My year got of to a good start in January. Training was going well, but as is to be expected with one kid in school and one in daycare, germs ravaged the house in February and I've had this lingering illness for the entire month. I'm really hoping I get over it soon, as my training had been going well but has completely stagnated for the past few weeks.
Winter training set-up
One of the things I'm doing differently this year is taking rest more seriously. I don't do very much training volume (6 hours/week) so always figured that rest/recovery was not an issue. But when my TSS really ramped up last year, my fitness gains disappeared. Having a new baby and getting very little sleep was taking its toll. Stress is stress, whether it's training stress, work/life stress, illness, whatever. And not getting adequate sleep (I was on 3-4 hours a night for a lot of last winter/spring) is going really going to sabotage your training.
I was surprised last fall with very little "maintenance" biking that my bike fitness didn't decline all that much, and this has also informed my approach to rest this season. Last year when I was sick I'd take as little time off as possible and rush back into training. Unsurprisingly, it wouldn't be long before I got sick again. Now I'm on the "when in doubt, don't work out" program. If I have a bad night of sleep, I skip the next day's training session. If I'm sick, I wait until I'm recovered, then ease back into training with some shorter recovery efforts before hitting the hard intervals again.
Unfortunately this bug that's infiltrated our house is pretty tenacious. Hence my no-progress February. Hopefully March brings better luck. The warm weather has me anticipating getting outside again, which is always awesome after a winter of being cooped up inside.
