Well, my starting point was really low (artificially..) as I had just ended up in the hospital for intestinal problem. So my first test numbers were around 155 watts. That might have been about 20 watts too low for around that time, absent the fun times at the hospital. But after work (works), I tested today at 206w, so am very happy with the protocols that we are on at TeamEN. Good work everyone, don't forget to post your power updates to the Haus.
Put a heavy fist down on my first 5k run test, decreasing my time by 1:30 to current 19:10. VDOT bump 4 points to 52. While my first 5k test may have been a little artificially low, this test does provide a little redemption on my stagnant FTP from my recent 2nd bike test.
Congrats to everyone on the recent bike test successes, and good luck on the upcoming run tests!
Wow Ian you crushed it. That's quite the way to lead out for the rest of us. I am expecting a big time decrease given my low vdot but 4 points up to 52 is awsome.
Got the test in this morning, I still have an issue with flying and dying. Pacing has never been a strong suit for me. I did improve my time by 33 sec, moving my vDot from 45 to 46.5! Now I get to live with the faster paces, bring it on! Good luck testing all.
Did this one outside since I'm doing my Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday runs outside. Did 8:17; 8:07 and 7:54 and :45 secs for total ot 25:05 mins and new vdot of 38.2. For me, that's a BIG BOOM! . And yes, I will insist on my .2!! Nice bump from week 1, in part due to smarter pacing, running outdoors v treadmill, and work showing up. Still much work to do
Now the key will be to nail the new bike/run paces in the workouts while not killing myself. From what I'm gathering from OS vets, we're entering the critical phase of the OS where fatigue, work and stress start to accumulate and risk os burning out rises accordingly, so, BOOM smart everybody!!
Well big winter storm has elimiated any possibility of testing outside today or tomorrow. I have slipped on ice while running fast in the past and dont want to repeat that exercise any time soon.
I ruminated on what to do for a while and this is what I came up with. Today I am going to test on the treadmill, even though my last test was outside. I am convinced my treadmill at 1% incline is 12-15s/km too 'hard' compared with a similar effort outside so I am going to see if that bears out, and then I will have set of paces I can use if future workouts need to move indoors. I have found that the outside running workouts have felt pretty easy since the beginning of the outseason and I have routinely overcooked the tempo intervals, MP, and HMP by 5-8s/km, probably since I didnt have a very good initial 5k test (it was a full minute slower than a 5k TT done 4 weeks earlier). On the plus side, this has allowed my foot and ankle injury to pretty much heal almost completely.
So here I go 'hacking' the testing again. I am going to adjust my outside paces slightly to more accurately reflect where I think they should be (and I can always adjust them back down if this adversely affects downstream workouts). For me this means raising the Vdot. I am going to be cautious and raise it only a bit (ie 47 to 49) but that will more accurately reflect the paces I have been running anyway. know this is arbitrary and may not agree with the philosphy here but otherwise this whole EN exercise is going to have me constantly fretting about testing rather than training.
Second question: I also intend to transition from the beginner plan to the intermediate plan. Any recommendations on how to do this or should I just make the switch cold turkey?
Did this one outside since I'm doing my Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday runs outside. Did 8:17; 8:07 and 7:54 and :45 secs for total ot 25:05 mins and new vdot of 38.2. For me, that's a BIG BOOM! . And yes, I will insist on my .2!! Nice bump from week 1, in part due to smarter pacing, running outdoors v treadmill, and work showing up. Still much work to do
Wow! you will be tearing it up this spring! keep the .2 you earned it!
Shuffling things around today and this week so I can go my run test with other members of the Ottawa Sleeper Cell on Saturday. Plan is to run outdoors and possibly pit NOS testers against the JOS-keeners who will be joining us for the 5km. Weather looks less than appealing for Saturday with a predicted high of 28F and scattered flurries. Oh well, must get done. Congrats to everyone seeing improved Vdots - well deserved!!!
