Latest Changes to reflect that we are now just starting Period 3 - which is the start of the ramp up for Intensity work!
What are we doing here?
Well I am trying to figure out how much time I should be spending training each sport at different times of the year. All I wanted to do was figure out a decent amount of time to be running at, and then to figure out what speed to run at. Somewhere along the way I ended up having to create a total year training plan to make sense of it all. To get started you really need to sit down with the book, and read thru it a couple of times, until you have a good understanding of the principles involved.
After reading the book a couple of times I had to make a start somewhere, so I started by trying to figure out my training hours per year. To do this I took my hours over the past few weeks, multiplied the average per week figure by 52, then added 15% as a half decent increase.
I started with 8 Hours average per week. That works out as follows
| Hours per week | 8 |
| Hours per year | 416 |
| Increase by | 15 |
| New Hours per year | 478.4 |
| Round up to | 500 |
So now we have the number of hours I am going to train for the year, which is 500.
Next I need to figure out what sports I want to train, and how much time (as a percent) I want to train each sport during each phase of the year.
After re reading several sections of the SERIOUS book, I came up with the following.
| Sport | Early Base | Late base | Intensity | Peak | Race | Recovery | Base |
| XC Ski | 20 | 15 | |||||
| Running | 35 | 35 | 35 | 35 | 35 | 20 | 25 |
| Cycling | 20 | 25 | 30 | 35 | 35 | 10 | 20 |
| Kayaking | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 10 | 15 | |
| Rowing | |||||||
| Weights | 15 | 10 | 5 | 15 | |||
| Core | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Other | 50 | ||||||
| Total | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
Notice that I split my base training into two periods, one where I am still doing winter sports ( XC Skiing) and then when I transition to summer sports, and stop skiing and start kayaking, and increase the cycling as I get out of the gym onto the road.
Now some of the housekeeping stuff
How many weeks are in my training plan, break them into 4 week periods, and assign an emphasis for each one. This is straight out of the book, and here is what I ended up with.
| Period | Start Date | End Date | Emphasis | Pct of annual volume | Hours /Period | Week 1 Pct | Week 2 Pct | Week 3 Pct | Week 4 Pct | Hours /week 1 | Hours /week 2 | Hours /week 3 | Hours /week 4 |
| 1 | 02 Jan 2006 | 29 Jan 2006 | base | 7 | 35 | 29 | 26 | 23 | 22 | 10.15 | 9.1 | 8.05 | 7.7 |
| 2 | 30 Jan 2006 | 26 Feb 2006 | base | 8 | 40 | 23 | 26 | 29 | 22 | 9.2 | 10.4 | 11.6 | 8.8 |
| 3 | 27 Feb 2006 | 26 Mar 2006 | Late Base | 9 | 45 | 23 | 26 | 29 | 22 | 10.35 | 11.7 | 13.05 | 9.9 |
| 4 | 27 Mar 2006 | 23 Apr 2006 | intensity | 10 | 50 | 23 | 26 | 29 | 22 | 11.5 | 13 | 14.5 | 11 |
| 5 | 24 Apr 2006 | 21 May 2006 | intensity | 11 | 55 | 23 | 26 | 29 | 22 | 12.65 | 14.3 | 15.95 | 12.1 |
| 6 | 22 May 2006 | 18 Jun 2006 | intensity | 12 | 60 | 20 | 30 | 20 | 30 | 12 | 18 | 12 | 18 |
| 7 | 19 Jun 2006 | 16 Jul 2006 | peak | 8 | 40 | 33 | 26 | 24 | 17 | 13.2 | 10.4 | 9.6 | 6.8 |
| 8 | 17 Jul 2006 | 13 Aug 2006 | race | 7 | 35 | 20 | 30 | 20 | 30 | 7 | 10.5 | 7 | 10.5 |
| 9 | 14 Aug 2006 | 10 Sep 2006 | race | 7 | 35 | 20 | 30 | 20 | 30 | 7 | 10.5 | 7 | 10.5 |
| 10 | 11 Sep 2006 | 08 Oct 2006 | race | 6 | 30 | 20 | 30 | 20 | 30 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 9 |
| 11 | 09 Oct 2006 | 05 Nov 2006 | recovery | 3 | 15 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 3.75 | 3.75 | 3.75 | 3.75 |
| 12 | 06 Nov 2006 | 03 Dec 2006 | base | 6 | 30 | 23 | 26 | 29 | 22 | 6.9 | 7.8 | 8.7 | 6.6 |
| 13 | 04 Dec 2006 | 31 Dec 2006 | base | 6 | 30 | 23 | 26 | 29 | 22 | 6.9 | 7.8 | 8.7 | 6.6 |
Notice that this worksheet also has the percent of annual volume for each period, the pct of each periods hours for each week, and from that comes the hours per week.
