over the summer. Going for rides wondering if I’d end up unconscious on the side of the road if I went too hard puts a real damper on training.

As I mentioned, the doctor said that I am fine to train. Training is not aggravating it and will not suddenly make it worse. It’s just too late at this point to turn things around for Joe Martin, so I’ve decided not to go.

The Tour of Tobago and the Tour of the Gila are both at the end of September. That does give me enough time to get back into form. I’m still debating between the two, but one will be my new N1 challenge.

More to come!

Thanks,
Trevor

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Damn, sorry to hear that @trevor. Afib is very annoying, especially for an athlete, but not usually very serious. I really hope one of the other races works out for you. Rob Hall MD

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Thanks @roberthall1 - not the news I wanted but from the research I’ve already read, athlete’s AFIB is very different from “regular” AFIB. There is no increased mortality. The question is just how much it’s going to impact my cycling.