Jan OS Week 12 BIKE

Carrie Chavez

Hi Jan OS- I am starting this thread for William as he is having trouble logging in to EN.

Please post your week 12 Bike workouts here. Why is it that looking at these ridiculously hard workouts does not freak me out anymore? I believe we have been brainwashed. They just seem "normal" now. Haha. Our ability to withstand "work" is incredible and it will serve us well as we move forward through the year.

Have a great week everyone.

William Jenks

I'm baaaaaack! Can't get rid of me so easily! :-)

Carl

I had a great start to week #12. After really struggling Saturday it was good to see. Before starting I was tempted by the dashboard to just do an impromptu 20x2 FTP test. Yes the old fashioned way so I started out with 20 minutes and damn it felt good but once the 4 minute rest period came(which by the way would have been 2 min if testing) it just felt to damn good to pass up. Glad I decided NOT to do the test cause the last 5 minutes was a struggle for me.



Here is the TR pic and yes it looks funny cause again I knocked out the 20 minutes first then took the 4 minute rest which worked perfect cause that left 12 min then 4 min rest then 12 minutes again and finished strong. Was very happy with the first 20 though looks like the final test could be where I was hoping. If I can nail 275 that will put me around 300 outside!!!!!! Watering at the mouth........







Okay:

FTP #1...20 min at 1.041 intensity  

FTP #2 at .99 

FTP #3 at .98 

Entire workout :

Duration: 1:20:30

Work: 1162 kJ

TSS: 116.6 (intensity factor 0.941)

Norm Power: 251

VI: 1.04

Distance: 25.281 mi

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 471 241 watts

Cadence: 39 110 81 rpm

Speed: 0 23.5 18.8 mph

Pace 2:33 0:00 3:12 min/mi

Hub Torque: 0 13 8 lb-in

Altitude: 738 751 744 ft

Crank Torque: 0 431 253 lb-in

Temperature: 69.8 75.2 73.0 Fahrenheit

MattAaronson

Maybe it was the warm room, or maybe I ate too much before starting, but it was a real slog tonight. The first interval was good but 6' into the second I took a minute out of the bars and had real trouble staying back down there. I was up again at the 10' mark, then again at 13' then from 16' pretty much to the end. In the third interval I took 1' up at the 4', 6' and 10' marks. Just brutal. HR was very, very high.

No brick since I'm resting up my legs and letting my hamstring sort itself out in anticipation of a lot of running on my upcoming vacation…don't want any injuries messing that up since I won't have a bike to fall back on.

Bike – overall 80', NP 229, IF 0.903. Full warmup of 10' easy/z1 then 3x3'(1')@z3. Then the main set:

12'(4') @z4 – NP: 255 (IF 1.003), VI 1.00, HR 159/168, cad 90
20'(4') @z4 – NP: 256 (IF 1.007), VI 1.00, HR 172/182, cad 91
12'(3') @z4 – NP: 252 (IF 0.994), VI 1.00, HR 175/181, cad 91
-------
3' @z3 – NP: 217 (IF 0.854), VI 1.00, HR 160/169, cad 91

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/288997040

Brenda Ross

Done ride and run. Happy with both. Could not bring myself to sandwich the 18min between the two 10's so I did 18, 10, 10 and hit high 90's on the FTP scale for all. Was not feeling right this morning before I got on the bike, so I am happy that was just a passing phase.

gopetego

Got the bike wko done in the am. Yes - it was hard. And I can conclude already that after 3 OSs, these last 6 weeks are by far the hardest.

10 / 18 / 10 done @ 1.001 / .998 / .951

At no point did I ever feel confident that I would finish either of the last 2 intervals.
Felt like i sweated out 5lbs right on the bike.

Dave Mehl

Got the FTP bike done this morning. Once again, I remembered to switch the 18' interval to the beginning after I programmed the garmin. So I stuck with it as written. The legs weren't feeling it during the Z3 portion of the WU, but I nailed the intervals all at 1.01. Feeling really good on the bike these days. I've been happy with my strategy to mentally break the long intervals into shorter ones, alternating normal and slow cadence. I also did some standing time this morning, just to mix it up. Hopefully the slower cadence work is good for hill training?

