As the season comes to an end it is time for two things, the first is take your end of season rest and the second is to think about what you want to do next season. This article covers how to plan next year and review your past season.
Season Review:
When conducting a season review you need to make a comparison between what you set out to achieve and what you did achieve. This is why you need to be as clear as possible when setting your goals as it is then easier to make meaningful comparisons.
For example if you aim was to increase your FTP by 20 watts in three months and you only increased your FTP by 10 watts, it is much easier to see whether you achieved what you wanted. Although the harder part if trying to understand why you did or didn't hit your targets. Which is why BCA has laid out a series of questions below to help you analyse your season.
- At what point during your training did you feel you were making the most progress?
- At what point during your training did you feel you were making the least progress?
- Which training workouts did you feel worked most and least?
- What were the strength in your ability that helped you hit your goals?
- What were the weakness in your ability that prevented you from hitting your goals?
- Do you feel you put in enough time into your weakness?
- Was there anything that felt lacking in your training (including nutrition etc.)?
- Did you feel tired or as if you were not working hard enough and when?
Have a go at answering the questions and see if you can find where it was going well and were it went wrong (if at all). It is also very helpful for yourself when reviewing your season to read your post workout comments, this can give you very good insight as to how you were feeling at that present moment. If you don't add post workout comments it is strongly recommended, all you have to do it write a couple of sentences summing up how you felt and the reasons why.
Plan Ahead:
Now you have a good idea of what happened last season, so you can now make a better plan going forward. There are different types of goals you can plan for yourself which are laid out below to help you think about what to do next.
Improve upon last year.
- Perhaps you achieve what you wanted last year but now want to progress even further.
Try something different altogether.
Maybe last season you completed a long duathlon now you want to pursue an IRONMAN.
Retry what you couldn't do last year.
Possibly you didn't hit your goals last year now you want try again.
The most common goal is the first one, for example, maybe your goal last year was to reach Cat 2 now next season you want to hit Cat 1. Cat 1 races can be longer and the intensity can be higher, so you may need to increase your overall training volume and increase the time you can ride above your FTP to reach this goal. To do this you could move from an intermediate BCA race plan to an advanced BCA race plan.
Have a go at defining your goals, feel free asking BCA for help and guidance.
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