I'm just coming to the end of a slightly different training cycle, and I'm beat to hell.
My current cycle is 5 weeks instead of the usual 4, which works out a little better with my upcoming plans for vacation and the winter holidays. The downside of that is that I'm that much more beat up.
Most of my structured workouts are done at 5:30 in the morning on a CompuTrainer, so it's indoors, in the dark, and without much scenery. It takes a lot of motivation just to get up and do it. Add to that the compounding fatigue of several weeks of progressively harder training and it's downright miraculous that I can do it.
Amazingly, even though I feel terrible, I am still able to hit all my power targets.
Any day that has intervals scheduled (such as 2x20:00, 4x15:00, 4x8:00, etc.) has a 5-watt power range that goes with them. For example, the 2x20:00 workout I did on Tuesday was supposed to be between 235 and 240 watt average. I was able to do 236 and 246 for them.
Any time I'm doing intervals, I have a habit of going absolutely as hard as I can on the last one, regardless of the target. With something like a 20-minute interval, I'll usually aim for the original target for the first 15 minutes or so and then light it up the last 5 minutes.
Going into my first recovery week in my training campaign for next year, I'm more or less on-target. My weight is down to 174.6 and my 20-minute power is up to 260. Just 10.6 pounds and 70 watts in 9 more months :-)
I've got a hard day today and a long day tomorrow, and then it's 5 days easy. I can't wait!!