Getting the emphasis for each period was a little harder. To get this I had to take a look at the race calendar and see when the key races were that I wanted to focus on. The problem with AR is that there are races all year, but not all of them are full blown 24-36 hour races. A lot of them are pre / early season warm up races. These are just fine in the intensity, and peak phases.
What?s missing in here is the breakdown of the different types of serious training, and then we need to factor in how much of each we do each period / week, and then work out what that means on a daily basis.
The next and almost final stage was to fill out the next worksheet which was going to combine elements of all the above to find the hours for each sport per week. My first attempt at this looks something like the following.
| Period | 1 | 2 | ||||||
| Stage | Base | Base | ||||||
| Week Number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| Start Date | 2-Jan-06 | 9-Jan-06 | 16-Jan-06 | 23-Jan-06 | 30-Jan-06 | 6-Feb-06 | 13-Feb-06 | 20-Feb-06 |
| XC Ski | 2.03 | 1.82 | 1.61 | 1.54 | 1.84 | 2.08 | 2.32 | 1.76 |
| Running | 3.55 | 3.19 | 2.82 | 2.70 | 3.22 | 3.64 | 4.06 | 3.08 |
| Cycling | 2.03 | 1.82 | 1.61 | 1.54 | 1.84 | 2.08 | 2.32 | 1.76 |
| Kayaking | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Rowing | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Weights | 1.52 | 1.37 | 1.21 | 1.16 | 1.38 | 1.56 | 1.74 | 1.32 |
| Core | 1.02 | 0.91 | 0.81 | 0.77 | 0.92 | 1.04 | 1.16 | 0.88 |
| Other | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| total | 10.15 | 9.10 | 8.05 | 7.70 | 9.20 | 10.40 | 11.60 | 8.80 |
This sheet covers the first two periods of the year.
The next stage, and for now the last step is to translate this into real workouts on different days of the week. To do this I came up with some sample workout times that would add up to the nearest half hour of training time. Im not going to be training to the nearest second decimal place, but will round these times to the nearest 15-30 minutes.
So here are a couple of sample weekly workouts.
| M | 20 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 40 | 45 |
| T | 30 | 30 | 45 | 45 | 45 | 45 | 50 | 50 | 60 |
| W | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 | 45 |
| T | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| F | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 | 45 |
| S | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| S | 60 | 60 | 60 | 75 | 90 | 90 | 90 | 90 | 105 |
| Weekly Total Hrs | 2.8 | 3.0 | 3.3 | 3.5 | 3.8 | 4.0 | 4.3 | 4.5 | 5.0 |
| Distance (miles) | Time (Hours) |
| 25m | 2 |
| 50m | 3 |
| 75m | 4 |
| 100m | 5 |
| M 15 15 |
| T 15 15 60 60 60 60 60 |
| W 15 15 |
| T 15 15 60 60 60 60 60 |
| F 15 15 |
| S 45 60 90 60 90 120 180 240 |
| S |
| Weekly Total Hrs 0.8 1.5 1.5 2.0 3.0 3.5 4.0 5.0 6.0 |
| M | |
| T | 60 60 90 60 60 |
| W | |
| T | 60 60 60 90 90 60 |
| F | |
| S | |
| S | 60 60 60 90 90 120 180 |
| Weekly Total Hrs | 1.0 2.0 3.0 3.5 4.5 4.5 5.0 |
So how does this translate into what I am going to do on a particular day? First thing to do is find the number of hours per week for this week and this sport. Lets take running in Week 2. I need to run for 3.19 Hours this week, or round that to 3.5 Hours. Now lets go find 3.5 Hours on the run workouts. This tells me I need to do something like 30-45-30-30-75, with two days with no running. This week the two run rest days will be Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday is also a complete rest day.
