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JOS Week 5 Bike thread

Wanted to get this up, though as I write it I don't have time to post my own workout.

Tough week here. 15 minutes is a lot more than 12 as you discovered if in the advanced plan. :-)
Thursday is still 15 min of "on" time in the VO2 set, with the default intervals set for 45" apiece.
Try to get in a bit longer ride (90 min) on Saturday. Advance set is 15, 15, 5, at FTP/Z4 remainder 85%/Z3 with a brisk brick run...or a longer one if you're not bricking.

Let us know how it went/goes!
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Comments

  • i had no mojo on tuesday. zero. nada. it was gone and not to be found anywhere.

    so today I went to a spinning class. its taught by an IronMan finisher and though not quite the prescribed workout, I felt like I did a lot of hard work and got back some enthusiasm. But I feel like I cheated on you ... but I feel like I might cheat on you again when I get lonely. Since this is the OS and I am not racing for a loooooong time I think its ok. Thoughts?
  • Delayed report on my Tuesday brick, which I did on Monday. The 2x15' intervals were tough but nowhere near as tough as they felt last week. The power was solid with the intervals 2 and 4 watts higher than last week, respectively, and HR a couple of bpm lower. Plus I spent minimal time out of the aerobars…I let myself sit up twice for 1' in the second interval at the 7' and 12' marks. The first time I got up I lost a watt on my AP for the interval, and the second time I gained it back. Then I really went hard in the last 2 mins to get an extra watt (last 2' was 263 NP to get the lap average to 256).

    Interestingly although I attributed the difficulty of last Monday's workout to a large meal at lunchtime, I happened to have a lunch with colleagues at the exact same restaurant today!! So much for that hypothesis…perhaps missing my run on Sunday was a more valid reason.

    With my wife traveling overseas on business this week I was alone at home necessitating a treadmill effort. The brick run was mentally difficult – 35' is a long brick by OS standards and I'm not a treadmill guy in general, but I broke it up into 5' segments and jacked the treadmill speed at certain 5' or 10' interval points. By the end I was running a 6:52 pace at 1.5% incline and my HR had steadily risen to be over 180.

    Bike – overall 1:00:06, NP 227, IF 0.951. Full warmup of 10' easy/z1 then 3x3'(1')@z3. Then the main set:

    15'(4') @z4 – NP: 254 (IF 1.062), VI 1.00, HR 157/168, cad 91
    15'(1') @z4 – NP: 256 (IF 1.071), VI 1.00, HR 166/176, cad 92
    -------
    Remainder
    3' @z3 – NP: 224 (IF 0.937), VI 1.01, HR 154/163, cad 87

    http://connect.garmin.com/activity/269836856

    Run – overall 5.02 miles in 35:14, avg pace 7:01.

    Split Time Distance Avg Pace

    1 5:00.8 0.68 7:21
    2 5:07.3 0.73 7:03
    3 5:00.0 0.72 6:58
    4 5:00.0 0.72 6:59
    5 5:00.0 0.72 6:56
    6 5:02.6 0.72 6:58
    7 5:02.8 0.73 6:52

    http://connect.garmin.com/activity/269836915
  • Thanks for keep us all on track William!
  • Cristina - Taking a day to get back the mojo is definitely NOT cheating! Think about those feelings and decide if they are a sign of fatigue or just being a little (ahem) couch-potato-ish. In either case, a day of change and social workout is good for the soul, but the longer term thought is different. If it's fatigue (e.g., not hitting numbers, not wanting to wake up, etc), you might want to take a few (e.g a Tue-Thu) days and just spin/run easy to recover. If it's just psychological, then cheating with your friends now and again can make it work for you.

    I'm not doing it this year, but in other years, I've gone to a Thursday night roadie racer spin class at an LBS to substitute for VO2 workouts on the plan. I don't know if they were better or worse workouts, per se, but it was just a good social thing and reasonably close to what I was supposed to be doing.
  • Turned my workout into a test. I do the old way of 2 x 20 minutes with 2'.

