Rob Mohr - OS Sessions Log - Holding myself accountable
"In 2014, I'll hold myself accountable for my training, logging each workout for ENers to see-- warts and all." 
I have some lofty goals for myself in 2014, and the only way I can achieve them is through consistent, hard work -- e.g. doing my prescribed training sessions to the best of my ability, and not slacking off or finding excuses! This thread will document my training sessions and track my progress. Come here to keep me in check!!
GOALS
TO DO THE WORK: From Jan 1 - March 31, I will set out to do all prescribed workouts in their entirety, and at the best of my ability. To do so, I will:
- Get up early to fully prepare for each session
- Fight to hit my numbers/splits
- Only miss or modify sessions when absolutely necessary (e.g. travel, relationship, real physical need)
- HOWEVER, I will engage on EN to best adapt my program (only as necessary) for how I specifically respond to training
- Get serious about recovery -- not training hard and then going out hard
- Be honest with myself about my effort, etc. for all of the above
BIKE: Increase FTP from 203 to 235. To do so, I will learn to embrace the suck on the bike just as I've done with running! Further, I'll not only do all my workouts, but will devote time to actually looking at my power files and tracking my improvement.
RUN: Increase vdot from 54 to 58. Last year, with strong focus on running in prep for a March half marathon, I hit a vdot of just under 60. I need to get my conditioning back and shed the lbs I've tacked on since my last race. I know I'm capable of hitting this goal, so long as I remain focused (e.g. "doing the work") and healthy (not slacking on warm ups, cool downs, stretching, eating right and recovering right).
Comments
1. I think I said this after your Eagleman race last year, but I honestly believe you can go sub-4:30 in an HIM, this year. With your 1:19 half-marathon, you need to looking for a 2:20 bike and to get there an FTP of 3.8 watts/kg won't do it. But given your raw fitness engine, really with directed training why can't you target a 260+ FTP?
2. If you intend to post all of your workouts in this thread, I'd appeal to you to instead post to the weekly threads that everyone else is posting to. For the next couple of weeks weeks there will be multi-page threads of workout reports, but by February there will be fewer and by April there will be only 4 or 5 of us consistently posting workouts. Look at the last few years' Jan OS forums and that's what you see. My challenge is for you to be there with me posting in April. THAT is accountability.
Cheers!
Tuesday, Jan. 7 (Due to a dead powertap battery, my bike test got pushed from Monday to Tuesday.)
These tests never get any easier. My anxiety levels are higher before these than before any race. Results are so cut and dry. Anyway, I got up an hour before the test to mentally prep myself, eat, hydrate, etc. My goal was to hit a FTP of 200 watts -- the magic number that I've hovered around for about 2.5 years (though I've slimmed down a good bit from year 1...).
All and all, the test went well. Despite a couple of months off the bike while training for the NYC marathon in Nov., I didn't lose much from where I was after my last tri, which was in early August.
SESSION RESULTS
FTP ------ 203 watts (average of 214 for the 20mins)
VO2 ---- 243 watts (almost exactly 20% higher than my FTP)
Full stats in the attached pic.
Matt - Thanks for the note. I like the counsel. Re: goals, I honestly was unsure where to put the bar for goal FTP. I know that ENers, through hard work, typically see a 10-15% increase in FTP across the OS, so went with the high-end of that. While I want the goal to be realistic, I certainly don't want to limit myself by setting an easy goal. If 260+ (4.25 watt/kg) is in the realm of possibility this year, then that's where I want my stretch goal. Thanks again for the advice and for pushing me. (As you note, I never thought I could run a 1:19 half, until I had to...)
I'll migrate this over to the weekly thread! Challenge accepted. I need the added motivation.
Rob, great set of intentions. I would like to do the same to be held accountable. See you were directed over to the "weekly" for recording. Where is that? I can't seem to find that forum.
Joe
TRAINING
OS in January started off very well. I continually posted workouts to the forums and did workouts religiously and with full effort. This continued all the way through until mid-March, when the wheels somewhat came off due to an unexpected apartment move and work + personal travel. Between moving apartments and traveling, I stopped posting to the forums (tho I did continue to upload to Training Peaks). Then, in April I started to experience the effects of over training -- restless sleep, lethargy, general terrible-ness... After a week and a half off, I started May and my Half IM program on the right foot and geared up for Syracuse 70.3 on June 22.
