12', 20', 12' @ FTP. Didn't do the over/under thing I've been doing on Tuesdays because I forgot about it when creating the workout. Oops.
Started watching X-Files on Netflix after having completed the fifth day in the life of Jack Bauer. Can only take so much 24 at once before it gets a little stale, so X-Files and ST:TNG provide a nice break.
WIsh I was crushing it like all of you peeps but had to take a down day yesterday, even after having Monday off. Not sure if it is fatigue or not, although it doesn't feel like it. I think it's mostly work and some family stuff that's wearing me down mentally.
Been working long hours as this is my busy time of year. I need to digitize (capture) harvest blocks and residual stand attributes for around 30,000 acres of land treated in calandar year 2012. I typically have from mid December to mid January to edit and process the data in preparation for State reporting. January 20 for me is like April 15 for an accountant.
I love my job but this part is just plain tedious..... and very time consuming......
Nutrition was the key!! Crushed all 3 intervals last night! Switched from water to perform. I had no problem hitting the zones and getting the brick run done too!
Great work everyone!
@Steve hang in there. Mental stress is as hard on a guy as physical fatigue.
10/15/10 was challenging for me. The fatigue everyone mentioned at the beginning of NOS is now starting to catch up with me. (or maybe it is just juggling work, 2 kids playing sports who can't drive themselves yet, and other basics of daily life...) I really needed the "right" music to keep my legs moving at z4 but I did it. I'm also realizing that I'm just drinking water and may need to start adding Infinit as these workouts get longer.
I agree with everything you posted Kirsten. I am tired and it take extra work to keep up in the zone. I too juggle family life and all the good stuff that comes with it. I need to add more fuel during my training. I don't use anything either except some AdvoCare products before I train in the morning. I train at around 4:45 am so I don't have any food in me before these sessions. What is Infinit? I need to add more fuel, but I know that during the run it just kills my gut. The never seems to be an issue.
Hi Aaron - there will be some mix of nutrition and timing that works best for you. I get up an hour before I work out so I can take in some calories; I then either work or do chores for a while to give the body some time to process. Infinit is a nutrition product that a lot of people here swear by: http://www.infinitnutrition.us/
I personally haven't tried it, but if you posted for feedback you'd find a lot of EN team members love it.
Regarding nutrition and these workouts. Actually, the key to good performance is having a topped up glycogen store in your system. Your body will poreferentially use those on board sugar stores, first in the muscles, then from the liver. You should have enough for an hour of hard work. And, the work now is so hard, that we're not getting as much in from the gut as we would during, say an IM paced run, as most of our blood flow is being shunted to the muscles, leaving less available for absorption.
I prefer to not do a workout within two hours after eating. In the AM, if I have to break that rule, I'll just have a piece of toast and some fruit juice. No point in tempting my circulatory system to waste a lot of blood flow in the gut when I need it in my muscles and brain.
Point is, the most important aspect of nutrition during the OS is getting in those recovery calories in the first two hours after the workout. A good rule of thumb is 100 calories per mile ran, minimum. Another thing to consider is that it takes at least 24 hours for those glycogen stores to get fully recharged, so doing these workouts less than 24 hours apart is not so good. Last year, for example, Coach P did his Tues workout in the AM, his Wed @ noon, and his Thurs in the PM, trying to maximize his recovery possibiities. Don't know if he always hit it, but he did have a very good year in 2012.
And don't forget fluids afterwards. No way you can replenish them all during the WKO, just look at the pool under the bike or your sweaty clothes after a run, and remember you are also losing fluid to evaporation from the skin, and also with each exhaled breath. Stay hydrated throughout the day.
Finally, if doing a brick, ALWAYS take in a gel during "T2".
I got up today and got the 1/1's ride in. My legs were certainly still feeling the run yesterday because getting the engine cranked up again took a bit. I did get the intervals in and then tacked on 15 min of Z3 (at least I think around there, my HR monitor started acting up. I think it doesn't like the amount of sweat I kick off). Anyway, all done for the work week, rest tomorrow and kick it in gear Saturday. Good luck all, get after it!
BOOM! Done. Vo2 max intervals weren't as bad as I was expecting but I'm still very happy that tomorrow is a rest day. Got a foam roller for xmas and I think tomorrow will be time to use it.
I think yesterday was the tiredest I've been the entire OS. Ufortunately, I had a work thing after work so I couldn't get to bed any earlier, but once I did: BOOM! Slept like a rock . Knocked the intervals out this AM. Wasn't pretty, but I got it done, and rest day starts NOW. BOOM!
