Julie, remember you are shooting for 95-100% of FTP, so 95% is doing the work still, not that it's easy by any means. Try to maintain the 95% on the first one, and on the second one maybe get to 100% toward the end. You will be building an even higher future FTP. Fuel and hydrate prior to WKO. You can do it!
Yikes! 4' intervals at 110% (Coach P's VO2 alternative) is bru-tal! (May be cuz I did VO2 run last night and tried bike this morning??) Anyway, got through 4' @ 110%, then about 3' @ 108%, then decided to try "regular" VO2 and got through 2 x 45" and bailed. Not pushing it as I'm still getting over this cold. At least its something, right? Will ltry spin class tomorrow am in Cali!
@ Julie - remember your FTP is 95% of that all out 20" effort on test day (which you did after 5" of hard Vo2 work) and the z4 intervals are at 95%-100% of that FTP #. Yea - on paper it seems hard and it is - but it is doable. Do what you can and each week your power will move on up.
Did my thursday V02 workout this am. Tough but doable. 3 x (4 x 1/1) @ 2" rest
On / Off IF #s: Set1: 1.25/.77 1.24/.73 1.25/.65 1.24/ 2" rest @.61 Set2: 1.25/.69 1.25/.67 1.22/.61 1.24. 2" rest @ .58 Set3: 1.24..68 1.21/.59 1.22/.64 1.23
Plus 10 min of z3 @ .875 (which seemed easy after the v02 stuff).
Well I had to do Saturdays bike ride/garage ride today(Thursday) d/t work schedule.
Glad its over. Started with a ride called "Collesium", then the scheduled Saturday FTP work, and finished with an hour ride called "Black".
Was able to hit FTP at 1.008, .99, and 1.011.
Total for today as 57.69 miles in 3hrs14min, 2,534 calories, Ave power 201, Normalized power, 213, rode at ave 2.98 watts/kg, cadence of 80, and 18.2 mph. Puts me at 107 miles since Monday. ....... BOOM......
I stuck to the plan and did my VO2 repeats today and they were again DAMN HARD! Well I think I catched up some minor virus that is infecting my stomach so my feet where already feeling "empty" even before I get onto the bike ... then I saw my HR-Monitor dying and for the sake of it I had the wrong workout loaded on my Forerunner so I had to count everything by myself I really don't know how but somehow I managed to struggle through all 3 sets of 60/60 and I also hit the ON targets pretty well but it did really HURT for the last 10sec ... Check it out here if you're a metric-junky (like I am) -> http://www.trainingpeaks.com/av/IGQ5GHPDMFS4L4ZIJVA3TGJYOY
Got tuesday's bike done this morning. That was a TOUGH one.
The ride was:
22 min w/o
15' @ .988
15' @ .954
15' @ .956 <----- had to play some serious "Mental Games" for this one. Didn't even want to start the interval...but figured I would do at least 5mins to see how it went. Well, next thing you know I am at the 1/2-way point...and then it is less than 1/2, so I might as well continue.</li>
I am moving around this week's w/o due to travel earlier. So I will do the Thur ride on Sat AM, and the Sat AM ride on Sun.
VO2 bike today. Got the 2x(5x1/1) done then did 30 minutes at 80-85% since I had some time. Ready for some recovery tonight. I'm almost scared to look ahead to see how long the on time gets.
I was feeling all chipper and bright this morning, so saw no harm in a bit of a swim at noon. Especially one I had planned that didn't tax the VO2...an occasional thing I do with oversize paddles to help with some brute strength and body rotation.
Nonetheless, when I got home this evening, I was not feeling it. Grrr! But I got on the bike, and it was all good in the end. Although very hard, if anything, it was a little easier than last weeks. 5' x 4' at 110%; FTP is 248 W
I have not done a bike ride since last Friday. I am in Boston and going to a YMCA provided by hotel and using TM, elliptical or stair climber and stretching /core work all pre heading to the hospital all day to be with my Mom. Tonight we'll head back to my folks on Cape Cod for a night and we have a spin bike at their house. Should I do a weeks worth of bike workouts in one session? . Haha!! Will do something. Anything is better than nothing.
I am in the beginner plan and going to do the 2*18 tonight. I am just curious though. If we just tested and our FTP is close to our all out effort for 20 minutes, it seems quite a stretch to do that almost same effort for 2 times tonight?