    Last test 5 weeks ago was 170W

    Today was: 191W!!!! ( first 20- 192, second- 193, 2 min easy at 130)

    Phew, I found some of my missing watts. I felt strong and in control the whole time and pushed a bit harder toward the end.

  • Tuesday was kind of rough for me. As of before The Interregnum, I was suffering with a cold, though it seemed to break on Tuesday. I was feeling a lot more like myself. That said, my energy has been down both Tues and Wed, and I struggled.

    I did the normal 12 min 85% warmup without indication of fatigue based on HR. Ave HR was 141 at 212 W.
    First 15 min segment was tough. It was obvious I wasn't going to hit the 250 W I've been doing. Ave was 241 (0.97)
    Second 15 segment was torture, to be honest. I tried to break it up by doing a minute here and there standing in very high gear. Perhaps fortunately, I got interrupted for about 30s. Even so, all I could hold up was 234 W (0.94)

    http://connect.garmin.com/activity/270174179

    IF only 0.86 for 55 min.

    Did a 20 min brick run on the treadmill. After the first half, I felt better and moved the pace up a bit from my EP to about 7:30 and then 7:15.
    http://connect.garmin.com/activity/270174188

    Run went a little better than the bike, but it was at a bit lower intensity of course.

    Hoping to turn things around soon.
  • Wow, nice job Carrie. Thats some crazy wattage!!

    Glad u are feeling better WJ.

    Managed .98 and .938IF for my 2x 15 last night then just 1 mi on the treadmill. I'm a bit concerned I haven't been able to consistently hit closer to 100% on the bike more often but I will assume my FTP is really accurate and maybe just haven't seen gains yet. I guess I have a few more weeks to work before the next test. And I can be a little impatient....
  • Cristina- I def. think you work hard in spin class! I did a lot of classes post-IMFL and pre-OS and feel it had a HUGE impact on being able to maintain a big chunk of the gains I made last year so I'm not starting back where I was last Jan. 2012. (Maintained +15 watts vs. Jan. 2012)

    The main reason I haven't been spinning is that I am addicted to the reports from my power meter for the EN workouts (ie .98iF, etc) plus the pretty little TR charts. Guess I'm a big numbers geek...
  • I struggled to even get on the bike on Tuesday. Long day at work and no mojo for riding. I tried to go spinning but the queue for ticket to get a bike was huge so I headed home. Attempted the warm up, got about 6 minutes through the Zone3 part and thought this isn’t going to happen, no willpower. I have one of Chrissie Wellington’s audio fuel things on my ipod which has an intervals running track on it. Used that, and Chrissie’s encouragement, to break the intervals into much shorter chunks and managed to get the time/intensity done that way. Bit strange being coached on running form whilst riding but it worked out ok. Brick run was fine 10 minutes plus strides, even I can manage that!

    I miss my spin classes, especially the people and the really hard short hard efforts.
  • I've been lurking around this OS-but still doing the work image This week though, I've had a bit of a problem. Now I am assuming the feedback will be that I've overachieved on previous workouts so its coming back to bite me in the you know what...but I thought I'd throw it out here and get some feedback-

    So I ended last July with an FTP of 190 watts (began last season at 160, so it was a good year!) THen I didn't TOUCH my bike from July-December (Trained and ran my first 50 mile ultra marathon-no time for biking!). So I started this OS with an FTP of 162 (ugh, gross, there went all my hard work last year) but when doing the bike workouts the first 3-4 weeks I was easily able to keep my FTP intervals at around 173-176. From being an EN member for 3 seasons now, I know that I shouldn't have been overachieving-but I was thinking that when I tested my FTP the first week, it was just too low b.c that was my first bike workout in months. But this week-I had some ISSUES with the 2x15' Z4 intervals. I was still around 172ish for the wattage, but I had to stop in the middle of the second b.c I literally couldn't pedal anymore. I felt so weak. Any thoughts on this? COuld it just be the work of the OS catching up on me (being week 5) or that I was overachieving? Maybe just having an off day? I have VO2 intervals this afternoon, so we'll see how that goes. And just FYI-the running intervals are going great. Thanks for any feedback!
  • Well while the site was off line I was able to keep up with my bike and run workouts. This morning I completed the VO2 max sets. Here are the numbers for the main set;

    Duration 32:00
    IF: 0.865
    Norm Power: 173
    VI: 1.18

    Good luck to everyone attacking these later today!
  • What a blast those 45" VO2/45" @ 65% intervals turned out to be today!

