I generally follow a model I call “opportunistic training”. It was invented when I had younger children, and had to be creative about finding training opportunities.
The basic idea is that when I have the time, and the weather’s good, I train. I don’t do the “3 weeks on, 1 week off” kind of thing. I figure the weather will get crappy, or something will come up with work or life to force some rest.
Usually it’s the weather. Last winter was brutal. I got lots of rest.
But I don’t think I’ve ever had to deal with the “problem” of the weather being too nice. Each abnormally nice and warm day that we’ve been having, I feel like I have to “take advantage of the opportunity”. It’s only April 5, and I’m accumulating training points like it’s June. I barely earned any badass winter training points.
There was a moment last week where I thought, “I just can’t ride anymore right now.” That usually happens … in August.
This must be what it’s like if you live somewhere that has decent weather as a rule rather than an exception. It must be tough. But I think I would be willing to deal with it.
Racing provides opportunistic periods of rest & recovery. You can train through some of them, but you can’t go into any of them tired. Remember, after a hard workout or race: 3 or 4 days to recovery, 5 – 8 days for adaptation and nearly 2 weeks before you start losing the fitness gained.
But you know me … I’m in the same boat. I’ve now cycled to work every day since Mar 13. Yes, 4 weeks! Unprecedented for this time of year. Even more so in that none of those days have been “tough-guy” days. Well, one morning was 26F, but it was sunny and almost no wind.
So I ride to work, run at lunch, ride home. The rides are short, but it’s still essentially 3 workouts each day for a month. I’ve acclimated to it now, but I was feeling physically tired for a while there. But I was unwilling to skip a ride-to-work day because I kept thinking there would be bad weather weeks coming.
If the weather in NE Ohio was always how it’s been so far this year, it would be a much more desirable place to live. I’ll take it while it lasts!
Huzzah!