Training year review: By the Numbers
Spending time to reflect on your season is an important step toward improving next year. A good season review has two parts:
- A subjective review of how you felt during periods of training and racing. This includes reflecting on how you felt during fall TT’s, mid-winter comps, and end of season races. Try to reflect on how you felt aerobically (how hard could you push yourself) and how strong you felt muscularly. Did you struggle with motivation or fatigue during certain period?
- A compellation of training data (this is where a good training log comes in handy!)
Regardless of what platform you use here is a list of useful data to compile starting with the most basic:
- Total training hours (yearly and monthly totals)
- Total time logged in each zone: L1, L2, L3, and L4+
- Total number of strength / gym hours
- Total number of competitions / races
For a more advanced review you can break down your data even further:
- Total hours spent in each training mode: Classic, skate, rollerski, run, bike, bound
- Total hours spent working on specific strength: DP and no pole skiing
- Total hours spent in each zone: L1, L2, L3, and L4+ But with the following breakdown
o Total hours spent in each zone during the first 30 weeks of the training year (prep period)
o Total hours spent in each zone during the competition period (weeks 30 – 49)
o Total number of L3 threshold interval sessions
o Total number of L4+ interval sessions
o Total hours logged in over-distance (2.5 hour+ workouts)
In my opinion these are the most important benchmarks to identify so we can compare training data from year to year. Our goal with a season review is to analyze how we feel subjectively and correlate these feelings with the numbers in our training log. Having several years of consistent training log data makes it much easier to compare numbers from one year to the next.
