I am back after a short break. I ran the Rehoboth Beach marathon on Saturday. I know marathons are not favored in the OS, but they are necessary for SAUs. My wife is an avid runner and we use them as a sort of vacation. Truth be told, I enjoy them as well. It took a while to warm up today, but once I got going my legs felt good. I was able to hit the goals. I did skip the run.
Really happy to see everyone's results on today's workout and wishing my results were as positive. The 2x20's killed me this morning. My heart rate was fine, but my legs (particularly my quads and calves) were totally smoked. I was below my FTP by about 25 watts and was struggling to maintain that throughout the workout.
Saturday's bike felt very hard as well, but I assumed that was the wind/cold/snow that I was fighting more than just fatigue. Needless to say I'm a little concerned. I feel like I've been getting decent sleep and my nutrition hasn't changed, so I'm not sure what's going on. I plan to try and get some extra sleep tonight and hopefully Th bike workout will feel a little better.
Have most of your workouts been outdoors? I do know that I wind up spending a lot more time getting ready to go outside compared to putting on my shorts, a t-shirt and HR monitor to go downstairs. That saves me a lot of time and worry about the conditions ahead of time. Plus, the workout is more focused and not interrupted by pauses and hills, etc. Your OS workouts might have been causing more stress in the growing colder weather than you realize. Am I wrong about that? I know that I wasn't doing nearly as much intense work at this time of year, ever. It's starting to wear on me and I've been trying to baby myself when it comes to recovery & rest.
Your FTP is way above mine so you might be dealing with issues that I'm not good enough to deal with yet (one of the messages from last night's webinar). Have you kept up with core strengthening? I realized after about one week that I was going to breakdown quickly doing all this higher intensity stuff if I didn't resume core work. This OS is teaching me I've been a total slacker in the past.
Tedious day at work then a couple hours with mom for an MRI (diagostic for pain management) and re-dress her leg laceration (stupid fall last week). By the time I got home to me wee wifey, I lost all interest in tearing my legs off.
I have a rare mid-week day off tomorrow so I may do a partial bike in the AM and keep to my regular run in the evening.... then again, maybe just call it a day and move on.
Looks like lots of great work today - Team NOS Rocks! We're going to snuff out the JV JOS punks and punkettes!
2x20's in the books - not as bad as I feared, go figure....great reading all the posts, very motivating. Have to say I had quite a chuckle reading Al's comment re "character building"
"Character building" = "improving mental fitness". I've long since learned that almost always, if I "fail" at a workout, it's because I just didn't dig deep enough. There's always something down there, at least there is two months into a training program, much more than I anticipate. Going down and getting that extra something, though, is like going down into a dark basement when you're an 8 year old kid ... character building.
got my 2x20 in this morning. was challenging, but not over the top. the first 20' was oddly peaceful, as I tried really hard to relax, breathe calmly and ignore the clock. no such luck on the 2nd, but didn't have to dig too deep to finish it off. avg HR was 3-4 bpm lower than during previous 2x15s, so hopefully that bodes well for next week's test. thankfully, i can save my character building for then!
finished off with 10' of running and 5x20" uphill strides
I am a day behind schedule this week, so did my character-building 2 x 20's this morning. Not as bad as feared, but I did hold back a bit. .98 and .99. Hoping for a bit of an FTP bump next week. Then a 20 minute run with 5 x 20" strides and felt great. By the way, I managed to get about 8 solid hours of sleep last night. I agree with other posts here - good sleep makes a world of difference for those early AM workouts!
I finally made it onto the bike at 7PM last night. I need to learn my lesson and just get these workout busted out 1st thing in the morning. Surprisingly the 2x20 min went great. I was able to hold higher watts and which has inspired me to be hopeful on next weeks tests! I cut the down to 25 min. so I could get to bed at a decent time so I could get up early to crush the 4x1 mile repeats. Great work everyone we are at the halfway point!
What do I do for a workout today? MS: 3 x (4 x 45/45) @ Vo2/Zone5/Very Hard. Take 2' easy between each set of 5 x 45/45's. So, is it 4 or 5 rounds of 45 sec?
BOOM!! Who would have thought that fueling up the night before a VO2 workout with Doritos, chocolate chip cookies and red wine, and reducing zzzzs (= xmas party...) would result in absolutely crushin' these intervals?? I assume it's because of massive sugar spike and I'll come crashing down later today... Regardless, work done, rest day manana, yippie. I was going to reward myself w/ James Bond tonight, but I think I need some extra zzzzs... happy vo2 mas day everybody and keep on crushin' it. many happy mojos to all
3 x (5 x 1'/1') - intervals at 259 (oops) to 274 vs. target of 266.
Good luck everyone. @ Aaron - .98 and 1.0 means 98% and 100% of threshold pace or FT. My tested FT = 220, so for me .98 = 216 watts/220 watts. I'm not sure what TR is, so can't help you there.