Am I missing something? I guess just mentally unsure I can do it.
Also - I thought I read somewhere where FTP is about the pace you could maintain for 1 hour. Is that correct because I am pretty sure that would not be possible for me.
Thanks for any help.
Good question. I was asking myself the same thing. I saw the workout and thought "NFW am I going to be able to do that." But, then I thought "Well, RnP wouldn't put that in there unless it was reasonable to expect me to be able to do it." So I did it. Got hard at the end, but I pushed through it, and felt a good sense of accomplishment afterwards.
My mantra has been "Stick with the plan, even if you don't think you can." So far, so good, and I'm happy with the 8wk results.
Carrie- let us know how that weeks worth of bike sessions in one day goes...
On mini vacation in Cali and what do I do on my first day? I hit LA fitness and bang out 1 mi on the mill @ Z5 the an hour spin class. Rest day tomorrow then belated 5k test in race sun. I am tempted to do another spin class in the am to burn off all the homemade pizza I ate at my cousins tonight but I won't. Hoping for a nice vdot bump to get me out of the double digit paces and into the 9's!
Had a great bike ride yesterday with my local crit coach. We did a three hour ride and just chatted till close to the end of the ride we through in a few pick me ups but the quads just wouldn't respond very well. Ride finished though. As you can see I was able to keep the intensity at .73.
Since Monday that puts me at 154.28 miles on the bike(month 222.44), ave power 218, ave watts/kg 3.0, total TSS points from the bike 555, ave heart rate 149. Currently sitting on a negative 55.8 TSB.
I rode a spin bike at my parents house on Cape Cod. It is an awesome bike that Steve and I purchased for their home in 2001. We love having it there for when we visit. I forgot my heart rate monitor ( since I almost never use one). So I rode old school, on feel, which was actually awesome. It makes you get more in tune with your body and your breathing. Sure- maybe I did not push as hard as I might have with the PM staring at me but I had a great workout.
Progressive 20 min warm up 5 x 1/1 at hard/winded pace then standing rest phase 10 min of 4(1) twice at same resistance but slower cadence of above so I could last 4 min- this was tough 5 x 1/1 again 10 min cool down
Ok- so a combo of FT and VO2 and I loved it. Totally out of breath, drenched and legs worked!!
Open window and fan this morning…excellent!! As a result I pushed some big power numbers, literally almost 10 watts over last Saturday's identical workout. My HR got pretty high up there, so it was far from an easy bike, but the power was great and as a result it my mental state was good and the workout felt great.
The run was good too although it didn't feel as short as that route usually feels. But I was pretty smooth with high cadence and my pace was very strong, ~18 sec/mile better than last Saturday. My HR was lower than it was on the bike which is pretty rare for me.
Bike – overall 91', NP 232, IF 0.912. Full warmup of 10' easy/z1 then 3x3'(1')@z3. Then the main set:
I did an indoor Tri @ Lifetime Fitness this am. You swim 10', bike 30' and run 20' and they measure the distance you cover in the time. I had a good race, but probably could have gone faster. But I didn't want to risk injury on a "c" race doing it for fun.
Pool Swim: 575 meters in 10'. Not fast but about what I'd do outside in a sprint. Felt fine. Finished 2nd in my wave.
Trainer Ride: 11.8 miles in 30'. Avg watts- 238, avg speed- 23.4, avg rpms- 89, avg HR 154. A good high Z3 power output for me. Won my wave.
Treadmill Run: 2.8 miles in 20'. Stayed conservative the first 5', running @ 8:30 pace. then 7:30 pace for 7', then 7:00 pace for 4', then 6:30 pace for 2', and finished the last 2' @ 6:00 pace. Felt good the entire way. Won my wave. Clearly my running is coming back as my current VDOT Z5 pace is 6:52. No injuries.
After I finished and got some drink and a bite, I worked as a volunteer for the rest of the racers, cheering them on, getting H2O, etc. Spent about 2 hours doing this. Then I got back on a bike. Rode 40' @ avg watts of 185, avg speed 21.1, avg rpms 91, avg HR 142. Then ran 1 more mile at 8:50 pace. I did this 2nd brick after a 2 hour break on purpose as part of my training for the American TTT in May. That race includes 2 Olys on Saturday with a 4 hour rest in between each race. So I wanted to see what it felt like to go again after a break. Legs a little heavy but not bad. All in all, a good morning.
