As we head into the depths of winter, I find this is the hardest time of year to stay motivated with your training and especially when you’re demanding a lot from yourself in those harder more intense sessions. The roads are also crappy, at least in the UK and more often than not most of the training is done indoors which also makes it more mentally challenging.
However, we all know it’s worth the effort, by doing the hard work now you are setting yourself up to have the best chance of a great season next year.
To help stay focused and engaged with your training a good tactic is to start visualizing yourself in your target event or race(s). You can do this whilst you are training or just before you start training to try and boost motivation levels and to get that session done. I find this is actually a really good way of getting through some of the tougher sessions. Distracting yourself in the moment, thinking of a race you’ve done well in or not so well in and telling yourself how good you are or how you would do things differently.
The power of self-talk shouldn’t be overlooked. Even smiling to yourself during an intense session has been proven to make the session feel slightly easier and lower the rate of perceived exertion. See link below.
That said sometimes we’re just not at our best and so with that I wanted to share an experience that might help when you are next feeling slightly below par when you are trying to complete a session that I prescribe, in particular those sessions which are on the harder end of the spectrum. Typically, that would be threshold (Z4) and above. It’s during these sessions when you are operating near your limits that it can expose things which are not optimal and thus can have a big impact on your ability to complete the session. Unlike a lower intensity ride where you don’t necessarily have to be firing on all cylinders to get the session done.
Generally, in my experience not only from coaching and seeing people’s data but from my own training experience it’s the longer intervals 4+ mins where people often struggle to get the most out of themselves. This can be for a variety of reasons, work or life stress, poor sleep or nutrition or you just generally feel tired. These I class as general factors, so it doesn’t matter what you are doing, you’re probably operating less than optimally and so everything feels like a challenge, not least getting the most out of yourself physically.
As a side note If the above is something you are currently managing then I would carefully consider if trying to attempt a hard session is the best thing to do, don’t be afraid to ask me.
Assuming the general factors are largely ok, then in theory there shouldn’t be anything stopping you from getting the most out of yourself. But that isn’t always the case, after all we are just human so there’s a whole host of complex reasons why you might struggle with a session.
This is where the art of finessing a session can pay dividends in the long term, it’s these sessions where you can actually end up creating not only a physical stimulus but also building mental resilience which in my opinion is half the battle.
The following is an example of someone I coach and how they managed to finesse their way through a relatively tough session. Ordinarily they should be able to comfortably get through this, but for whatever reason they felt they was struggling.

The session was a standard 4 x 10 mins at threshold with 2 mins rest between efforts. This is a short rest period but 2 mins relative to the working duration so should normally be sufficient.
Part of the feedback I got was that during the warm up they felt their legs were quite heavy and didn’t feel they had much spring in them. Still, they pushed on as we all generally do.
The first thing I’d say here is that, if by the end of the warm up you still feel a bit leggy then think about extending that warm up, especially when it’s colder.
Into the main block of work the first interval they said actually didn’t feel too bad, last 3 mins it started to bite (see the change in cadence) but not to the point they though it would be difficult to finish the whole session.
Now the second block is where they started to struggle a bit, a few mins in and the HR is quite elevated. My guess is that there is some acute dehydration and residual fatigue from the previous day’s training. They play with the cadence again to try and get through the block.
Looking at the session in more detail I can see they was using ERG mode. Now I have conflicting views on ERG mode which I won’t go into now but on this occasion with the legs feeling not that special during the warm up I’d have left ERG off and eased myself into the first block, maybe slightly below target power just to see how I coped.
However, this person has completed both the first and second intervals in ERG and that’s what did the damage. You can see in the third interval ERG comes off as they struggle to hold the power. But this is good, they didn’t give up and instead finessed the third interval, taking short recoveries and did what they felt they could. By doing this it also allows their aerobic system to catch up and you can see in the 4th block they was back on point. Now lots of people would have cut this session short but instead having some self-awareness ensured that they got what they could from the session and the time available.
Key learnings
Don’t blindly go into a session thinking you’ll complete it – understand your current status of recovery and stress. If in doubt just move the session a day or two and take a recovery day.
If during the warm things don’t feel optimal, first extend the warm up. Then if that doesn’t quite work start the planned interval at a slightly lower power than planned.
Change your cadence, if you are struggling with during an interval try going to either a lower or higher cadence. Usually if you are struggling to control your HR then drop the cadence and go more to your muscles, this might be enough just to help control your HR and allow you to continue for that bit longer.
If it’s really hard then crack a smile every 30 seconds or minute to lower that RPE and increase your ability to push on – or just smile the whole way through.
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