    Duration - 60'
    Avg Power for 15x45" VO2: 354W
    Avg Power for 15x45" @ 65%: 175W
    Avg Power - Entire WO: 215W
    Normalized Power - 244W
    TSS: 120.8
    IF: 1.097

    I'd post a photo of the PowerAgent graph but I don't know how to do that...
  • Lauren- it sounds like an off day. Let me just remind you that if you hold your 162 for the intervals you are still doing a ton of work even if your FT is not exactly where you think it should be. Remember 95-100%. I personally respond well to riding slightly under or right on current FT.

  • Done with 5 x 3 45". Definitely harder since I installed the Quarq/Rotor Tuesday evening and dismissed the Trainingpeaks estimated power. Made it a point to slam the front derailleur shifts to check out how I had it set. No chain dumps! Shift from 34 to 50 was a little rough, but I made one adjustment so we shall see.

    Now I can go outside and play with POWER on the warmer days!
  • Thank you Kim and William for the feedback! Feel like that might be a good solution for me during the OS to keep things going!
  • Enjoyed the increase to 45/45. We did 20 of them on/off without the two min easy between each set of 4. The last 15 minutes we then broke them down into 5 minute increments with the last 5 minutes pushing in all we had left. Was able to hit. .93, .86, and 1.011.
  • I had a great ride this afternoon. I have gone back to last year's warmup routine and it seems to be the right amount of 'get the legs going.'

    Last week I had bumped up the intervals to 60/60 so today's 45/45 felt a bit easier. I tried to pay attention to the OFF effort and keep it at 65%. Overall the 5 intervals ended up at just a bit of 1.0x IF.

    Again, I am looking forward to tomorrow's rest day!!
  • Great bike tonight! Hit all Z5 5 x (3 x 45/45) intervals ranging from 1.195-1.26IF then did 10' @ .85IF.

    Hungry!
  • Did the VO2 stuff earlier in the week, and so I did the FTP bike tonight. Instead of 2x15, I did "Eichorn" on TR which is 2x20. My quads and hammies were screaming from today's crossfit/treadmill class at the gym.
    Int 1: 225w IF .90 (5')
    Int 2: 241w IF .97
  • St Pete RNR HM for me this Sun, so moved everything up with 36 hours between WKO's if plan called for rest day.

    Mon night (36 hrs off) - did the Tues FTP bike of 25' WU, MS 2 x 20' @ 95-100%, followed by 10 miles @ 80-85%. 35 miles total. 1:38:02.
    Tues morning - did the Wed FTP run of MS 4 x 1 after WU. Miles @ 8:55, 8:55, 7:19, 7:10, 7:19, 7:25. 8.5 miles total. 1:13:48.
    Tues night - did the Tues easy run strides. Miles @ 9:30, 9:03, 9:13 & .5 @ 4:20. 3.5 miles total. 32:05.
    We'd morning - did the Thurs Vo2 bike w/21' WU, 5 x (4 x 45/45) limited on time, so actually did 4 1/4 x (4 x 45/45). 20 miles total. 56:59.
    Thurs night (36 hrs off) - did the Sat FTP long bike w/25' WU, MS 1 x 32' (4) Z4 hard, instead of 2 x 15' (4). MS2 1 x 6' (2) Z4 hard, then 8 more miles @ Z3 mod-hard. 33 miles total. 1:32:07.