I'm also very satisfied with todays WKOs - I did the run in the morning and hit an average speed of 4:07/km including WU!! I really need to retest my 5k-TT as this is almost exactly my MP and you all know what todays plan said about the run
Highly motivated from that great pace I directly went to my running-dealer and grab a brand new pair of Adidas boost ... hell yeaaa I'm already excited to test them tomorrow (if it's not too bad weather). That gave me a little extra MOJO for todays FTP ride so as this is my final week in the OS I extended the session to about 2 hours just by adding 4 additional repeats of 10min ABP
Legs are now pretty tired but the numbers it gave me where again really nice and in total I did 35 minutes of FTP and 52 minutes of 80-85% today - but just see by yourself:
@ Bruce, great stuff. I love the race-specific TTT training already. I'm still doing normal OS stuff...nothing like that just yet. Haven't even started swimming (although I should have by now). You're motivating me to get my sh*t together...!!
@ Matt - I wouldn't worry about it. You are doing some great bike and run workouts. You'll be ready for the TTT. My training is being guided by simple fear of what I got myself into. I just want to make sure these old bones can handle multiple races with little recovery in between.
Carl... you might want to look at that TSB to see if things are logging as you think. The TSB is a reflection of what you're doing now (the lat week or so) vs the last 6 weeks. I know you've done some monster work this last couple days, but that's way negative, considering the monster work you were doing a month ago or whatever. Just strikes me as odd...but maybe I'm just remembering wrong. A -55 TSB is equivalent to saying you're doing an AVERAGE of 55 TSS points more "now" than you have been for the last month or two. (Maybe you took some rest/down time in the middle that lowered your ATL?)
Bruce- nice race. When u say trainer for the bike what did u use? Spin bike or your own on a trainer? I did a similar indoor tri and liked it but was harder than I thought!
Stefan- lemme know how the Boost are. I have been an Adidas wearer til this most recent pair I got saucony but am very curious about the Boost. A new pair may have to wait for a bit though since I just got these new ones. Crap!
Today was pretty much just "get it done" day on the bike. Nothing spectacular, nothing horrible. The 15, 15, 5 were done at 248, 248, 249. I was pretty ripped at the end of the last two, but that's as it should be. Tacked on 85% time to take it to 90 minutes.
218 NP, 0.88 IF over 92 minutes. One very good TNG (or maybe just one I hadn't seen before).
A few hours later, my kids had a 90 minute indoor soccer workout, and it was 40 degrees with light rain. I took advantage of that and did the Sunday run. This was challenging. It was a little extra work to get to the TP, and it was a little extra work to finish the last couple miles to bring that in to the 90 minute mark, too. But I digress. More on that in the run thread.
@ Kim - Thanks. We rode on brand new spin bikes that had power meters on them. Had all the normal data types- current watts, avg watts, cadence, distance, time. Actually a real nice upgrade from the old bikes.
Cold, but clear and sunny after the fog started burning off. I took advantage of the weather and went outside:
Warm up was around 25:00 to get to some clear roads then #1: 15:05: NP 232/HR 148/IF 1.016/TSS 25.9/VI 1.03 (4') #2: 15:05: NP 227/HR 149/IF 0.996/TSS 24.9/VI 1.01 (4') #3: 5:05: NP 222/HR 139/IF 0.975/TSS 8.1/VI 1
And then I got tired.
Total ride: 2:28:20 NP 184/IF 0.806/TSS 157.3/VI 1.17
Comments
Did my thursday V02 workout this am. Tough but doable. 3 x (4 x 1/1) @ 2" rest
On / Off IF #s:
Set1: 1.25/.77 1.24/.73 1.25/.65 1.24/ 2" rest @.61
Set2: 1.25/.69 1.25/.67 1.22/.61 1.24. 2" rest @ .58
Set3: 1.24..68 1.21/.59 1.22/.64 1.23
Plus 10 min of z3 @ .875 (which seemed easy after the v02 stuff).
Glad its over. Started with a ride called "Collesium", then the scheduled Saturday FTP work, and finished with an hour ride called "Black".
