Keen readers of this blog will perhaps recall that I track the age% scores for my entire (albeit short) racing history. This has revealed an interesting and recurring pattern. I have 2 race-performance peaks per year – one from around Apr-Jun and the other from around Oct-Dec. These peaks are separated by either a performance plateaux or sometimes troughs. The chart below illustrates the point.
Click on image to enlarge
I believe the extended P1 improvement in 2008 was in part down to parallel weight loss over the same period as well as fitness improvements. My weight loss levelled off in October 2008 and has remained constant through to August 2009.
Some of this is related to the typical NHRR training schedule, with more 10k-basework and hills in the winter and faster ‘sharpening’ intervals from the Spring. Another factor is how greedy I get during my ‘purple’ patches. If I keep PB-hunting for too long and/or fail to reduce training load/take a break, the plateau is more likely to turn into a trough. The final factor is ‘good’ Summer weather, which does not seem agree with me. I invariably perform well below par if the temp is much over 20 degC.
I seem to find myself a Summer trough currently, due to several warm weather races and getting greedy. Interestingly, my Apr-Jun peak this year did include several quite easy weeks which were imposed by my personal situation. I just need to learn to incorporate such periods deliberately! The good news is that, if the pattern holds, I will come back even stronger in the Autumn with, hopefully, another performance step-change.
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