Now that I am fully recovered from my last race and gearing up for Rio with some big training weeks, I thought I would share what a heavy week of training is like for me.
Last week, I had one of my best training weeks ever, with 205 kilometres from Monday to Saturday. This is what that week looked like:
Monday was a 15-km fartlek where I did 1-km hard, followed by 500 metres easy for 10 repetitions.
Finishing in just over 62 minutes, this was the fastest I’d ever done this session. With a 3-km warm up and a 2-km cool down, it was a 20-km morning, in total, followed by a solid 48-minute, 10-km walk in the evening.
Tuesday was just easy walking with a 76-minute, 15-km walk in the morning, a gym session at the Richmond Olympic Oval in the afternoon and a 59-minute, 12-km in the evening, around coaching with the Richmond Kajaks.
Wednesday was a moderate 40-km in the morning in 3:16 minutes and a harder 10-km in the evening in 46 minutes for 50 kms on the day.
Thursday was my easy day with just a 77 minutes and 15 kms and a physio session with my therapist in North Van.
Friday is typically our fast day and to add a little more distance I walked the 6-km around Minoru. Following that, I did 14 kms with three minutes of rest averaging four minutes per kilometre and then jogged five kms home as I was completely knackered. Friday evening was an easy eight kilometre walk in 40 minutes.
Saturday was another 40 kms, this time a little quicker, getting through in just over three hours plus a hard 10 km walk in the evening in 44 minutes.
Sunday was a recovery day with some time well spent in the pool swimming. So in a nutshell, that is how I spent my week. It looks a lot easier written down!
In total, I burned over 12,000 calories in over 16 hours of activity this week.
What is lost here is all the stuff I have to do in between training sessions to ensure I can bounce back for the next one.
One big thing is making sure I’m getting food in me ASAP after a training session with a nice mix of carbs and protein. Another big one is stretching and foam rolling to keep myself from getting injured and getting through training sessions with good technique.
Moving forward, I’ll have a few more weeks like this before Rio, combined with some easier weeks to consolidate the hard work and prevent overtraining.
If the day in day out training is something that interests you on my journey, then I’d recommend following me on Twitter (@EvanDunfee), where I’m constantly sharing training sessions and insights into what it takes to be at an elite level in sport.