Was able to hit FTP at 1.008, .99, and 1.011.Total for today as 57.69 miles in 3hrs14min, 2,534 calories, Ave power 201, Normalized power, 213, rode at ave 2.98 watts/kg, cadence of 80, and 18.2 mph. Puts me at 107 miles since Monday. ....... BOOM......
I stuck to the plan and did my VO2 repeats today and they were again DAMN HARD! Well I think I catched up some minor virus that is infecting my stomach so my feet where already feeling "empty" even before I get onto the bike ... then I saw my HR-Monitor dying and for the sake of it I had the wrong workout loaded on my Forerunner so I had to count everything by myself
I really don't know how but somehow I managed to struggle through all 3 sets of 60/60 and I also hit the ON targets pretty well but it did really HURT for the last 10sec ...
Check it out here if you're a metric-junky (like I am) -> http://www.trainingpeaks.com/av/IGQ5GHPDMFS4L4ZIJVA3TGJYOY
Those On minutes seem a lot longer than those Off minutes.
Got tuesday's bike done this morning. That was a TOUGH one.
The ride was:
I am moving around this week's w/o due to travel earlier. So I will do the Thur ride on Sat AM, and the Sat AM ride on Sun.
Bike – overall 60', NP 227, IF 0.895. Full warmup of 10' easy/z1 then 3x3'(1')@z3. Then the main set:
4'(4') @110% – NP: 282 (IF 1.111), VI 1.00, HR 156/163, cad 93, recovery @ NP 169
4'(4') @110% – NP: 282 (IF 1.112), VI 1.00, HR 159/167, cad 93, recovery @ NP 167
4'(4') @110% – NP: 288 (IF 1.133), VI 1.00, HR 163/173, cad 94, recovery @ NP 169
4'(4') @110% – NP: 287 (IF 1.129), VI 1.00, HR 165/173, cad 94, recovery @ NP 160
-------
6' @z3 – NP: 231 (IF 0.908), VI 1.00, HR 153/159, cad 92
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/281594369
Nonetheless, when I got home this evening, I was not feeling it. Grrr! But I got on the bike, and it was all good in the end. Although very hard, if anything, it was a little easier than last weeks. 5' x 4' at 110%; FTP is 248 W
276, 278, 276, 276, 275.
Overall 226 NP, 0.91 IF over 58 minutes
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/281633246
Great to read all your updates.
Good question. I was asking myself the same thing. I saw the workout and thought "NFW am I going to be able to do that." But, then I thought "Well, RnP wouldn't put that in there unless it was reasonable to expect me to be able to do it." So I did it. Got hard at the end, but I pushed through it, and felt a good sense of accomplishment afterwards.
My mantra has been "Stick with the plan, even if you don't think you can." So far, so good, and I'm happy with the 8wk results.
On mini vacation in Cali and what do I do on my first day? I hit LA fitness and bang out 1 mi on the mill @ Z5 the an hour spin class. Rest day tomorrow then belated 5k test in race sun. I am tempted to do another spin class in the am to burn off all the homemade pizza I ate at my cousins tonight but I won't. Hoping for a nice vdot bump to get me out of the double digit paces and into the 9's!
Had a great bike ride yesterday with my local crit coach. We did a three hour ride and just chatted till close to the end of the ride we through in a few pick me ups but the quads just wouldn't respond very well. Ride finished though. As you can see I was able to keep the intensity at .73.
Since Monday that puts me at 154.28 miles on the bike(month 222.44), ave power 218, ave watts/kg 3.0, total TSS points from the bike 555, ave heart rate 149. Currently sitting on a negative 55.8 TSB.
Progressive 20 min warm up
5 x 1/1 at hard/winded pace then standing rest phase
10 min of 4(1) twice at same resistance but slower cadence of above so I could last 4 min- this was tough
5 x 1/1 again
10 min cool down
Ok- so a combo of FT and VO2 and I loved it. Totally out of breath, drenched and legs worked!!
Hope you all are having a great Saturday.
CC
The run was good too although it didn't feel as short as that route usually feels. But I was pretty smooth with high cadence and my pace was very strong, ~18 sec/mile better than last Saturday. My HR was lower than it was on the bike which is pretty rare for me.