@Satish - I find my outdoor vs. indoor paces differ in a big way.
I test independently, both on the bike and on the run, but I also try to keep my biking indoors and my running outdoors come what may so that I'm not testing constantly. If you're going to be training indoors at 1% for the foreseeable future, then it makes sense to test indoors, but I would stick to the same paces when you train outdoors.
There is some precedent for the Scientific Wild-Ass Guess, but I'm going to give you the argument against doing so. Do with it as you will (aka YMMV); I am not a coach, or WSM. That said, the philosophy of earning your paces has everything to do with avoiding injury. The risk is not the subsequent workout, but the lower leg injuries you allude to. You may get more (speed, fitness) from allowing those injuries to fully heal during the OS than you will out of pushing the envelope. I don't know the details of your foot and lower-leg injuries, but that may be the training priority.
Bottom line: I would be conservative about increasing both intensity and distance at the same time, because the risk of losing training time to injury exceeds the opportunity cost of eschewing the greater training load. I would back off at the earliest indication of injury, and I would either increase volume or intensity, not both at the same time.
Moving up to the intermediate plan... Al said he moves up from Intermediate to Advanced halfway through the OS, and it sounds like he did so by splitting the difference for a couple of weeks. I don't think that's a bad way to go, but one option is to step up the bike training all the way, which is lower risk, and to phase in the additional running volume by splitting the difference for a week without increasing your paces, then doing the intermediate run week, without increasing the paces, and see how your feet and legs feel. If you feel great, then fold in a little extra pace, but not two VDOT points - that's a huge step. The training paces we're given are intentionally well below top speed. Train a little conservatively and your gains over the long run may be greater.
No additional disclaimers offered - these are just my thoughts... hope they are useful...
Testing is done. I still need to download the data but believe I have a 28:09 or 1:50 decrease from week 1. The new Vdot is 33.something up from 31. I was pushing it very hard as I felt the stomach at the end. I have to say slightly disappointed if I could have taken off another 15 seconds I would have been able to round up to the 34 VDot
Moving forward if the knees hold I'll test in another 3 weeks to keep pushing up the VDot a little faster.
If you are having trouble testing I'd say bump it up, two vdot points can be or maybe too much especially if you want to combine this with a transition from beginner to intermediate. I have not looked at the plans but with the increase in FTP and VDot I'd look at the difference in the week 8 and 9 between the plans probably work in to the new plan. I'm just not sure what the differences so it's hard to say.
My concern is that you are feeling good about the workouts but had a difficult FTP test and then a different (treadmill) VDot. ]
I'd fire this one off to the coaches in the Macro thread.
Good advice Gordon and Russell. I will compare the int and beg plans before anything else. Agree raising volume and pace will lead to trouble. In my case it will be raising volume as I have been doing the higher paces since the beginning. Looking at the weather forecast, the earliest I could do the 5k test outside might be friday afternoon, so I am not sure it is worth sitting out two workouts in the meantime just to test then. Alternatively I could do the VO2 bike today, tomorrow off, then test friday?
well done, everyone! such a blast to see everyone's strong work
@ Satish, the schedule you laid out with 5k test on Friday makes sense to me. i'd also echo the comments of conservatism regarding stepping up volume and intensity and would start off with the bike increases first
i'm satisfied with my vDot test #2. as i mentioned on the main board, my legs felt sluggish from the start of the warm-up all the way thru the test, so the OS fatigue definitely played a role in the results
w/u was an easy jog over to the track w/ a few strides thrown in. 1x around the track and then off. pacing was slightly better than test #1, but still not ideal:
Test #1: 5:49, 6:11, 6:26, 6:30 (stub) Test #2: 5:53, 6:01, 6:02, 5:38 (stub)
i really tried to hold back on the first lap, but i looked down at one point early on and saw 5:17 pace, so i knew i was overcooking it. slowed down for the remainder of mile 1 and came in with a decent pace, but lotsa fear about blowing up. so, i was happy to hold the mile 3 pace close to mile 2 and empty the tank for the stub 0.1 mile. i must have sounded like a wounded animal for the last 1-2 laps, 'cause i was feeling the pain and letting the world know about it. BOOM!
