Plan B

Most of the last week or so has been a write-off on account of my cold. This got me thinking about my usual approach to a training 'blip'. I realised that I'm a lot better at entering races and designing training plans than I am at actually training. When things go off track I:

1. Get a little bit annoyed at myself for failing to stick to the plan.
2. Make a cup of tea.
3. Crumple up my training plan.
4. Sit down and start concocting a new one.

I'm definitely a natural organiser. When I used to work as a personal trainer, my favourite part was tailoring exercise plans to suit my clients perfectly. I used to spend hours on it. Now that I'm working full time, I'm my own 'project'. I thought about what I would advise someone else to do if they'd missed a week. Just adapt the plan a little bit and move on. So that's what I'll do.
I spent one more evening putting together a proper plan that would see me through my three upcoming races. It's on a spreadsheet so that I can easily tweak it if anything major comes up but I've factored in lots of flexibility and left spaces to log what I've actually done, so I should be able to stick with it as it is. I pinned the finished product on the kitchen wall and vowed not to take it down and crumple it up until at least April.
It goes something like this:

• MONDAY - Exercise DVD or rest
• TUESDAY - An hour on the bike or turbo trainer plus a short run
• WEDNESDAY - Yoga or just a stretch
• THURSDAY - Interval or tempo run
• FRIDAY - Exercise DVD or rest
• SATURDAY - Longish bike ride
• SUNDAY - Long run

Let's see how it goes...