Had to get the VO2 intervals in on a stationary at work today. Not perfect but it will do (better than nothing). The one great thing that I discovered today is that you can download Sufferfest videos onto your iPhone. So I hit Revolver today. Made it almost seem like home.
Solid work everyone. Get the work done today and make sure you enjoy the rest day.
@Naomi - foam roller - yep - time to bring it out!
@Kate - all those BOOM's keeping the neighbors up?
@Al - I get this general flow - sugar in which either gets stored as glycogen in the muscles or liver or gets converted to fat which is stored in lots of places... My metabolism QOD - I read statements like this:
"During training, you are aiming to increase your body’s ability to turn fuel into energy by teaching your body to become more efficient at converting fat into energy, so that you can exercise more intensively while still burning fat, thus protecting your (much more limited) stores of glycogen. " (http://tinyurl.com/9eapohz)
Does your body in fact adapt to training by becoming more adept at burning fat?
If so, is the consumption of sugar during exercise counterindicated because it inhibits a desireable adaptation?
Got the ride in early this morning and for some reason I can't explain why but I really enjoyed it but I had to dash to the office before I could log in order to prep for a day that feels the way a runon sentence reads and I am in the middle of but I have a few minutes for lunch and part of that will be spent logging the workout which I broke into 2x6x1/1 because I was short on time and I wanted to make sure I had some time at the end for some z3 and it worked out fine:
Please help me get my mojo back. I've been sick and unable to train for the past 5 days. Fortunately the worst is over and I think I'll be ready to train again starting tomorrow.
Any tips for easing myself back into the very intense week 11 of the OS would be appreciated. Thanks everyone.
Brent, give yourself a break. Coming back into these workouts is tough. Have you checked out the discussion and video regarding the 25 minute warm-up? I would start with that and see how your body responds. If you feel up to going after some VO2max work try this as a way to ease back into it. For each ON segment apply the increased intensity so that you ramp up to the target level by the end of the interval a couple of times. See how you respond. If it isn't so bad then revert to the usual pattern of trying to hit the higher level at the start of the interval.
If you don't feel great after warming up, just do some sweet spot work at 80-85% and knock off when you're tired. It's a really intense part of the OS and you're coming back from illness. You might be feeling frisky but don't wreck yourself in that first series of downs off the bench.
Does your body in fact adapt to training by becoming more adept at burning fat?
If so, is the consumption of sugar during exercise counterindicated because it inhibits a desireable adaptation
Short answers: Yes; no. Without going into the muscle physiology involved, here's my thinking ... Fat burning occurs at all levels of intensity, but fat "burns at a constant rate". Sugar use, however, increases with increasing levels of intensity. If all you did was train at 60-65% of FTP, then you could get away with using little to no sugar during any of your workouts. But once you start adding the intensity, and certainly at the levels we have in the OS, then the muscles will start using mass quantities of CHO-based fuel. If there is no sugar immediately available, glycogen stores will be called on. But at some levels of intensity (again, like those we do in the OS), CHO from oral ingestion won't be enough to keep up with the muscles needs. So glycogen will start to be used to supplement.
So, fat burning adaptation is ALWAYS GOING ON, whether or not you are taking in CHO, at whatever level of work you are doing greater than about 60-65% (below 65%, you're probably not doing anything useful to increase the fat-burning adaptation.) Work harder, and you need more fuel, from CHO. CHO does not replace fat, it supplements it when needed. Avoid taking in sugar before during and after the wkos, and you'll just use up that much more glycgogen, which will need to be replaced; if it is not topped up fully by the next workout, that might produce either fatigue or possibly even the inability to complete the inervals.
As to the fat-burning adaptation: what's happening is you are buidling more physicial structures (mitochondria and secondarily muscle fibers, nerve connections, supporting capillaries, etc.) which can use the fat. But those structures individually do not get better at burning fat, you just get more of them.
Well, it's catching up with me. I attempted the first 1 min and only hit 30 seconds before blowing up....then attempted the next one same results. Popped off the bike moved the TR session back a few weeks and went w 4 sets of 45 seconds and happily hit the 45 seconds pretty good. I never would have thought to back it down and still but in the work had I not been following you folks and listening to the long course webinar...so thanks! While I didn't hit the 1 mins I was pretty close to the same time overall @ 120...funny how 15 seconds can make a difference!
