Not much chatter in the Glynn Pain cave this morning as we are both a bit tired. Well I am.
I took off my training wheels and continued my battle back from obscurity. Couldn't hold the effort on the first long interval so just powered back. Then decided to try and old trick and try a simple steady climb trying to hold my pedal stroke consistent and climb back to finish strong. Seemed to work well.
Had a nice ride overall had another small bump in NP. So another win for this old, fat guy!
@Tom, based on the amount of Facebook traffic, you are not the only one that had an issue today. Good luck and I really hope you don't have to go to a VERY DARK PLACE twice.
Had to double up today and get ahead as I am having some dental surgery on Thursday. So.....Angels is done and DONE! I liked this one, but I really didn't do the standing part in the second big climb. I have a hard time getting my power output correct if I stand up. So, I stayed planted in the saddle. Well......I found myself moving all over the saddle today trying to relieve the tender bits from all these days of pressure!
Interesting stage today. After the run up to the base of the mountains I came out of aero and committed to riding on the hoods. The jumping/standing actually helped me mentally get through the stage. Total stage, including warmup, 1:09, at 0.86 IF, and 84 TSS. Ride Link Like most, I am really starting to feel the fatigue building.
But on the flip side, I've got a plan! I'm taking Thursday/Friday off work and have a massage scheduled for Thursday after Stage 6. My wife is going out of town and I knew that getting in the rides would have been almost impossible given other responsibilities if I didn't take a few days off. I asked her if it was 'excessive' of me to take off work, she said no, 'indulgent' perhaps...
I call it commitment! Good luck everyone, we're over the hump but have the hardest days still to come. Take it one interval at a time.
After a 45' TRX upper body blast at the gym where I almost passed out a couple of times (not because I killed it as much as I am out of shape) I went home and got another little bump in NP again today to 160. Angels was mentally tough and all the shifting messed me up a bit. Other than a couple of micro-breaks, I was happy with my stage and stayed pretty consistent. That is . . . . until the last 2:30 of that last climb that mentally broke me and I just hung on as best I could. But I liked it.
Brought watts back up in the cool down part cuz I didn't want to lose any NP. :-)
No Tom today as he was off being the good father that he is so I was solo in my own cave.
Looks like my ride didn't save properly I've got a note into TR hoping for a solution!
Phew, looks like I wasn't the only one either. Yesterday (A Very Dark Place) was my break-through ride of the Tour. I had just been absolutely getting my butt kicked and knew the numbers my CT was reporting for power didn't feel even in the same ballpark as outdoor or the power reported from my Quarq.
So yesterday I took some extra time to swap my Quarq from my outdoor bike to my trainer bike (I have bikes instead of children) and then setup ctANT+ to override my CT's power, cadence and HR with my ANT+ power/cad from my Quarq and ANT+ HR. ctANT+ rolls all that data up into a virtual comm port, which I paired with TrainerRoad instead of the actual CT comm port.
Long story short, I finally had a ride where TR was recording my actual power instead of slaying me with 300W+ for tempo and calling it 250. I could actually finish a ride on 100% setting with it being challenging but not demoralizingly insane. Not sure why my CT reports power much lower despite repeated calibration, but so it goes.
Then after all of that I almost had a hernia when TR said it only recorded the first 36’ of my ride. I thought that it wouldn’t show the stage as completed and was almost in tears at the prospect of riding it over again. Fortunately, seems like it still gave me credit online for a finish.
Swam in the morning, so Angels today after work. I know from experience that the last climb on this one is a bit of a bitch, but I think this one of the more sensibly paced videos so looking forward to it.
I got a response back from TR and they stated that the non recording was a known issue and today's update should have fixed it. They offered to fix my files so I sent the files written locally to the PC to them.
My Angels ride this am was hard, but looking ahead to tomorrow, I think it's going to be much worse!
Stage 6 of ToS completed. A day of advanced suffering. Saturday will be the queen stage with one part "Intense" ride and one part "Insane" ride per the TR classification.
Holy Snickees, that all capitals HURT. I felt froggy during Wretched and it came back to bite me hard in the hind parts on The Long Scream. I really hope that when they said "Slow down, corner" they really meant to turn your pedals just hard enough that your Garmin doesn't auto-pause. However, its done and I'm going to get a massage!
Total Ride: 1:33 @ 0.91 IF and 126 TSS pts. The Wretched at 0.97 IF and The Long Scream at 0.93 IF. Ride Link
Broke up my two sessions today. One this morning with Tom and one this afternoon in my cave. This morning for Wretched was H A R D. My worst suffer day yet. Pulling Roy was a lot of work! :-) Ended with NP of 159 so I held my ground.
This afternoon I did Scream and was not ready. My body was twitching all day. I am truly fatigued and tired. Took everything I had to get on the bike. Once on, though, my legs were good. And since it was only a 35' session I pushed harder and ended it with an NP of 173.
I get to take Friday OFF! Did Downward Spiral this morning (one of the first 20 to post the ride) so I am still in through Day 7! I was hurting in the beginning and thought there was NO WAY I would be able to do the second set (or have to dial it down), but after the 5 min rest interval, I was ready to go and nailed the last set!!