So what else do I need to be doing this week?
Well lets go look at the sport hours per week for this week.
| Period | 1 | |||
| Stage | Base | |||
| Week Number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Start Date | 2-Jan-06 | 9-Jan-06 | 16-Jan-06 | 23-Jan-06 |
| XC Ski | 2.03 | 1.82 | 1.61 | 1.54 |
| Running | 3.55 | 3.19 | 2.82 | 2.70 |
| Cycling | 2.03 | 1.82 | 1.61 | 1.54 |
| Kayaking | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Rowing | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Weights | 1.52 | 1.37 | 1.21 | 1.16 |
| Core | 1.02 | 0.91 | 0.81 | 0.77 |
| Other | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| total | 10.15 | 9.10 | 8.05 | 7.70 |
Rounding those numbers to make it all a bit easier, I am going to do 2 hrs XC skiing on Saturday mng.
The 3.5 Hrs running will be
| W | 30 minutes (before workout) |
| T | 1 Hr (individual cardio session) |
| F | 30 minutes ( before workout) |
| S | 0 |
| S | 90 minutes (Outside run around Green Lake) |
Cycling is going to be a bit of a problem. Right now I am just scheduled for 10-15 minutes a day, but I will probably include step, elliptical, and rowing machine time in that bucket, and with that I will be getting 30-40 minutes on each of my training days, so should be at around the right level with 90 ? 120 minutes by the end of the week. When I move out of the Early Base period, and stop XC skiing as the weather gets nicer then this will be real cycling time. Weights, I get about 30 minutes on my three training days, so that?s done. Core work, I get 10-15 minutes on each of my three training days, so that?s a little under, but I don?t think I actually need to be doing any more core work right now. The core work is essential, but rather than being a continuous variable like everything else is going to be a fixed amount per week, which is very difficult to enter in the plan, so I?ll end up finding a good couple of workouts that work well for me, and doing each of these a couple of times per week, for around 45-75 minutes of core work every week. The next thing I?m going to do is create a training log with the planned workouts, and space to track the actual workouts I do. Then as the year progresses I can track how everything is going, and modify the plan based on what actually happens. Something else I need to do is take into consideration the different types of training that SERIOUS discusses. I haven?t brought that up yet, but its an important part of the overall year, as we shift emphasis from over distance and endurance into speed and power based workouts?
I pulled the following directly from the book, and modified it by adding the sports I need to train, and just splitting the hours out a little more.
| Period | Stage | Pct Hours | Speed | Endurance | Race/pace | Interval | Over Distance | Up Vertical | Strength | total |
| 1 | base | 7 | 15 | 60 | 5 | 20 | 100 | |||
| 2 | base | 8 | 15 | 60 | 5 | 20 | 100 | |||
| 3 | base | 9 | 15 | 5 | 55 | 5 | 20 | 100 | ||
| 4 | intensity | 10 | 15 | 10 | 50 | 10 | 15 | 100 | ||
| 5 | intensity | 11 | 15 | 10 | 50 | 10 | 15 | 100 | ||
| 6 | intensity | 12 | 5 | 15 | 5 | 10 | 45 | 10 | 10 | 100 |
| 7 | peak | 8 | 5 | 15 | 10 | 10 | 50 | 0 | 10 | 100 |
| 8 | race | 7 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 10 | 50 | 10 | 100 | |
| 9 | race | 7 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 10 | 50 | 10 | 100 | |
| 10 | race | 6 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 10 | 50 | 10 | 100 | |
| 11 | recovery | 3 | 10 | 70 | 20 | 100 | ||||
| 12 | base | 6 | 15 | 60 | 5 | 20 | 100 | |||
| 13 | base | 6 | 15 | 60 | 5 | 20 | 100 |
Then I went back to the book to checkout what each type of workout is supposed to consist of. After re reading the relevant chapter a couple of times, I decided to combine a couple of these sections to make it easier to get started, and also because it was pretty difficult to see the difference between Endurance and Over Distance, and Speed, Intervals and Race / Pace, all of which are variations of speed workouts, although with different emphasis and intensity, so I might keep these three separate for a bit longer?