Got in the 3 x [ 5 X 1'(1') + (1')] @ Z4 and felt pretty darn good. Speed going up and AHR going down! Wish my running was doing as well! Total of one hour and rewarded myself by going out for lunch to a local BBQ.
So, it's strength training tonight, self-massage with the "stick" and an easy swim day tomorrow. Looks like RnP will have the "1000m Swim Challenge" again this year, so I want to at least get in the water a few times before I do a 1000m TT. Last year that is what I did after 3 months of no swimming and it was hard, very hard!
Brent, give yourself a break. Coming back into these workouts is tough. Have you checked out the discussion and video regarding the 25 minute warm-up? I would start with that and see how your body responds. If you feel up to going after some VO2max work try this as a way to ease back into it. For each ON segment apply the increased intensity so that you ramp up to the target level by the end of the interval a couple of times. See how you respond. If it isn't so bad then revert to the usual pattern of trying to hit the higher level at the start of the interval.
If you don't feel great after warming up, just do some sweet spot work at 80-85% and knock off when you're tired. It's a really intense part of the OS and you're coming back from illness. You might be feeling frisky but don't wreck yourself in that first series of downs off the bench.
No problem, Brent. I'm headed down to the pain cave myself in a bit. Let us know how it goes. Again, this is a really intense month we're going through so we'd like to see you get safely back up to speed. No dead cat bounces!
I was able to resurrect my CompuTrainer and tackle today's VO2 session. IFs for each 10 minute segment of 5 x 60/60 were 1.0., 0.99, 0.99. Subjective impression: it felt harder during the first set, then easier during the last two, relative to previous weeks.
Got the Vo2 bike in: 3x4x1/1. Much harder than last week. Really tried to keep the intensity up in the 1' off periods. Boy this week has been hard. I've never done formal triathlon or bike training before so I'd be interested to know what the non-ENers are doing?
I saw your TR file, Satish. You do a nice job of hitting those targets.
I got it done tonight and tried out the new warm-up routine. Since I didn't want to make my own workout file and the OSADV W11 file for Thursday doesn't quite match I used a free ride 90 file and made my own trace. Geez, that 3 minutes of standing put a little burn in the quads ;-) So I'm doing the 12 minutes of 80-85%, undershooting it just a touch but my HR monitor shows my HR going all over the place like my dog when I get home. 217 then 176 then 194 then 166 then 153 then.... So I did it by touch and counted out a 150 or so manually and said "Screw it! Let's get nuts."
Tomorrow is a rest day and I figured I would try to see if I could tolerate extending the ON periods. For the first 2 sets I did 60, 60, 70, 80 and 90 seconds of ON time with equal time OFF. I rested 3 minutes between sets due to the added work. It got a bit too difficult to hold the target in the second set so I went back to 60 sec ON periods in the third but played around with gears and tried to hit the target anyway. First one had a cadence of about 120 and I just couldn't get to the target and I fell off towards the end. The rest of the set went about 105, 96, 91 and something like 85. Each one bit quite hard and the power dropped but still stayed above 1.2 x FTP (I'm one of those guys with a 1.3 x FTP VO2max who wishes he could raise that FTP more). For that last one I tried to see if I could keep the power from falling off a cliff and tried doing 15 seconds at successively easy gears. Umm, not a complete fail but that needs work. I also managed to put in a 10 minute bonus period of true sweet spot time.
@Peter - No workout for me today. Body not ready. Although at the rate I'm recovering, I'll be ready for some light training tomorrow. I will report back.
Congrats on the smart decision. Taking a closer look at myself in terms of fitness before working out is something I'm learning from EN. I still do somewhat foolish things but I'm learning.
Comments
Started watching X-Files on Netflix after having completed the fifth day in the life of Jack Bauer. Can only take so much 24 at once before it gets a little stale, so X-Files and ST:TNG provide a nice break.
Been working long hours as this is my busy time of year. I need to digitize (capture) harvest blocks and residual stand attributes for around 30,000 acres of land treated in calandar year 2012. I typically have from mid December to mid January to edit and process the data in preparation for State reporting. January 20 for me is like April 15 for an accountant.
I love my job but this part is just plain tedious..... and very time consuming......
Great work everyone!
@Steve hang in there. Mental stress is as hard on a guy as physical fatigue.
Hi Aaron - there will be some mix of nutrition and timing that works best for you. I get up an hour before I work out so I can take in some calories; I then either work or do chores for a while to give the body some time to process. Infinit is a nutrition product that a lot of people here swear by: http://www.infinitnutrition.us/
I personally haven't tried it, but if you posted for feedback you'd find a lot of EN team members love it.
