Bonk

I had a funny experience this morning with my usual Thursday computrainer interval day. I got up at 5 am foam rolled, stretched (active), and did a plank for 1 minute and 1 plyo movement and I was ready to go. I had a great night sleep and thought.....here we go...on my way to a new PR for my 30 minute time trial wattage. Got on and warmed up and went for it. About 5 minutes in I realized my 30 minute time trial was quickly turning into a 3 x 5 minute session with 3 minutes rest. I felt horrible after the first 3 minutes. I soldiered through,,,just like a good endurance athlete does. At least I had the sense to just cut it short. Anyways, I thought, what happened. I felt good, had a good nights sleep...what could have gone wrong? Then I realized this can be explained.

The night before I ate a decent meal at 4:30 pm. Then I basically relaxed for the rest of the evening. I thought....I need to lose some weight so I am not going to eat anything tonight even if I get hungry. By 8 pm. I was feeling a bit hungry but sucked it up. Then the crappy interval session happened this morning. What I had come to realize was that I broke one of the training rules. DON'T TRY TO LOSE WEIGHT DURING INTENSE TRAINING. It is a good formula for bonking. Now if I had done a 2 hour recovery ride at 150 watts instead of my 30 minute TT attempt I would probably have had a great workout, increased my body's ability to burn fat (according to Bob Seebohar...see post below), and gained some base endurance.

The moral of the story is.... intense interval training or competition phase is not the time to decide to lose weight. First off you will bonk or just have sub par efforts. Secondly you will probably not lose much weight anyways as your body will rebel and you will end up doing what basically amounts to a tempo ride at max effort which really sucks from a mental point of view.

Early in the season is the time to get your diet under control and coordinate that with your base training. More to come on this issue as I digest more of Bob Seebohar's book. Again, what Bob is espousing isn't really anything new but he has a knack for explaining it and presenting it in a way that is easier to understand and a way that can be realistically incorporated into one's life without counting calories and obsessing.