Unknown

Huge mental win for me this morning.  I have modified the last 5 or 6 bike work outs due to a 1/2 marathon I ran 9 days ago.  Modified a couple bike work outs prior to the 1/2 and several after due to fatigue.  I was really starting to get concerned that the 1/2 marathon had compromised my OS bike. As a newbie and 1st timer in the EN OS it was critical for me to see gains/improvements in both run and bike. 

Today, I was able to complete the entire bike work out without triage. Granted the main sets were done at 95-96% of my FTP and the RPE was higher than two weeks ago, but my brain once again understands my body isn't going to die at this intensity.

Main Set Results(note: I am 1 week behind everyone):

• 1x10 --> 3.98 watts/kg
• 1x18 --> 4.03 watts/kg
• 1x10 -->4.03 watts/kg

Link to workout for those interested: http://tpks.ws/scnT

Decided to skip the EP run and have a beer and steamed mussels at the bar across the street from where I picked up my tri bike after a tune up prior to the nearer than ever season.

 

 

 

kimmydct

Doing the WKO shuffle as I have lots o' work this week and may have to drop something so I want to make sure I get in the high priority sessions first. So I did the modified VO2 WKO. Damn, that was hard. I don't think having the ART last night helped either.

Here's what I managed:

5' @ 1.106IF
5' @ 1.088IF
4' @ 1.075IF
4' @ 1.042IF

You can see the power droppin. Not good but did what I could. Overall 40' @ .90IF.

Kathleen Spillane

Started the first interval and about 8 minutes into it, figured now that I am finally really warmed up why not do the 18 first? Followed the lead from several of you so that's what I did and was pleased with the results. I pushed the 10s pretty good using the confidence built from the first 18. Followed by the little brick run on the mill. Happy with the outcome since I did a HM Sunday. Will I pay for this on tomorrow's VO2 run? Feet up, husband doing dishes.

MattAaronson

I needed to get in a ride before heading out on vacation for 10 days at 7am tomorrow. But after a hard 80' FTP ride last night it would have been silly to bite off Thursday's 4x5@110% ride. So I went with a 75' ABP ride. The warmup was 10' easy (5' easy spin then 5' @z1), then I was planning to do the ABP as 45'(3'), 15'(2'). However, I called an audible to go 60' straight. Actually with 5' remaining I realized that no recoveries meant I needed to tack on an extra 5' to get to 75' total time for the ride. So that's what I did! It was not easy and my HR was pretty high by the end, but I managed good power throughout and actually negative-split the ride, power-wise. Amazingly in 65' of z3 riding I spent only 3' total time out of the aerobars, all of which was in the last 15' of the ride (and 1' of which was to turn off the TV when the movie ended (we watched the conclusion of Blackhawk Down).

Overall 75', NP 221, IF 0.870. Warmup of 10' easy/z1 then an ABP ride at @z3 for 65', no recoveries:

65' @z3 – NP: 227 (IF 0.893), VI 1.00, HR 154/170, cad 92 – first half NP 224, second half NP 229

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/289364497

Bruce Thompson

@ Matt -- Awesome ride!!  That is some serious sustained power.

 I was in Toronto last night & today for business and had a 7:30 am breakfast meeting, so I just did an EZ 30' ride on the hotel bike early.  No HR monitor, no power.  Actually felt nice to just work up a small sweat while scanning the paper.

Went to masters swim class tonite after getting home.  Swam 2500 meters, finishing with 12 x 50m sprints.  The last 2 were OUCH!!

William Jenks

Well, the sequence of awesome days had to come to an end. Oh well. Yesterday's bike was average or a bit subpar. Numbers were ok, but RPE was pretty sky high.

I had to keep the workout to pretty close to 60 min due to time constraints with life. (i.e., midst of indoor soccer practice...winter here sucks this year!)