Regarding nutrition and these workouts. Actually, the key to good performance is having a topped up glycogen store in your system. Your body will poreferentially use those on board sugar stores, first in the muscles, then from the liver. You should have enough for an hour of hard work. And, the work now is so hard, that we're not getting as much in from the gut as we would during, say an IM paced run, as most of our blood flow is being shunted to the muscles, leaving less available for absorption.
I prefer to not do a workout within two hours after eating. In the AM, if I have to break that rule, I'll just have a piece of toast and some fruit juice. No point in tempting my circulatory system to waste a lot of blood flow in the gut when I need it in my muscles and brain.
Point is, the most important aspect of nutrition during the OS is getting in those recovery calories in the first two hours after the workout. A good rule of thumb is 100 calories per mile ran, minimum. Another thing to consider is that it takes at least 24 hours for those glycogen stores to get fully recharged, so doing these workouts less than 24 hours apart is not so good. Last year, for example, Coach P did his Tues workout in the AM, his Wed @ noon, and his Thurs in the PM, trying to maximize his recovery possibiities. Don't know if he always hit it, but he did have a very good year in 2012.
And don't forget fluids afterwards. No way you can replenish them all during the WKO, just look at the pool under the bike or your sweaty clothes after a run, and remember you are also losing fluid to evaporation from the skin, and also with each exhaled breath. Stay hydrated throughout the day.
Finally, if doing a brick, ALWAYS take in a gel during "T2".
I think yesterday was the tiredest I've been the entire OS. Ufortunately, I had a work thing after work so I couldn't get to bed any earlier, but once I did: BOOM! Slept like a rock
. Knocked the intervals out this AM. Wasn't pretty, but I got it done, and rest day starts NOW. BOOM!
http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/152984
Thanks for the info Al.
Solid work everyone. Get the work done today and make sure you enjoy the rest day.
Hi Everyone
@Naomi - foam roller - yep - time to bring it out!
@Kate - all those BOOM's keeping the neighbors up?
@Al - I get this general flow - sugar in which either gets stored as glycogen in the muscles or liver or gets converted to fat which is stored in lots of places... My metabolism QOD - I read statements like this:
"During training, you are aiming to increase your body’s ability to turn fuel into energy by teaching your body to become more efficient at converting fat into energy, so that you can exercise more intensively while still burning fat, thus protecting your (much more limited) stores of glycogen. " (http://tinyurl.com/9eapohz)
Does your body in fact adapt to training by becoming more adept at burning fat?
If so, is the consumption of sugar during exercise counterindicated because it inhibits a desireable adaptation?
Got the ride in early this morning and for some reason I can't explain why but I really enjoyed it but I had to dash to the office before I could log in order to prep for a day that feels the way a runon sentence reads and I am in the middle of but I have a few minutes for lunch and part of that will be spent logging the workout which I broke into 2x6x1/1 because I was short on time and I wanted to make sure I had some time at the end for some z3 and it worked out fine:
http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/152987
Way to get it in everyone!
Please help me get my mojo back. I've been sick and unable to train for the past 5 days. Fortunately the worst is over and I think I'll be ready to train again starting tomorrow.
Any tips for easing myself back into the very intense week 11 of the OS would be appreciated. Thanks everyone.
If you don't feel great after warming up, just do some sweet spot work at 80-85% and knock off when you're tired. It's a really intense part of the OS and you're coming back from illness. You might be feeling frisky but don't wreck yourself in that first series of downs off the bench.
Short answers: Yes; no. Without going into the muscle physiology involved, here's my thinking ... Fat burning occurs at all levels of intensity, but fat "burns at a constant rate". Sugar use, however, increases with increasing levels of intensity. If all you did was train at 60-65% of FTP, then you could get away with using little to no sugar during any of your workouts. But once you start adding the intensity, and certainly at the levels we have in the OS, then the muscles will start using mass quantities of CHO-based fuel. If there is no sugar immediately available, glycogen stores will be called on. But at some levels of intensity (again, like those we do in the OS), CHO from oral ingestion won't be enough to keep up with the muscles needs. So glycogen will start to be used to supplement.
So, fat burning adaptation is ALWAYS GOING ON, whether or not you are taking in CHO, at whatever level of work you are doing greater than about 60-65% (below 65%, you're probably not doing anything useful to increase the fat-burning adaptation.) Work harder, and you need more fuel, from CHO. CHO does not replace fat, it supplements it when needed. Avoid taking in sugar before during and after the wkos, and you'll just use up that much more glycgogen, which will need to be replaced; if it is not topped up fully by the next workout, that might produce either fatigue or possibly even the inability to complete the inervals.