the overall time is faster than a 5k race i ran in March of this year, so qualifies as a new PR. would be interesting to see the difference a race makes vs a solo run at the track
Well, I am supposed to be satisfied but I'm really not. My VDOT score went down from a 47 (based on a 21:00 PR set this summer, on a hilly course) to a 45.9. Today's 5k was run on the local HS track. Temp was 40F and a 12 mph wind that would catch you right as you came into one of the curved sections of the track. I had my buddy, Larry, come out and race with me so we could push each other. It didn't work out so bad seeing as how I was expecting an even bigger drop off.
After we warmed up and got all the talking about how each of our lives is going to hell in a hand basket we set out the plan for what we were about to do. Larry wasn't quite sure where he was but he'd recently set a PR of 22:45 at the local Turkey Trot so he was feeling frisky. You know how the Garmin pacing data takes a little time to settle in before it gives you a steady pace? With that in mind I wasn't going to look at the thing for the first half lap and just try to stick with Larry and settle in at a 7:00 pace for the first Km. Ummmm, NOT! Larry takes off like a shot and I just couldn't hold it so I just tried to keep him within 50 meters or so. When I finally take that first look at the Garmin it says 5:52 pace!!! I yelled out "Jeezus, Larry! (and Joseph)." Nevermind, that's an inside, somewhat sacrilegious joke we have. Anyway, we kept at it but I took it back a couple notches and just tried to wait him out. Sure enough, he'd gone out too hard and I finally caught him near the end of the second Km. Since I knew I'd gone out too hard in the first Km I was wondering about how this would all turn out and I decided to run the outer lanes in the hope of having one less time to turn into the wind at the bad end of the track and also to lessen the torque on my left knee. Larry, went to the inside in a desperate attempt to 'keep pace' with me. That worked for a few more laps but then I was past him far enough that I had no more rabbit in front of me. That was okay, we were working too hard to keep up the trash talk. As you can see, I faded down to around a 7:00/mi pace and had to really dig to hold it until the end.
Km 1: 6:35/mi pace and avg HR=163 Km 2: 6:53/mi pace and avg HR=173 Km 3: 6:57/mi pace and avg HR=175 Km 4: 7:00/mi pace and avg HR=177 Km 5: 7:01/mi pace and avg HR=178
Overall: 21:24.76, 6:53/mi pace, avg HR 173 and a VDOT score calculated as 46.0. I originally thought I ran a 21:27:25 forgot to take off the extra 2.5 seconds before I remembered to stop the Garmin.
Oh well, onward and upward. At least Larry set another PR. He is, however, still pissed that he hasn't beaten me yet. ;-)
... question: I also intend to transition from the beginner plan to the intermediate plan. Any recommendations on how to do this or should I just make the switch cold turkey?
At this stage of the OS, when we are in a testing/recovery type week, it's a good time to just make the switch starting with week 9, next Monday. You'll do fine with the work you've accumulated thus far, and the consistency you've shown in nailing the run paces at or below you TP.
Did my 5k test this morning. I was 11 secs. Slower this time, but after looking at my splits I think I might of overlooked the first mile. It might also be the 13 extra lbs I am carrying around.
I blew it. Went too hard with what I wanted to hit rather than building up as advised. Pulled the plug at mile 1. Will reattempt this weekend. You figured that I would follow the suggestions (like I did with the bike that had a good improvement) but I'm too dumb for that. Oh well. Good lesson moving forward.