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/289473527

Legs weren't entirely right, so short warmup was not an option. I thought I might just try to mow through as much FTP as possible, but 22 minutes came up and I wasn't going to get much further without a break. Took one. I did another 10 and looked at my watch...grrr....so I did another 3 hard.

22 min: 245 W (FTP = 248)
10 min: about the same, but I seem to have forgotten to hit the lap button....so it registered for 11 min at 231
3 min: 295 W.

Bob Irwin

Switched my week around a little since I know I can't work out on Thursday, Friday, or Sunday. Did the vo2 yesterday, and skipping the ftp bike. I actually find the vo2 workouts easier (relatively speaking). Anyone else have that experience? Wonder why?

Carrie Chavez

Oh my goodness. God my butt kicked riding yesterday with 2 friends. They are so freaking strong. I got dragged around for 3 hours. I only pulled 4x at the most for a total of maybe 30 min because sitting on their wheels was hard enoughor. My girlfriend was practicing hammering up any climb as if in a bike race. My watts would go to 325!!! I thought I would rip my hamstrings off. Yowza!! Super windy. Ended up @ .80 for the 3 hrs but with a huge VI. anytime I could sit in and chill I took it. Lord have mercy!!

I swam 1 hour first and skipped the run.

Carl

Rides went good today but the minute recoveries on the VO sets seem to really smart today.  

All parameters hit then road Homer's Nose out of Trainer Road as a recovery ride. Suppose to be in the 50's today here in Iowa so will run this afternoon. A wierd week d/t work and really makes it hard to shuffle things around.

Ride #1--Goal was 320 and was able to hit plus more except for one.  I was under my 3 watts.  The recoveries really smarted!!

Duration: 1:00:24

Work: 842 kJ

TSS: 87.6 (intensity factor 0.948)

Norm Power: 253

VI: 1.09

Distance: 18.827 mi

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 521 232 watts

Cadence: 34 112 89 rpm

Speed: 0 25.7 18.7 mph

Ride #2-Homers Nose

Duration: 1:00:08

Work: 717 kJ

TSS: 58 (intensity factor 0.767)

Norm Power: 205

VI: 1.03

Distance: 17.678 mi

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 319 199 watts

Cadence: 54 110 90 rpm

Speed: 0 21.3 17.6 mph

Followed by a nice run out in the sun and wind...ahh finally in the 50's.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/289955865

kimmydct

@Bob- I'm with ya on the VO2 vs. FTP!

Well that WKO came outta nowhere! Did Tues. bike tonight as I wasn't sure if I was going to fit it in this week at all and wanted to male sure I got in the top 2 priority WKOs first. I nailed it!

10' @ .96IF
18' @ .98IF
10' @ 1.01IF

I couldn't even hit those numbers with my old FTP! Maybe Coach P's 110% VO2/FTP hack is working! Anyone else doing the 110% vs. VO2 having a similar experience?

Squeezed in 1mile on the 'mill in just under 12'. Good 'nuff!

Carl

BOOM!!!!!
Well first outdoor ride and I loved to see the legs freaking churn!!! I am really excited about this coming season. Noting fancy tonight but tried to attack the hills. FTPs of 7,10,7,11,9,16, and 10 min from .90-.98......Had a section that was 32 minutes and rode it at .90 intensity. Broke my personal record on the bike section that we race by over 4.2 mph. Made my night.

Entire workout:
Duration: 1:49:32
Work: 1423 kJ
TSS: 139 (intensity factor 0.883)
Norm Power: 236
VI: 1.09
Distance: 36.558 mi
Elevation Gain: 1338 ft
Elevation Loss: 1308 ft
Grade: 0.0 % (33 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 631 217 watts
Cadence: 30 118 92 rpm
Speed: 0 40.5 20.0 mph

Pat Koss

Loving it. Rained hard here so I did 90 minutes on the outdoor (covered) back porch and then ran 30 minutes for the Saturday 2 x 20 & 1 x 12. Feel great (maybe its the 10 hours of sleep last night).

http://tpks.ws/MVbD

Happy Easter to all.