Bike – overall 91', NP 232, IF 0.912. Full warmup of 10' easy/z1 then 3x3'(1')@z3. Then the main set:
15'(4') @z4 – NP: 259 (IF 1.020), VI 1.00, HR 164/172, cad 90
15'(4') @z4 – NP: 266 (IF 1.046), VI 1.00, HR 172/180, cad 91
5'(5') @z4 – NP: 277 (IF 1.092), VI 1.00, HR 172/179, cad 92
-------
10'(2') @z3 – NP: 232 (IF 0.914), VI 1.00, HR 162/169, cad 91
10' @z3 – NP: 238 (IF 0.937), VI 1.00, HR 160/164, cad 92
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/282173359
Run – overall 4.57 miles in 30:08, avg 6:36/mile:
Split......Distance......Avg Pace
1......0.51 ......6:54
2......0.49 ......6:42
3......0.53 ......6:33
4......0.74 ......6:36
5......0.75 ......6:38
6......0.52 ......6:37
7......0.49 ......6:25
8......0.55 ......6:22
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/282174129
I did an indoor Tri @ Lifetime Fitness this am. You swim 10', bike 30' and run 20' and they measure the distance you cover in the time. I had a good race, but probably could have gone faster. But I didn't want to risk injury on a "c" race doing it for fun.
Pool Swim: 575 meters in 10'. Not fast but about what I'd do outside in a sprint. Felt fine. Finished 2nd in my wave.
Trainer Ride: 11.8 miles in 30'. Avg watts- 238, avg speed- 23.4, avg rpms- 89, avg HR 154. A good high Z3 power output for me. Won my wave.
Treadmill Run: 2.8 miles in 20'. Stayed conservative the first 5', running @ 8:30 pace. then 7:30 pace for 7', then 7:00 pace for 4', then 6:30 pace for 2', and finished the last 2' @ 6:00 pace. Felt good the entire way. Won my wave. Clearly my running is coming back as my current VDOT Z5 pace is 6:52. No injuries.
After I finished and got some drink and a bite, I worked as a volunteer for the rest of the racers, cheering them on, getting H2O, etc. Spent about 2 hours doing this. Then I got back on a bike. Rode 40' @ avg watts of 185, avg speed 21.1, avg rpms 91, avg HR 142. Then ran 1 more mile at 8:50 pace. I did this 2nd brick after a 2 hour break on purpose as part of my training for the American TTT in May. That race includes 2 Olys on Saturday with a 4 hour rest in between each race. So I wanted to see what it felt like to go again after a break. Legs a little heavy but not bad. All in all, a good morning.
Great work everyone in here!!
I'm also very satisfied with todays WKOs - I did the run in the morning and hit an average speed of 4:07/km including WU!! I really need to retest my 5k-TT as this is almost exactly my MP and you all know what todays plan said about the run
Highly motivated from that great pace I directly went to my running-dealer and grab a brand new pair of Adidas boost ... hell yeaaa I'm already excited to test them tomorrow (if it's not too bad weather). That gave me a little extra MOJO for todays FTP ride so as this is my final week in the OS I extended the session to about 2 hours just by adding 4 additional repeats of 10min ABP
- but just see by yourself:
Legs are now pretty tired but the numbers it gave me where again really nice and in total I did 35 minutes of FTP and 52 minutes of 80-85% today
TrainingsPeaks Log
Stefan- lemme know how the Boost are. I have been an Adidas wearer til this most recent pair I got saucony but am very curious about the Boost. A new pair may have to wait for a bit though since I just got these new ones. Crap!
218 NP, 0.88 IF over 92 minutes. One very good TNG (or maybe just one I hadn't seen before).
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/282373120
A few hours later, my kids had a 90 minute indoor soccer workout, and it was 40 degrees with light rain. I took advantage of that and did the Sunday run. This was challenging. It was a little extra work to get to the TP, and it was a little extra work to finish the last couple miles to bring that in to the 90 minute mark, too. But I digress. More on that in the run thread.
Warm up was around 25:00 to get to some clear roads then
#1: 15:05: NP 232/HR 148/IF 1.016/TSS 25.9/VI 1.03 (4')
#2: 15:05: NP 227/HR 149/IF 0.996/TSS 24.9/VI 1.01 (4')
#3: 5:05: NP 222/HR 139/IF 0.975/TSS 8.1/VI 1
And then I got tired.
Total ride: 2:28:20 NP 184/IF 0.806/TSS 157.3/VI 1.17