Today will be tough because I'm dropping the VO2 workout and bumping my schedule ahead by a day. I want to test on Sunday in the early afternoon instead of zero-stupid thirty Monday morning like most of my normal week-day bike workouts. Watching everyone crush their intervals today will be hard, but I'm getting my recovery day in today.
Today's bike felt MUCH better after Tuesday's disappointing workout. Legs still fel a little fatigued, but not as dead as Tuesday. Looking forward to my 90 minute massage tonight.
Just soaking up the mojo as I slept in and will be getting the VO2 in after work.
@Roy I'll have to make sure I get the week 8 thread up early as you will be leading out much sooner than I expected. Enjoy the rest day. I think I need to move to London, England to start getting ahead of you time wise that is. As for the run I'd need a scooter or somehting to keep up after the first 400 or so.
Did the unmerciful Merced workout on TrainerRoad this morning...for the 4x(5x45:45)....this was 5x(5x40:20)...yes...YIKES....I didn't realize it was only 20 sec. recovery unitl I was already into the workout...so went with it...last set of 5 was a killer...but got 'er done.......will be interesting to test next week!
@Julia! Hee hee. I almost wound up doing the same switcharoo.
I went down there, blasting the tunes and cranked out a monster 4 x (5 x 45/45) to American Idiot. I did a lot of experimenting. First set was high cadence (> 110). Second set was medium cadence. Third set was cadence in the high 80's, low for me. Fourth set was going up a cog for each ON 45 (53x24, 53x21, 53x19, 53x17 and 53x16) and trying to drill it. Sparklies all around.
Bike done, standard warmup then 3x(4x45). Stopped at that point since I am planning to do saturday's workout tomorrow (have to work on the weekend). Great job everyone!
@ Julia - you got a workout in so better than nothing.
I got in 3X(5X1) - Felt decent again not quite a good as the 2X20' earlier in the week. No 85% work as I'm holding back a little to crush the test.
The plan is to get in the Saturday workout in the early am then rest and recover until Monday. Unfortunately we have a birthday party for a very good friend on Friday evening starting a 8pm so we will see how many refreshments I have and how late it gets.
Very tired legs before the bike ride today, thought I'd decide during the ride itself to determine the length of my FTP intervals. (Still not doing the VO2 max because the difference between my FTP and VO2 power is 42%). So tired legs, expected to only last a couple minutes but to my big surprise my FTP power felt quite easy, my heart rate remained low and legs didn't get more tired than they already were. So cranked out another 2 x 20' at FTP. Based on how my bike has felt there should definitely be a 15-20 watt FTP improvement in my test next week.
Now gotta do Saturday's workout tomorrow night which is gonna HURT! More FTP intervals, running afterwards... just like the good old IM training days almost. ;-)
Surprised myself tonight. I didn't want to do the bike. Foreced myself to get dressed than had took me almost 20' with my shoes on before I climbed onto the bike. At first the best I could do was about (0.25) and even that was a struggle. I spun for 15' then decided to do 1 set. The rest just fell into place.
Plan called for 4x(5x45/45) but I've been going 60/60 from the beginning so I did 4x(4x60/60) instead.
Despite my lack of mojo before the bike, it came back in earnest during the intervals. Only the first 1 was below (1.2) but over the course of 16' of ON time, my average was (1.29). Mostly went by RPE, not looking at Watts till I was in the about 40 secs into the interval. Nnever saw the 'sparklies' and felt like I was where I needed to be.
Comments
Really happy to see everyone's results on today's workout and wishing my results were as positive. The 2x20's killed me this morning. My heart rate was fine, but my legs (particularly my quads and calves) were totally smoked. I was below my FTP by about 25 watts and was struggling to maintain that throughout the workout.
Saturday's bike felt very hard as well, but I assumed that was the wind/cold/snow that I was fighting more than just fatigue. Needless to say I'm a little concerned. I feel like I've been getting decent sleep and my nutrition hasn't changed, so I'm not sure what's going on. I plan to try and get some extra sleep tonight and hopefully Th bike workout will feel a little better.
Any thoughts?
Your FTP is way above mine so you might be dealing with issues that I'm not good enough to deal with yet (one of the messages from last night's webinar). Have you kept up with core strengthening? I realized after about one week that I was going to breakdown quickly doing all this higher intensity stuff if I didn't resume core work. This OS is teaching me I've been a total slacker in the past.
Tedious day at work then a couple hours with mom for an MRI (diagostic for pain management) and re-dress her leg laceration (stupid fall last week). By the time I got home to me wee wifey, I lost all interest in tearing my legs off.
I have a rare mid-week day off tomorrow so I may do a partial bike in the AM and keep to my regular run in the evening.... then again, maybe just call it a day and move on.
