Training plan - Dawn’s Way

5 minutes reading time

Hi! Welcome to blog two in the series I’m writing about training and completing a challenge to Walk across Wales within 24 hours, all with a disability. 

In this blog, I will be taking a closer look at my training plan and the recovery element of the process.

The training for the event can be a bigger challenge when you have a disability than the event itself because it requires a certain level of consistency. I’ve seen plans where they are a week by week run up to the event with the full itinerary of what, when, how far, how long, pace etc. all mapped out. 

I need to be more flexible than this. Having a fluctuating condition where I have no idea which weeks will be good or bad means that level of planning only becomes stressful and disappointing. 

Instead, I have broken down the weeks to give a clearer picture of what I have to play with and then a general idea of what I would like to achieve in that time but without allocating a date to everything the full way through. I’ll pencil in days but with contingency on being able to move things. I will still add in a ramp up as I get fitter but accounting for the fact that a bad day will require adjustment.

For me, it’s about working with my fluctuations to get the best out of the good days and an allowance for more rest on the bad.

I do have what I call an MVP - in the project world (my career background) this stands for minimum viable product. It’s the minimum level required before something can be released or taken ‘live’. In terms of my training, it’s the minimum level I want to be doing on my bad days. Even a very small amount of movement is better than none and on my bad days I can do 5 minutes without making myself worse, even if it takes a big mental push to get myself doing it. 

My MVP consists of some very light dumbbell weights and stretching. The next level up is to go for a 10-20 minute walk additional to this. And then beyond this I’m moving more into the main training with a bit of adaptation in the difficulty of the sessions. 

The flexibility is the key and not only in when I do things but what as well. My challenge is a hike. But I’m doing more than hiking as part of my training. I’m also cycling a lot which uses similar muscles to hill walking. I'm maintaining my Jiu Jitsu which helps with strength and coordination (yoga is also good for this). I also swim, my preference is outdoors at a quarry but it would work with a pool too to improve general fitness whilst it being low impact. 

They all have their purpose and contribute. And it might mean if I’m on a not so great week but can do a bit, a swim might be a good option for me. Feeling good, I’ll go for a longer walk or cycle. 

My main aim is to do something every weekend. What that is and the level I can adapt, but in doing this I can move forward in a way that suits me. I go for a morning walk before work during the week too which is about a mile every day and makes much more of a difference than you’d think. 

I know I need to get in some endurance training as well as hills and strength training so a mix of those is what I build in as I go along. 

I tend to do a lot of training solo as well, it’s always lovely to train with others but schedules can be more tricky to match up and tend to require a bit more of fixed date planning. I don’t want to miss out on an opportunity for training because nobody else is available so I make sure I’m set up safely to go out on my own. I’ll cover more on kit in an upcoming post. It also meant training in some pretty awful weather. I'd usually be a fair weather walker but the amount of rain we’ve had this year means I wouldn’t have left the house! But with the right kit, it may not be as fun as a sunny day, but it’s still lovely to get out and get the movement. And actually, I can’t guarantee good weather on the challenge so it’s good to get the training in for that too. 

Recovery forms a big part of the plan too. I have chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) so I have to be careful not to trigger some pretty awful symptoms of that. Day to day my CFS is underlying and I don’t notice it, it’s mostly when I get a viral infection that I get affected by symptoms now. But it does mean my boundaries and what I can push up to are different. It means I can’t push to my limits which a lot of sports and fitness people will do. I need to come away from training feeling like I can do more. And I wouldn’t want to do any intensive training (more than my daily walk) back to back, there needs to be a few days in between. This is a condition I’ve had for many years and it was a gradual build back up from not being able to do any activity when I was first diagnosed. I now know myself and my condition well so haven’t had too much difficulty with the aspect but it does influence the training plan approach so worth sharing that it needs building in.

For the event itself as well, I’ve booked time off work afterwards to rest and recouperate as well as a full body massage. Planning this now so that I have the time and space to have post event recovery, it’s not just about the event and done, I know I need to look after myself afterwards too. 

As I’m writing the final parts of this blog I’m actually having to make good use of the adaptability of my training not for my disability but for an injury! On a walk in Scotland I managed to get a soft tissue injury which I now know is an ankle inversion injury. I’ve been to physio and am doing regular exercise and it’s healing really well. I’ve been told I should be good to go by the time the walk is here which is great because I wasn’t sure when I first did it. I couldn’t walk on it at all, but I could do some gentle cycling and so that’s what I did to maintain fitness and now I’m able to put full weight on again, I’m back to getting the feet miles in along with the other activities.

The next blog in the series will be about the places I’ve been training and looking at training from home vs travelling for training.

Thanks for reading!

Dawn