July progress: a change is as good as a rest

July was deliberately different. After two months of high volume in May and June, this was a month to step back — no remaining qualifiers to chase, no big events to prepare for immediately. Volume dropped to around 557km, roughly half of May and June. Most of the month was running and hiking rather than big cycling miles. A change, as they say, is as good as a rest.

Volume and intensity

Over 90% of sessions remained at low intensity and Zone 2 — the habit is now deeply ingrained. The one change: in the final week of July I started introducing more intensity again, beginning the gradual shift back toward sharper efforts ahead of Paris-Brest-Paris.

I completed a 300km event in July — the Fifth Continent Audax. As with all the long events, recovery took 5–6 days before I felt genuinely normal again. That recovery pattern is now something I plan around rather than fight against.

VO2Max: an honest reckoning

My Garmin-estimated VO2Max dropped to 45, down from 48. The pattern over the last three months is now clear: a sustained focus on Zone 2 volume has improved aerobic capacity and fat oxidation significantly, but it has come at the direct cost of VO2Max.

This is a real and documented trade-off in endurance training, and I'm comfortable with it for this specific goal. Paris-Brest-Paris is a multi-day endurance event. What wins there is the ability to sustain effort over many hours and days — exactly what Zone 2 training builds. VO2Max matters less when the event lasts 88 hours than when it lasts 40 minutes.

That said, it's a clear priority to address in the off-season. High-intensity intervals need to be a non-negotiable weekly commitment, not something that gets dropped when life gets busy.

Strength training

Didn't happen at all in July. That's the honest truth. It needs better scheduling — it keeps slipping because it doesn't have a fixed slot the way cycling sessions do. Something to fix going into 2024.

The two weeks ahead

Two weeks to the Paris-Brest-Paris start in Rambouillet. The plan is simple: mostly easy, low-intensity training to stay loose and maintain the aerobic engine without adding fatigue. No heroics. No last-minute fitness work. The base is built — now it's about arriving at the start line healthy, rested, and ready.

"I've been slack on high-intensity and strength training. Hopefully this won't come back to bite me. But the endurance fitness is there."