Then I spent the day in the dentist chair and the afternoon sleeping on the couch. Sleep I definitely needed. But, now I am WIDE awake and can't go to bed. I'll take Friday off, then do Days 8 and 9 on Sat and Sun. You all have been a BIG inspiration.
I borrowed some of Brian's high quality mojo. Came into some form of my own today. Felt good, but I really started to hate those 2XU green shorts during the recovery intervals. Tomorrow is going to be a day the Vikings are going to compose epic ballads about. Good luck everyone!
Total ride 1:00 (I had to turn the bike tricks off at the end), 0.96 IF, 92 TSS pts. Ride Link
After how I felt yesterday, I had no idea how I would do today so I backed the TR software down to 85%. BIG mistake. Was way too easy! Other than maybe the 2' intervals the rest felt like an ABP ride. I guess this sets me up for a strong last 2 stages? We shall see.
Blew the Tour apart today. Wife's flight was delayed on her travel home so I wasn't able to ride until late this afternoon. Took the advice of the Sufferfest blog and rode TINT like it was my only ride and then crushed Revolver with everything I had left (helps that I ride it once a week and love the music on it). Total ride of 1:47 with 0.95 IP, 159 TSS pts and 284 NP. Really feel like I'm getting stronger as the Tour progresses.
There Is No Try - 0.98 IF, 296 NP, and 78 TSS pts.
Great freaking job on killing both There is no Try and Revolver. This late in the game to still be pulling off back to back rides of that high IF, forget about it.
I'm still technically hanging in there but the last two days have been absolutely miserable. Thursday went really well for me and nailed both rides, but after that started to feel kind of wonky. Seemingly everyone was sick in my office this week and after 6 days straight of this crap (plus swimming and some running for Alcatraz) apparently I couldn't fight it off any longer.
I'm not like deathly ill, just some annoying head cold but in one of my probably not best decisions I decided that damn it I've come to far to stop. Downward spiral actually went better than I was expecting, but I absolutely was destroyed on revolver today. I've done that one a bunch in the past and generally it is doable. Definitely not today.
My IF was not pretty, nor was the amount of liquids I'm hemorrhaging out of orifices, but damn it, one stage left and I'm going to make it. My raging saturday night plans are a bottle of nyquil and seeing this damn thing through in the morning.
Comments
Agreed! Good work, Brian!
Not much chatter in the Glynn Pain cave this morning as we are both a bit tired. Well I am.
I took off my training wheels and continued my battle back from obscurity. Couldn't hold the effort on the first long interval so just powered back. Then decided to try and old trick and try a simple steady climb trying to hold my pedal stroke consistent and climb back to finish strong. Seemed to work well.
Had a nice ride overall had another small bump in NP. So another win for this old, fat guy!
Day 1 NP 140
Day 2 NP 114
Day 3 NP 132/149
Day 4 NP 153
Did you ride this morning?
Day 1: 221 NP (0.89)
Day 2: 217 NP (0.87)
Day 3: 215 NP (0.86) / 214NP (0.86)
Day 4: 216 NP (0.87)
AWesome work John with your NP going UP everyday!!!
Interesting stage today. After the run up to the base of the mountains I came out of aero and committed to riding on the hoods. The jumping/standing actually helped me mentally get through the stage. Total stage, including warmup, 1:09, at 0.86 IF, and 84 TSS. Ride Link Like most, I am really starting to feel the fatigue building.
But on the flip side, I've got a plan! I'm taking Thursday/Friday off work and have a massage scheduled for Thursday after Stage 6. My wife is going out of town and I knew that getting in the rides would have been almost impossible given other responsibilities if I didn't take a few days off. I asked her if it was 'excessive' of me to take off work, she said no, 'indulgent' perhaps...
I call it commitment! Good luck everyone, we're over the hump but have the hardest days still to come. Take it one interval at a time.
Stage 5 completed. Massage this afternoon for recovery.
@Stephanie - 2x Angels today? Really? You are BAD ASS!
@Carlo - We are gonna call you Mr. Consistent. :-)
@Roy - aka Mr. Indulgent. :-) Nice to have a supportive wife! Tell her we said thank you!
@Brian - How was that massage?
After a 45' TRX upper body blast at the gym where I almost passed out a couple of times (not because I killed it as much as I am out of shape) I went home and got another little bump in NP again today to 160. Angels was mentally tough and all the shifting messed me up a bit. Other than a couple of micro-breaks, I was happy with my stage and stayed pretty consistent. That is . . . . until the last 2:30 of that last climb that mentally broke me and I just hung on as best I could. But I liked it.
Brought watts back up in the cool down part cuz I didn't want to lose any NP. :-)
No Tom today as he was off being the good father that he is so I was solo in my own cave.
Phew, looks like I wasn't the only one either. Yesterday (A Very Dark Place) was my break-through ride of the Tour. I had just been absolutely getting my butt kicked and knew the numbers my CT was reporting for power didn't feel even in the same ballpark as outdoor or the power reported from my Quarq.
