The Pop-up Workout

What do you do if your workout goes way better than you thought it would? Say, if you’re out doing some intervals on the bike, maybe up a hill, and it just seems too easy? You planned to do 5 intervals, for about 30 min of relatively hard climbing, and after 25 min, it seems like you can go another 30 min. What should you do?

I call this the pop-up workout. Its like when you are kid reading a book, you turn the page and a pop-up (ya know like a cloud, or trumpet, or an apple) pops off the page, right up toward you unexpectedly. (Can you tell I have two young ones..?) It’s that rare feeling of the recovery gods smiling down on you and the training cosmos aligning – albeit briefly – in your favor. This does not happen in training often. If it seems like it does, then your probably not generating enough training stress to begin with. If you are training hard enough, and this happens, GO WITH IT. This, in my coaching and training experience, is a rare, unplanned opportunity to push yourself near your limits on that particular day. Normally, pushing yourself this far, when its not planned, is a bad call.

This will fly in the face of the PMC (chart), if you follow it closely. Forget about the charts that day.  Go by instinct. The PMC charts miss a lot of important metrics anyway. See:  http://www.gleasoncoaching.com/why-i-cant-rely-on-tss/  If you feel amazing in this circumstance, go beyond the planned session. Let it rip.