As to the fat-burning adaptation: what's happening is you are buidling more physicial structures (mitochondria and secondarily muscle fibers, nerve connections, supporting capillaries, etc.) which can use the fat. But those structures individually do not get better at burning fat, you just get more of them.
I attempted the first 1 min and only hit 30 seconds before blowing up....then attempted the next one same results. Popped off the bike moved the TR session back a few weeks and went w 4 sets of 45 seconds and happily hit the 45 seconds pretty good. I never would have thought to back it down and still but in the work had I not been following you folks and listening to the long course webinar...so thanks! While I didn't hit the 1 mins I was pretty close to the same time overall @ 120...funny how 15 seconds can make a difference!
Way to go all of you hitting the 1 min....
So, it's strength training tonight, self-massage with the "stick" and an easy swim day tomorrow. Looks like RnP will have the "1000m Swim Challenge" again this year, so I want to at least get in the water a few times before I do a 1000m TT. Last year that is what I did after 3 months of no swimming and it was hard, very hard!
Shouldn't be too big a deal. You may want to consider doing the Sat run as a brick, rather than a stand alone run.
Peter, that helps a lot. Thanks.
There is so much here...
@Ann - way to go, getting the time in.
@Al - love the "short answer" -
Thanks for the thoughtful explanation.
@Brent - glad you're back in the game!
I agree with Peter here - you want to ease back in by working out to the level for which your body is prepared.
Give your self a few days to work out without pushing it too hard.
Start with the full warm-up and see where you are, then act based on how you're feeling.
Feel great? Try a reasonable set of intervals. Feel just ok? Put in the time but at 85% and don't push the intensity.
Hydrate and nutrit like you mean it afterward.
--
As far as re-entering the plan... here I would either reach out to the coaches or create a topic in the forums.
My own partially-informed sense is that it may be hard to jump in with week 11.
The coaches may recommend you start again with week 9 to follow the progression and extend the OS by a couple of weeks.
Or they may provide another way to bridge to the current levels of intensity.
Post to the micro thread and see what the coach recommends... you're back in the game and now you just need to put the right plan in front of you.
Glad you're feeling better - stay healthy - rumor has it it's going to be a rough season for a lot of people.
I was able to resurrect my CompuTrainer and tackle today's VO2 session. IFs for each 10 minute segment of 5 x 60/60 were 1.0., 0.99, 0.99. Subjective impression: it felt harder during the first set, then easier during the last two, relative to previous weeks.
Got the Vo2 bike in: 3x4x1/1. Much harder than last week. Really tried to keep the intensity up in the 1' off periods. Boy this week has been hard. I've never done formal triathlon or bike training before so I'd be interested to know what the non-ENers are doing?
http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/153723
I got it done tonight and tried out the new warm-up routine. Since I didn't want to make my own workout file and the OSADV W11 file for Thursday doesn't quite match I used a free ride 90 file and made my own trace. Geez, that 3 minutes of standing put a little burn in the quads ;-) So I'm doing the 12 minutes of 80-85%, undershooting it just a touch but my HR monitor shows my HR going all over the place like my dog when I get home. 217 then 176 then 194 then 166 then 153 then.... So I did it by touch and counted out a 150 or so manually and said "Screw it! Let's get nuts."
Tomorrow is a rest day and I figured I would try to see if I could tolerate extending the ON periods. For the first 2 sets I did 60, 60, 70, 80 and 90 seconds of ON time with equal time OFF. I rested 3 minutes between sets due to the added work. It got a bit too difficult to hold the target in the second set so I went back to 60 sec ON periods in the third but played around with gears and tried to hit the target anyway. First one had a cadence of about 120 and I just couldn't get to the target and I fell off towards the end. The rest of the set went about 105, 96, 91 and something like 85. Each one bit quite hard and the power dropped but still stayed above 1.2 x FTP (I'm one of those guys with a 1.3 x FTP VO2max who wishes he could raise that FTP more). For that last one I tried to see if I could keep the power from falling off a cliff and tried doing 15 seconds at successively easy gears. Umm, not a complete fail but that needs work. I also managed to put in a 10 minute bonus period of true sweet spot time.
http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/153978
Hey Brent, how did you do? Did the workout feel good?