I have been working my way through the off season strength plan this winter, with the primary goal of building toward my first Cat 2 CX season this fall (call it September). Intermediate objectives are a couple July gravel events with have-fun rather than performance goals.
Life threw me a curve ball, as life does, with three weeks to go in my strength training (week one of speed strength). My first kid arrived a couple weeks early! As such he’s requiring a bit of extra attention to get going. At the moment I have a week of psuedo-rest (I’m finding that there’s no such thing as rest with a newborn) and it’s looking like I’ll have at least another week before he comes home and I’m able to resume my previous training consistency. Right now I’m planning to just do some very chill, short, feel-good rides as I find time to adjust to being a dad, napping, and taking care of all the additional duties that entails.
So with that context comes my question. I was almost done with strength when I had an interruption. Actually, I would have finished my plan on his due date. My plan was to start sweet spot base building next. With the #dadlife pause I figure I would want at a week of re-adaptation to strength work before resuming the speed phase of strength training. This would delay starting sweet spot by another 3-4 weeks. I have plenty of time to get through the base phase before cross starts, but also I know that in CX training plans there will be some plyo / speed strength work. So are there any recommendations on whether it’s better to hit the pause button on the strength work and start riding or resume strength?
There’s no such thing as good sleep with a newborn but there’s nothing as relaxing as chilling on the couch with one!