Finished my testing for the week. Up to 294 FTP on the bike from 280, a few points higher in my VO2, and cut off 25 seconds on my 5K down to 17:15! Loving this stuff
Off schedule here. Got in 9 miles today with 4x1 mile at TP (actually about 5-10 seconds hot per interval). The run back from the track was especially fun.
solid work everyone, makes for great reading. For anyone having the testing blues due to work/life/medical/fatigue ....remember: if it was easy, everyone would be doing it! But they ain't , and you are. You are all rock-stars, and it will get better.
Solid bump for me. I tested indoors this time, initial OS test was forced outside by Sandy.
Outseason start: 44 (outside)
Week 8: 48.9 (treadmill), 46.5 (adjusted for outside pace)
So, I will train indoors with the 48.9 number (gulp) and if I get outdoors at all, I will use the adjusted figure. Either way, I am quite happy with the bump!
I wouldn't say I crushed it but I am SO excited that I beat my previous test time by 42 seconds and it was windy today vs last time. Vdot went up 1.2 points. I just completed my 6th year of competing in triathlons but only in my first EN OS and I am thrilled to see some improvement!! In am not good at where to post what yet online but I can tell you here that I am excited that "workworks". Thanks EN!!
Loving reading everyone's results... Way to go Melissa! Rich and Eric impressive testing on the TM>
I did much better pacing today than prior test and improved enough to be HAPPY. Prior test: 8:50,9:10,8:50, 8:33 (.1) - 27:43 Today: 8:42,8:48,8:44, 8:00 (.1) - 27:08 Vdot up 1 point!
Have done all my workouts on the TM, as it's easier from a life/time perspective. So I was curious how I would do outside for the test. Doing a test on the TM scare me.
Comments
Congrats to everyone on the recent bike test successes, and good luck on the upcoming run tests!
Wow Ian you crushed it. That's quite the way to lead out for the rest of us. I am expecting a big time decrease given my low vdot but 4 points up to 52 is awsome.
Gordon
5 miles in 40 minutes today. Threw in some terrain to keep the legs guessing.
Good luck with tomorrow's testing! Crush it.
Gorgeous day for a vdot test
.
Did this one outside since I'm doing my Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday runs outside. Did 8:17; 8:07 and 7:54 and :45 secs for total ot 25:05 mins and new vdot of 38.2. For me, that's a BIG BOOM! . And yes, I will insist on my .2!! Nice bump from week 1, in part due to smarter pacing, running outdoors v treadmill, and work showing up. Still much work to do
Now the key will be to nail the new bike/run paces in the workouts while not killing myself. From what I'm gathering from OS vets, we're entering the critical phase of the OS where fatigue, work and stress start to accumulate and risk os burning out rises accordingly, so, BOOM smart everybody!!
Well big winter storm has elimiated any possibility of testing outside today or tomorrow. I have slipped on ice while running fast in the past and dont want to repeat that exercise any time soon.
I ruminated on what to do for a while and this is what I came up with. Today I am going to test on the treadmill, even though my last test was outside. I am convinced my treadmill at 1% incline is 12-15s/km too 'hard' compared with a similar effort outside so I am going to see if that bears out, and then I will have set of paces I can use if future workouts need to move indoors. I have found that the outside running workouts have felt pretty easy since the beginning of the outseason and I have routinely overcooked the tempo intervals, MP, and HMP by 5-8s/km, probably since I didnt have a very good initial 5k test (it was a full minute slower than a 5k TT done 4 weeks earlier). On the plus side, this has allowed my foot and ankle injury to pretty much heal almost completely.
So here I go 'hacking' the testing again. I am going to adjust my outside paces slightly to more accurately reflect where I think they should be (and I can always adjust them back down if this adversely affects downstream workouts). For me this means raising the Vdot. I am going to be cautious and raise it only a bit (ie 47 to 49) but that will more accurately reflect the paces I have been running anyway. know this is arbitrary and may not agree with the philosphy here but otherwise this whole EN exercise is going to have me constantly fretting about testing rather than training.
