Training is easy-as-pie when your workout can be memorized

"Look at THIS workout!"

I peeked over my friend's shoulder as he pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and showed off his track workout for the day.

It had 20+ steps, different target times for each step, and a column of check boxes that he could check off as he completed each step.

I asked, "how do you memorize this?'

"I bring the paper & a pen with me, of course!"

He had to bring that with him every run otherwise he would have gotten lost in his almighty workout plan after his first mile.

He had his process. It worked for him, but the complexity of his plan would have sent most runners to the madhouse trying to get every step right.

What is a runner to do if they want to complete high quality structured training that is also simple?

Well, the answer to that question ties into something I have been talking about the last few days: Critical Power.

Look at this workout, planned with Critical Power:

"Stryder" Giuseppe posted this workout in the Stryd Community today.

Here is what is magical about this.

1. It is simple.

He can easily memorize that he needs to do six intervals at 95% of Critical Power.

2. It is targeted.

Marathons are typically run at 89-91% of Critical Power.

By directly targeting 95% of his Critical Power, he is able to improve his resistance to fatigue when running at higher speeds.

So, this kind of workout will improve his future marathon capability.

He completed the workout perfectly:

In the orange, you can see his power. He was able to consistently run at 95% (270 watts) of his Critical Power for each rep and nail the intensity for the active recovery periods.

This workout would have been more complex if he planned it using heart rate (red) or pace (blue). Pace increases over the workout, which could be a result of changes in slope. Heart rate never quite stabilized over any of his reps, but it did help signal that he was reaching his limit on the last rep.

There you have it.

Training can be easy-as-pie with the help of an easily memorizable Critical Power value.

If you would like to run with power and establish your own Critical Power, you can order Stryd at https://store.stryd.com/

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