So yesterday I took some extra time to swap my Quarq from my outdoor bike to my trainer bike (I have bikes instead of children) and then setup ctANT+ to override my CT's power, cadence and HR with my ANT+ power/cad from my Quarq and ANT+ HR. ctANT+ rolls all that data up into a virtual comm port, which I paired with TrainerRoad instead of the actual CT comm port.
Long story short, I finally had a ride where TR was recording my actual power instead of slaying me with 300W+ for tempo and calling it 250. I could actually finish a ride on 100% setting with it being challenging but not demoralizingly insane. Not sure why my CT reports power much lower despite repeated calibration, but so it goes.
Then after all of that I almost had a hernia when TR said it only recorded the first 36’ of my ride. I thought that it wouldn’t show the stage as completed and was almost in tears at the prospect of riding it over again. Fortunately, seems like it still gave me credit online for a finish.
Swam in the morning, so Angels today after work. I know from experience that the last climb on this one is a bit of a bitch, but I think this one of the more sensibly paced videos so looking forward to it.
I got a response back from TR and they stated that the non recording was a known issue and today's update should have fixed it. They offered to fix my files so I sent the files written locally to the PC to them.
My Angels ride this am was hard, but looking ahead to tomorrow, I think it's going to be much worse!
Stage 6 of ToS completed. A day of advanced suffering. Saturday will be the queen stage with one part "Intense" ride and one part "Insane" ride per the TR classification.
Holy Snickees, that all capitals HURT. I felt froggy during Wretched and it came back to bite me hard in the hind parts on The Long Scream. I really hope that when they said "Slow down, corner" they really meant to turn your pedals just hard enough that your Garmin doesn't auto-pause. However, its done and I'm going to get a massage!
Good work, Roy! Hope your massage went well. :-)
Broke up my two sessions today. One this morning with Tom and one this afternoon in my cave. This morning for Wretched was H A R D. My worst suffer day yet. Pulling Roy was a lot of work! :-) Ended with NP of 159 so I held my ground.
This afternoon I did Scream and was not ready. My body was twitching all day. I am truly fatigued and tired. Took everything I had to get on the bike. Once on, though, my legs were good. And since it was only a 35' session I pushed harder and ended it with an NP of 173.
Link to my rides here.
Tim for bed.
Then I spent the day in the dentist chair and the afternoon sleeping on the couch. Sleep I definitely needed. But, now I am WIDE awake and can't go to bed. I'll take Friday off, then do Days 8 and 9 on Sat and Sun. You all have been a BIG inspiration.
Hit it!!
Everyday I am sufferin'. Stage 7 of Le Tour complete.
.96 IF for 1:02? Seriously!? After 6 days of the ToS. Victory is your, Brian! Victory is yours!
Enjoy the podium girls.
I borrowed some of Brian's high quality mojo. Came into some form of my own today. Felt good, but I really started to hate those 2XU green shorts during the recovery intervals. Tomorrow is going to be a day the Vikings are going to compose epic ballads about. Good luck everyone!
Got my mojo back! IF .80 yesterday for Tour of Sufferlandria. IF of 0.95 today NP 236!!! I am BACK. Gotta finish this off strong.
Had to dial it down a bit today. Getting past the 2:00 and 1:45 intervals was hard. After that, not so bad!
After how I felt yesterday, I had no idea how I would do today so I backed the TR software down to 85%. BIG mistake. Was way too easy! Other than maybe the 2' intervals the rest felt like an ABP ride.
I guess this sets me up for a strong last 2 stages? We shall see.
Ride link here.
Stage 8 of ToS completed. Definitely felt flat on the 1' Revolver intervals.
Blew the Tour apart today. Wife's flight was delayed on her travel home so I wasn't able to ride until late this afternoon. Took the advice of the Sufferfest blog and rode TINT like it was my only ride and then crushed Revolver with everything I had left (helps that I ride it once a week and love the music on it). Total ride of 1:47 with 0.95 IP, 159 TSS pts and 284 NP. Really feel like I'm getting stronger as the Tour progresses.
Great freaking job on killing both There is no Try and Revolver. This late in the game to still be pulling off back to back rides of that high IF, forget about it.
I'm still technically hanging in there but the last two days have been absolutely miserable. Thursday went really well for me and nailed both rides, but after that started to feel kind of wonky. Seemingly everyone was sick in my office this week and after 6 days straight of this crap (plus swimming and some running for Alcatraz) apparently I couldn't fight it off any longer.
I'm not like deathly ill, just some annoying head cold but in one of my probably not best decisions I decided that damn it I've come to far to stop. Downward spiral actually went better than I was expecting, but I absolutely was destroyed on revolver today. I've done that one a bunch in the past and generally it is doable. Definitely not today.
My IF was not pretty, nor was the amount of liquids I'm hemorrhaging out of orifices, but damn it, one stage left and I'm going to make it. My raging saturday night plans are a bottle of nyquil and seeing this damn thing through in the morning.