Second question: I also intend to transition from the beginner plan to the intermediate plan. Any recommendations on how to do this or should I just make the switch cold turkey?
Wow! you will be tearing it up this spring! keep the .2 you earned it!
Stomach cramps all night so I will not be testing today.
Testing is done. I still need to download the data but believe I have a 28:09 or 1:50 decrease from week 1. The new Vdot is 33.something up from 31. I was pushing it very hard as I felt the stomach at the end. I have to say slightly disappointed if I could have taken off another 15 seconds I would have been able to round up to the 34 VDot
Moving forward if the knees hold I'll test in another 3 weeks to keep pushing up the VDot a little faster.
Gordon
Satish,
If you are having trouble testing I'd say bump it up, two vdot points can be or maybe too much especially if you want to combine this with a transition from beginner to intermediate. I have not looked at the plans but with the increase in FTP and VDot I'd look at the difference in the week 8 and 9 between the plans probably work in to the new plan. I'm just not sure what the differences so it's hard to say.
My concern is that you are feeling good about the workouts but had a difficult FTP test and then a different (treadmill) VDot. ]
I'd fire this one off to the coaches in the Macro thread.
Gordon
Good advice Gordon and Russell. I will compare the int and beg plans before anything else. Agree raising volume and pace will lead to trouble. In my case it will be raising volume as I have been doing the higher paces since the beginning. Looking at the weather forecast, the earliest I could do the 5k test outside might be friday afternoon, so I am not sure it is worth sitting out two workouts in the meantime just to test then. Alternatively I could do the VO2 bike today, tomorrow off, then test friday?
@Satish - working out my own hack just as you are.
@ Satish, the schedule you laid out with 5k test on Friday makes sense to me. i'd also echo the comments of conservatism regarding stepping up volume and intensity and would start off with the bike increases first
i'm satisfied with my vDot test #2. as i mentioned on the main board, my legs felt sluggish from the start of the warm-up all the way thru the test, so the OS fatigue definitely played a role in the results
w/u was an easy jog over to the track w/ a few strides thrown in. 1x around the track and then off. pacing was slightly better than test #1, but still not ideal:
Test #1: 5:49, 6:11, 6:26, 6:30 (stub)
Test #2: 5:53, 6:01, 6:02, 5:38 (stub)
i really tried to hold back on the first lap, but i looked down at one point early on and saw 5:17 pace, so i knew i was overcooking it. slowed down for the remainder of mile 1 and came in with a decent pace, but lotsa fear about blowing up. so, i was happy to hold the mile 3 pace close to mile 2 and empty the tank for the stub 0.1 mile. i must have sounded like a wounded animal for the last 1-2 laps, 'cause i was feeling the pain and letting the world know about it. BOOM!
the overall time is faster than a 5k race i ran in March of this year, so qualifies as a new PR. would be interesting to see the difference a race makes vs a solo run at the track
After we warmed up and got all the talking about how each of our lives is going to hell in a hand basket we set out the plan for what we were about to do. Larry wasn't quite sure where he was but he'd recently set a PR of 22:45 at the local Turkey Trot so he was feeling frisky. You know how the Garmin pacing data takes a little time to settle in before it gives you a steady pace? With that in mind I wasn't going to look at the thing for the first half lap and just try to stick with Larry and settle in at a 7:00 pace for the first Km. Ummmm, NOT! Larry takes off like a shot and I just couldn't hold it so I just tried to keep him within 50 meters or so. When I finally take that first look at the Garmin it says 5:52 pace!!! I yelled out "Jeezus, Larry! (and Joseph)." Nevermind, that's an inside, somewhat sacrilegious joke we have. Anyway, we kept at it but I took it back a couple notches and just tried to wait him out. Sure enough, he'd gone out too hard and I finally caught him near the end of the second Km. Since I knew I'd gone out too hard in the first Km I was wondering about how this would all turn out and I decided to run the outer lanes in the hope of having one less time to turn into the wind at the bad end of the track and also to lessen the torque on my left knee. Larry, went to the inside in a desperate attempt to 'keep pace' with me. That worked for a few more laps but then I was past him far enough that I had no more rabbit in front of me. That was okay, we were working too hard to keep up the trash talk. As you can see, I faded down to around a 7:00/mi pace and had to really dig to hold it until the end.