William Jenks

Bob-

It seems there are those of us who are more limited at the FTP stage, i.e., we could build up our moderate-strength-for-a-long-time vs those are are more limited by their near-maximum-strength. Call it FTO vs VO2. Call it Ceiling vs Roof. Whatever works for you.

It seems more common, especially for people less expeirenced in riding that they need to "raise their ceiling" (FTP) has high as it can go in a couple months, and then they hit s strength limiter so the VO2 helps them find more FTP space to develop.

There are some of us, though, for whom the FTP is a bit low relative to the maximal efforts we can pull off. For that group, if they don't get carried away with it, the VO2 days are challenging in the moment, but ar the "easy days".

You may have notieced that Matt Aaronson and I have been doing longer 110% intervals instead of the VO2 on Thursdays. We are both guys who can do the VO2s pretty straightforwardly, but have near-plateaued our in-shape FTP....Matt because he's a monster, and me because I've been at it a few years and am 49. This has been an experiment this year. I obviously can't do both regimens at once, but i feel like it's helped me more than the VO2 stuff was (or did last year).

Just a thought.

William Jenks

Thursday, I took a radical step. I did nothing.

I had plans to do my bike ride late in the evening, but I got home and I could feel the physical exhaustion and I decided sleep was better workout than anything else I could do and I went to bed early. :-)

William Jenks

Friday, I felt way better. :-)

I got in a nice long swim at noon. [I have discovered my new favorite midieval torture device...it's called a swim parachute...way better than paddles, at least for pulling sets...but majorly dorky]

Friday evening, I got in 4 x 5' at approximately 110% on the bike. KNowing the next day was going to be the long hard one, I kept it totally by the book and didn't go any extra.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/290713984

276, 279, 278, 273 (with a brief, unfortunate interruption in the middle)

NP 232 for 50 min (248 FTP).

William Jenks

OK, I promise this is the last one in a row...

Friday's weather was really awesome, but I biked inside so I could do it without worry about sunset and do the intervals without worry about traffic. But i couldn't deal with another indoor day when it was decent out, so I put on my gear and went outside.

I have a little trouble getting the NP exactly where it should be outdoors because I tend to take too many 2-5 second breaks...so I almost pay more attention to the "predominant power" than the actual NP for these relatively shorter intervals. Between knowing that about myself and this huge fear I have about losing all my wattage when I go outside (which has happened the last couple of years) I was concerned that today's ride with 55 min of FTP was going to be death to my ego. (I'm That Guy who tests better indoors....probably because I am not that great a cyclist and I can focus more on getting every ounce of effort indoors than I can outdoors.)


Much to my pleasure and surprise, I was able to hold my indoor FTP outdoors..at least in that "predominant watch your power" sense, although the averages are a little lower as they usually are with the drops and turns. this was a real confidence booster that my current indoor FTP holds outside...which would be my biggest outdoor FTP...been stuck in the 235 range for a while.

Anyway, the deets:

20' #1: NP 241
20' #2: NP 240
15': NP 245
NP overall: 226
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/290909662

And not that it was any sort of world record, but 21.1 mph average over 90 min with my full anti-aero getup is a GREAT result.

Brick run outdoors also... 4 miles out and back in 7:59, 7:00, 6:58, 6:31

Have to say this worked out well. Hope tomorrow's run is just as successful.

kimmydct

Not sure about anyone else, but I'm soooo bored with the FTP WKOs. I'm jonesin' for some real riding, or at least something more diverse. I decided to do a SoCal video ride but try to get in as much FTP work as the actual OS WKO prescribed but fell a bit short.

Overall .90IF, 16mi, 1:00
Intervals:
5' @ 1.01IF
3:40 @ .996IF
12' @ .96IF
10'@.94IF
12'@ .95IF

Then 2.6mi in 29:17 with Maggie outside.