As we march toward the days of summer (at least for our northern hemisphere athletes), it is important for us to ground ourselves in some important basics to nail across your training and performance. Most athletes look forward to the warming temperatures, with training being easier to integrate into life, and more enjoyable. While this is true, I want to caution all Purple Patch athletes across a few areas, to ensure good work in prior months doesn’t go wasted.  Remember, we still seek high fitness, while staying fresh. Here is a quick hit-list and set of recommendations for maintaining progression and performance readiness:

• If training ramps up so should your calories and hydration.  Many athletes get to sneak in a few more weekly hours of training as the weather warms up.  Assuming this integrates with life, it is a positive. Longer rides and runs are more enjoyable outside, in warm temperatures, but also require caloric support. So many athletes under eat relative to training demands, and often not on purpose. I think every athlete who commences with the FUELIn app and team is surprised with how many calories are suggested around each meal - but it is fuel to perform for folks - not just to survive.  Please don’t forget to fuel plenty, and maintain or establish high focus across all areas of daily hydration.

• Don’t forget strength.  It is much easier to place high focus on strength during the dark days of November, but it plays an important role throughout the season.  Reap the rewards of work done by maintaining the strength habit.  Twice weekly is a baseline, following the Purple Patch program, and you are good to go.  Supplement with some supporting mobility and core sessions and you earn yourself a gold star!

• You are not done with my bike sessions yet!  I often get asked how it is best to structure your bike training as the weather improves. I like athletes to retain at least one trainer based session each week, and two is positive also.  It is a controlled environment, with high return for the hour or so of effort, and time-starved athletes gain a lot. The key is to aim to support other rides being focused outdoors.  Get outside if you can!  It is important and beneficial, so don’t believe that the trainer is the answer to your riding performance. It is outside riding supplemented with key interval trainer sessions.

• Keep it soulful.  It is fun being outside, and there are likely more opportunities for many of you to join up with groups or friends for some of your training.  This is great, but I encourage you to remember the purpose of every session.  If it is designed to be lower stress, or soul filling, then ensure you adhere. As soon as the ‘bottom comes up’, with sessions designed to be low stress creep into higher effort, then fatigue creeps in and decline performance is nearly always the result. Keep a lid on it, as a catalyst to allow you to blow expectations away when it is time to truly race.

If you get this all dialed in, then you can expect work completed up to this point to amplify any training you complete over the coming weeks.  That’s how you arrive at something called the journey.

Cheers,

Matt