by Mimi Winsberg, M.D.

Much has been written about the dreaded grey zone of training. The “grey zone” is usually defined as the training zone that falls between aerobic endurance and intensity work. The zone is considered grey because it is a training intensity that is too hard for long endurance sessions or proper recovery, but not hard enough to trigger specific adaptions to higher intensity intervals.

Elite athletes tend to avoid the grey zone between high intensity and low intensity. For example, elite skiers and marathon runners spend on average less than 10% of their time in this mid-zone, and employ a more polarized training method. There may, however, be a role for grey zone training this time of year.

Grey Zone Training
At this time of winter, we are pretty fresh, yet we have not fully established our base. While it is tempting to progress right into high intensity interval training, doing so would result in a peak well before the typical athlete’s A-race.

While hammering a winter weekend ride at a sustained effort between high aerobic intensity and lactate threshold is probably just going to help you accumulate fatigue, shorter intervals working on intensive endurance can been very helpful, without the risks of incurring a lot of fatigue. Moderate hard intervals of 20 to 30 minutes duration have been useful for me, and don’t require any extended recovery.

The Mind’s Grey Zone
Another useful grey zone to consider this time of year is that of the mind’s grey areas and our willingness to tolerate ambiguity. February is the time of year when we start to get uneasy or impatient with our approach. Training is underway but few of us have had a chance to test ourselves in races, and nor should we be really ready to test ourselves. This can lead to a certain line of questioning: Am I training enough? Am I doing enough intensity? Is my plan on target? There is a tendency to want clear answers and established power/pace zones across various distances.

Progressive tests can establish zones but in my experience performance will fluctuate this time of year as fitness is only beginning to emerge, and zones will actually seem a bit grey, rather than black and white. Some days you feel great, and other days, you find yourself doing what my friend pro-triathlete Meredith Kessler calls a “WEB workout”- short for “why even bother?” This is normal in February, and sometimes we just need to accept that the power is not there, and dial it back a bit.

Patience and tolerance of ambiguity with regard to training zones and protocol is not only helpful, but may be necessary to fully commit to the longer term goals of the season. Establishing functional threshold power, or analyzing the particular bells and whistles of a training plan are probably more esoteric and less fundamental than making our way out the door each day, to get out and train in the grey zone of winter.