May training update

After three races this season (Cabornis, Reculées, Nivolet-Revard), I knew that I needed to work on a number of areas to be ready for my focus races. I struggled with the climbing at Nivolet-Revard and my endurance for longer races was not good enough. May was the month to put in the work to start fixing these issues with an aggressive and focused approach.

Focus for May

• climbing, descending and total vertical gain per week
• back-to-back sessions to build on endurance and prepare for MaXi Race XL

Training statistics

• Time: 66hrs 34min
• Distance: 492km
• Vertical gain: 26,269m

Training log

Green bubbles = normal training
Yellow bubbles = workout
Red bubbles = race (in this case MaXi Race XL)
XT = cross training

Review of the month
I started off with two and a half really solid weeks and by the third weekend I needed to rest and recover. After an easy weekend, I did a hard effort with climbing and then raced MaXi Race XL the following weekend where I was happy with my result. Overall it was a good month with good climbing volumes and four back-to-back sessions. I made a definite step-up in my vertical training and I'm glad I managed to hold off pushing too much when I felt the fatigue accumulating at the end of the third week. I think I did the best month of training that I was capable of for May. I need to build another one on top of that in June!