Looks like lots of great work today - Team NOS Rocks! We're going to snuff out the JV JOS punks and punkettes!
2x20's in the books - not as bad as I feared, go figure....great reading all the posts, very motivating. Have to say I had quite a chuckle reading Al's comment re "character building"
"Character building" = "improving mental fitness". I've long since learned that almost always, if I "fail" at a workout, it's because I just didn't dig deep enough. There's always something down there, at least there is two months into a training program, much more than I anticipate. Going down and getting that extra something, though, is like going down into a dark basement when you're an 8 year old kid ... character building.
finished off with 10' of running and 5x20" uphill strides
I am a day behind schedule this week, so did my character-building 2 x 20's this morning. Not as bad as feared, but I did hold back a bit. .98 and .99. Hoping for a bit of an FTP bump next week. Then a 20 minute run with 5 x 20" strides and felt great. By the way, I managed to get about 8 solid hours of sleep last night. I agree with other posts here - good sleep makes a world of difference for those early AM workouts!
What does 1.0 and .98 mean? How do I incorporate and find these numbers using TR?
In!
Off to other work!
@Aaron - I would go with the MS instruction and call the "rest interval" instruction a copy and paste error, but it's a guess.
Great day all!
BOOM!! Who would have thought that fueling up the night before a VO2 workout with Doritos, chocolate chip cookies and red wine, and reducing zzzzs (= xmas party...) would result in absolutely crushin' these intervals?? I assume it's because of massive sugar spike and I'll come crashing down later today... Regardless, work done, rest day manana, yippie. I was going to reward myself w/ James Bond tonight, but I think I need some extra zzzzs... happy vo2 mas day everybody and keep on crushin' it. many happy mojos to all
3 x (5 x 1'/1') - intervals at 259 (oops) to 274 vs. target of 266.
Good luck everyone.
@ Aaron - .98 and 1.0 means 98% and 100% of threshold pace or FT. My tested FT = 220, so for me .98 = 216 watts/220 watts. I'm not sure what TR is, so can't help you there.
Get after it everyone. Solid work so far!
Great job everyone! I'm running my kids to school then its all in!!
Today's bike felt MUCH better after Tuesday's disappointing workout. Legs still fel a little fatigued, but not as dead as Tuesday. Looking forward to my 90 minute massage tonight.
Just soaking up the mojo as I slept in and will be getting the VO2 in after work.
@Roy I'll have to make sure I get the week 8 thread up early as you will be leading out much sooner than I expected. Enjoy the rest day. I think I need to move to London, England to start getting ahead of you time wise that is. As for the run I'd need a scooter or somehting to keep up after the first 400 or so.
Gordon
Did the unmerciful Merced workout on TrainerRoad this morning...for the 4x(5x45:45)....this was 5x(5x40:20)...yes...YIKES....I didn't realize it was only 20 sec. recovery unitl I was already into the workout...so went with it...last set of 5 was a killer...but got 'er done.......will be interesting to test next week!
Gaahh! Did 5x(3x45). I'm dyslexic.
I went down there, blasting the tunes and cranked out a monster 4 x (5 x 45/45) to American Idiot. I did a lot of experimenting. First set was high cadence (> 110). Second set was medium cadence. Third set was cadence in the high 80's, low for me. Fourth set was going up a cog for each ON 45 (53x24, 53x21, 53x19, 53x17 and 53x16) and trying to drill it. Sparklies all around.
http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/126013
And there's nothin' wrong with me.
This is how I'm s'posed to be.
Bike done, standard warmup then 3x(4x45). Stopped at that point since I am planning to do saturday's workout tomorrow (have to work on the weekend). Great job everyone!
@ Julia - you got a workout in so better than nothing.
I got in 3X(5X1) - Felt decent again not quite a good as the 2X20' earlier in the week. No 85% work as I'm holding back a little to crush the test.
The plan is to get in the Saturday workout in the early am then rest and recover until Monday. Unfortunately we have a birthday party for a very good friend on Friday evening starting a 8pm so we will see how many refreshments I have and how late it gets.
Gordon
got em done, 3x(3x1/1) , 48' all in. I am shelled and looking forward to the rest day...good work folks.
Now gotta do Saturday's workout tomorrow night which is gonna HURT! More FTP intervals, running afterwards... just like the good old IM training days almost. ;-)
Plan called for 4x(5x45/45) but I've been going 60/60 from the beginning so I did 4x(4x60/60) instead.
Despite my lack of mojo before the bike, it came back in earnest during the intervals. Only the first 1 was below (1.2) but over the course of 16' of ON time, my average was (1.29). Mostly went by RPE, not looking at Watts till I was in the about 40 secs into the interval. Nnever saw the 'sparklies' and felt like I was where I needed to be.
Projecting a 20 watt bump on Monday.