Forums >General Running>Why I don't build in cut-back weeks into my training cycles.
Happy to be here.
Because they just, like, happen organically man. Life and sickness. Like the sickness I'm experiencing now. I just broke a fever and have missed-GULP-two training days! And I'll probably sit out tomorrow as well! My race is RUINED. Or is it? Was this fever a pre-planned event on the part of my brain and legs? Because personally, I never listen to my legs because they are stupid and don't know what they're talking about. So, did my brain take charge and force me to lay on my butt? Is there a conspiracy at work here?
How about you? Do you cut-back every once in a while? On purpose?
Half PR: 1:34 (August, 2012)
Marathon PR: 3:45 (October, 2012)
Next race: ???
Next Marathon: 2015???
good lord no. Never plan a cutback week. Life designates the cutback weeks...and if you plan one, you cam be sure life will plan one for the following week. Never fails.
Gute Besserung!
You know I like the way you think. However, I do plan a cutback week every third week or else I would run myself into the ground. I used to be worse about it then I am now. However, life does sometimes force you to take a cutback week so I kind of like this thinking.
2014 Goals: (Yeah I suck)
I am very flexible with my training ~ So I do not schedule near as much as other people. I try and run every day. I will fit 2 or 3 solid work outs in each week.
Currently I am not running enough to think cut-back. Sometimes it is less about the mileage and more about total stress on your body. Weeks where I run lower mileage because we downhill ski all day Sat and Sun and then I play basketball or Volleyball on Sunday night are more abusive than if I ran 30 more miles that week.
I pretty much just listen to my body and if it tells me to take another "Easy" day before the next hard workout, I do.
Prior to this year - I just ran as much as my schedule would permit and ignored cut-backs because I did not want to give up the mileage. I do not break down from this stupidity, I just to not make much progress.
Long dead ... But my stench lingers !
That all being said - If I end up with 3 or 4 bigger weeks in a row, I would think about cutting back. But looking at my life schedule between now and End of October, I do not think that will be an issue.
Feeling the growl again
When I was seriously training to be all that I could be, I planned off days and cut-backs because, well, I was prioritizing running and whatever was on the schedule got done.
Now, typically I have a weekly target in mind and I only hit it 1 of 4 weeks. At least one week a month something messes up the works anyways. So I typically do not have to plan it anymore.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
A Saucy Wench
Amen.
I have become Death, the destroyer of electronic gadgets
"When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasnt tired and kept running anyway" - dd, age 7
The Pocatello Kid.
+1
couldn't have said it better
levitation specialist
X2. And I just thought it was me.
I only plan cut back weeks around races, other than that wife tends to get in the way and force the cut back weeks.
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
wife tends to get in the way
It's been nice knowing you, RIP.
I only plan cut back weeks around races, other than that wife tends to get in the way and force the cut back weeks. It's been nice knowing you, RIP.
Can't even claim a Typo on that one, the L and the W are on the opposite sides of the keyboards.
I don't plan anything really.
be curious; not judgmental
SheCan
During my normal running, I never plan cutback weeks. They just happen, but if I'm building up training for a big race and am putting more on myself then I usually do, I have found that I NEED to plan the cut back weeks. Otherwise I just push too hard, until I have collapse weeks instead of cutback weeks. Other things do happen sometimes, but they're much more controlled with planning.
Cherie
"We do not become the people who this world needs simply by turning our backs on anyone we don’t like, trust, or deem healthy enough to be in our presence. " ---- Shasta Nelson