    Hit all my marks all week, plus did a little extra time and/or above goals, except for having to cut my one bike a little shorter than I wanted. Planning to do my Sat steady run out and back Fri morning, then maybe a few miles with strides Sat morning before the HM on Sun morning. Goal is to get all week 5 plan done ahead of schedule for fresher legs on Sun morning. Instead of full rest days on Mon & Fri, made sure I had 36 hours rest between Tues & Sat WKO's done ahead of schedule. Only iffy call was how my legs felt Tues night for the easy run. I probably could have skipped that run, but bike went great Wed morning.

    Happy training to everyone!
  • Got it done tonight. Not spectacular, but it was there.

    3 sets of 5 x 1'/1' after the standard warmup.

    299, 302, 302, 304, 304
    306, 314, 314, 313, 311
    310, 315, 311, 310, 317.

    http://connect.garmin.com/activity/270793296

    Kinda wondered if I was going to make it for that last set of five. :-)

    NP 231, IF .924 for 54 min
    I continue to be amazed at you guys who are hitting ~1.00 IFs for an hour. You will be seeing boosts in your next tests for sure.
  • Good lord that VO2 max is a butt kicker.

    First week back from the honeymoon. So far so good. Well except for not being in paradise anymore image
  • Did Saturdays brick run today cause after being on trainer tomorrow for 4 hours I won't want to run.

    30 min at MP
    25 min at HMP
    5 min CD
    8 miles in 60 min

    Not sure about you but I'd rather do mile repeats then this!! Very mind numbing for me.

    Then fell in the pool for 2000 yards. 1200 as drills. The stroke and catch are coming back.
  • Got my 4 x (3 x 45/45) done this morning due to an unplanned but thoroughly enjoyable rest day yesterday. Felt pretty good, last night’s beer consumption must have helped. Have to see how I get on with tomorrow’s workouts.
  • This weeks bike workouts rocked! I have enjoyed/feared every bike WO since the start. Now I am starting to understand how i should be feeling on the bike. And i have also started to notice that i need to push harder to get my HR up to the point it needs to be.

    Since my Dr told me not to run because of a calf strain, i have been adding more biking. So now, as you can imagine, my legs are happy for a day off. image

  • Managed to get through all my bike workouts on target this week. Williiam was right 15 minutes is way harder that 12. 45 seconds on is also way harder that 30 seconds. I was going to swim today, but I've had it. I think I'll take the day off, rest, and adjust the carbs on my Austin Healey
  • @Bob.... 15 min isn't that many more CALORIES than 12 :-)
  • Well, it was my turn to get sick this week. Took Monday-Thursday completely off...NADA. Did an EZ Z1 3 mile run this am. Gonna get back on the bike tomorrow.
  • Got the ride done this morning and will be running late this afternoon (as long as it doesn't start raining....)

    The numbers for today's ride:

    15'(4') – NP: 256, AP 257 (IF 1.012), VI 0.99, HR 156avg/162max
    15'(4') – NP: 257, AP 258 (IF 1.015), VI 0.99, HR 163/168
    5'(5') -- NP: 254, AP 255 (IF1.005), VI 0.99, HR 157/164

    Again, this ride felt like *work*. And I had a bit of a revelation today....On Tuesday, my Joule battery died 1/2way into the warmup, but as I program the workout into a Garmin 310 for recording, I was able to just keep going. The first of the 2x15 on Tuesday was a lot lower -- 246 (.972) and 255 (1.007). That tells me that for the purposes of these intervals, the PowerMeter display is a Motivator, not an inhibitor....

    Hope everyone enjoys their Saturday!!
  • Very grateful for shorter Z4 intervals on the INT plan today. Enabled me to hit some higher numbers....

    2 x 10', 1 x 5' @ .99IF, 1.00 and 1.00 IF

    Then I did part of of SoCal ride video w/ TR and managed .84IF for an additional 33'. Total bike time about 1:08, 18mi.

    Struggled with the run again a bit. Fell short of Z2 target for first half, then got some mojo to redeem myself for the Z3 portion. My average pace was Z2 overall, but it was sub Z2 + Z3.5.

    Followed by snow blowing about 2 1/2 feet of snow for 90 mins. This weather blows.
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