Km 1: 6:35/mi pace and avg HR=163
Km 2: 6:53/mi pace and avg HR=173
Km 3: 6:57/mi pace and avg HR=175
Km 4: 7:00/mi pace and avg HR=177
Km 5: 7:01/mi pace and avg HR=178
Overall: 21:24.76, 6:53/mi pace, avg HR 173 and a VDOT score calculated as 46.0. I originally thought I ran a 21:27:25 forgot to take off the extra 2.5 seconds before I remembered to stop the Garmin.
Oh well, onward and upward. At least Larry set another PR. He is, however, still pissed that he hasn't beaten me yet. ;-)
test done on a crisp morning here in so cal. Relatively happy since mile 1 was 7:16, mile 2 was 7:12 and mile 3 was 7:07. vDOT up 1 pt.
Crushed the test on the dreadmill today. Dropped over a min. from the frist test so I'll take it. More work to go to get where I want to be.
Crushed the test on the dreadmill today. Dropped over a min. from the frist test so I'll take it. More work to go to get where I want to be.
Need to update as soon as I hit submit to include new VDOT
At this stage of the OS, when we are in a testing/recovery type week, it's a good time to just make the switch starting with week 9, next Monday. You'll do fine with the work you've accumulated thus far, and the consistency you've shown in nailing the run paces at or below you TP.
Did my 5k test this morning. I was 11 secs. Slower this time, but after looking at my splits I think I might of overlooked the first mile. It might also be the 13 extra lbs I am carrying around.
Lap1 7:00 Hr 154
lap 2 7:04. Hr 164
lap 3 7:10. Hr 166
lap 4 6:58. Hr 158
Finished my testing for the week. Up to 294 FTP on the bike from 280, a few points higher in my VO2, and cut off 25 seconds on my 5K down to 17:15! Loving this stuff
Got that VDOT up to 59.2. Breaking 60 by the end of OS!
Off schedule here. Got in 9 miles today with 4x1 mile at TP (actually about 5-10 seconds hot per interval). The run back from the track was especially fun.
Keep after it everyone.
solid work everyone, makes for great reading. For anyone having the testing blues due to work/life/medical/fatigue ....remember: if it was easy, everyone would be doing it! But they ain't , and you are. You are all rock-stars, and it will get better.
Solid bump for me. I tested indoors this time, initial OS test was forced outside by Sandy.
Outseason start: 44 (outside)
Week 8: 48.9 (treadmill), 46.5 (adjusted for outside pace)
So, I will train indoors with the 48.9 number (gulp) and if I get outdoors at all, I will use the adjusted figure. Either way, I am quite happy with the bump!
I wouldn't say I crushed it but I am SO excited that I beat my previous test time by 42 seconds and it was windy today vs last time. Vdot went up 1.2 points. I just completed my 6th year of competing in triathlons but only in my first EN OS and I am thrilled to see some improvement!! In am not good at where to post what yet online but I can tell you here that I am excited that "workworks". Thanks EN!!
Way to go Melissa! Rich and Eric impressive testing on the TM>
I did much better pacing today than prior test and improved enough to be HAPPY.
Prior test:
8:50,9:10,8:50, 8:33 (.1) - 27:43
Today:
8:42,8:48,8:44, 8:00 (.1) - 27:08
Vdot up 1 point!
Have done all my workouts on the TM, as it's easier from a life/time perspective. So I was curious how I would do outside for the test.
Doing a test on the TM scare me.