RESULTS
Since OS ended in a funk, I held off on testing until early June. Bike results were below goals but still showed some improvement. Run results were damn strong.
Bike
FTP --- 219.5 (NP of 231 for 20') --- up from 203 in January, 8% gain
VO2 --- 270 (NP of 270 for 5') --- up from 243 in January, 11% gain
Run
5k Test --- 17:12 --- shed 1:22 off my January time of 18:34
vDot --- 59.38 --- up from 54 in January and above goal of 58
RACE #1 - Syracuse 70.3
Swim 32:22 / Bike 2:47:52 / 1:30:22 TOTAL 4:56:19
AG Place 26/192
This time bested my June 2013 EagleMan time by 3'+. While not a huge increase, this course was more challenging. My biggest improvement was in the swim, where I shed ~6'. While bike and run were slower YOY, again, the course was harder and the bike leg ended with 2 miles of no passing, which added at least 3' to my bike time.
Pleased with this as a first race. While still outside the top 25 for AG, the 26/192 is still an improvement from EagleMan's AG 30/123. Much still to be improved on for next 70.3 (Timberman) in August.
Thanks for this Matt. Really appreciate your thoughts and follow up on my progress.
I agree. I need to do something to give my bike a boost. I think I can bike 4x a week while maintaining a strong run. I'm fairly confident that just 2 good runs a week will keep me where I need to be. Most weeks have 4 scheduled though. For the 4x on the bike, I think Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday should work for that. I'll ask Coach P in the micro forum how best to structure the week and the remainder of my HIM advanced program. Feel free to weigh in on that since I'm interested to hear your thoughts as well.
Regarding the specific sessions, I've also found that the shorter VO2 interval sessions did little this past OS to raise my FTP. The 5' at 120% with 3' recoveries seemed to work better, but I think I respond best to the longer work. 20' at the top end of my FTP causes me to suffer a lot more than 5-6x5'(3')@120% of FTP. Think the longer sessions with more FTP work will be helpful.
Thanks Doug. Appreciate the support.
And keep posting your bike wkos... your impressive work day in and day out will help keep me motivated to up my bike game
I do a LOT of riding at "z3+", i.e. 85-90% at this point. My Saturday rides are 3.5-4.5 hours and typically consist of all the upfront FTP stuff (takes about the first hour), then ABP riding targeting "high z3". I intersperse with 2-4' breaks of easy riding. This most recent Saturday (
http://www.trainingpeaks.com/av/SXT...K3APWQRWFU is a classic example with the one exception that I stopped for 35 minutes right in the middle (I had ridden out to meet a guy from who had a bike for sale on Craigslist). Also in this case I only did 2 of the FTP intervals at the front end of the workout. But my IF for the total ride of almost 4 hours was 0.851 and the entire second half was pretty darn close to 0.85 with a VI of 1.02 (and this included >30 minutes of city riding at the very end. A typical Sunday is very similar (http://www.trainingpeaks.com/av/BXA...B5BT6HYVHU - this one is 2 hours at 0.845 and 1.02 VI but the main part is an hour of ABP at VI 1.01 where I settled in at 0.87, 0.87, 0.88, 0.89 with a couple of minutes easier effort in between each (I suffer from a half hour of shitty city riding on the front and back end of all of my rides unless I drive 45-60 minutes to ride somewhere else).
I guess the point is that I do a lot of "ABP" which for the half-iron distance seems to suit me well. If I can hold 85% for 4+ hours then in the race I am comfortable targeting that for a ride that is a lot shorter...re-reading my own race report from last month I see I held IF of 0.848 at 1.02 VI and was able to turn in a ~6' run PR of 1:29. "Train like you race" I guess.
Personally the VO2 stuff doesn't seem to do much for me either, and I think it's because I'm not too VO2 limited...perhaps stronger runners have less VO2 limitation given that running is inherently higher aerobic intensity (for me at least...my HR hits 187-191 running 1-2 mle LT intervals but on the bike in an FTP interval getting to 180 would be exceptionally rare). In the OS I also see excellent gains from the longer FTP workouts like 2x20' and 3x15', as well as from the 4x5' and 5x5' @ 110% stuff. But in-season I tend to really focus on the ABP at very high or above-z3 wattage in order to avoid the FTP backslide as distance increases, plus exending the rides to 4-4.5 hours as practical.