My Big Training week
Well, it was not quite a week; just 5 days of big volume training, way more then what I have ever done before. I won’t lie, it was hard and I was hating life towards the end. Right now I have so many places that hurts on my legs that I didn’t even know existed, I hope I didn’t over do it. My total in the end was about 21hours on the bike and 3h40min on the run; which netted me about the TSS of 1075.6 and rTSS of 221.1 from Wednesday through Sunday. That brought my TSB to -142 and ATL to 259.1, those are pretty bad numbers right? I hope I can dig out of this hole.
Things I learned and/or need to work out before St George:
- I need to do a better job drinking and eating, I always feel ok the first hour and pretty good hour 2-3 and pretty much crashes around hour 5 every ride. It was about 60-70 degrees everyday (I think I picked the perfect time to do this!), but I was still drinking about .80-1 bottle of water every hour. This has always been my problem, and I have to work it our or I am in for a long day at STG.
- I need to be more a little more consistent with the watts; I would start the ride around .65-.68 in the first hour and then ramp up to about .71 for hour 2-3ish and then just sort of hanging on at around .67 for the rest of the ride and it was hard. but this might have to do with hydration and nutrition.
- It seems like I could ride between .65-.70 until the end of time with my legs, but my butt can’t really handle it; speaking of which, this might be a little sensitive, but does anyone have any good tips for saddle sores? I can almost walk with out pain today.
- my left knee hurts pretty bad when I go up and down stairs now, it started hurting half way through the ride on Saturday and I pushed through it and biked on Sunday. I am pretty sure this was stupid, I should have been smart and just wrapped up the big week early, and now I can only hope that I didn’t do any damages that would require more then a couple days of rest.
- My road rashes from my crash last weekend are during well, I think I might get back into the pool tomorrow.
- I should have taken the advice of many others here and taken a few more days off after the crash (I took 2 full days and then started the big week), I don’t think I was ready yet since I can’t really ride in the aero bar (road rashes on where the pad hits), and I was scared of descending. I was also getting some head aches here and there on the ride on the first couple days (not sure if it was related though).
- Riding in Aero position is really important, during day 2 of my riding, I did the same part twice, the first part I was not riding aero at all and it took me about an hour to go 15.5 miles, the 2nd time around (3hours later) I sucked it up and rode aero and ended up going about 17+ miles for that hour through the same part but I think my road rashes paid for it….
- I have moved my race rehearsal to week 8 and 10 of the plan; so I am going to try and work all the issues out before the first one in about 2 weeks.
- Riding in a new places really spice things up, I once had though about doing all my ride in the same area that I bike in all the time, I think by taking a tour of best rides in this area was much easier mentally.
Here are some data about each of the ride I went on.
Wednesday: Skyline Drive
I was suppose to do this ride with Chris Malone but due to a late departure and traffic on the belt way I only got to meet Chris briefly half way through the ride. Chris is the first person I met in person in the haus, he will always have a special place in my heart J
Skyline Drive was beautiful, and you can spend 30-40min just climbing, not steep but it will get to you. I am thinking about going back and during my race rehearsal out there. 3 hour ride out and 3 hour back. then Run in the hills, we will see.
-Ride time: 3:56
-52 miles, NP: 177 (.707), VI 1.09
The norm power is probably a little higher and the VI a little lower, I was still scared of descending so I think that sort of skewed everything.
Thursday: Liberty Town, MD
Another beautiful ride but with a lot of shorter but steeper hills, the plan was to do the 53mile loop twice, but because I was running out of day light I had to cut the ride short.
-40min run first thing in the morning (rTSS 46.1)
-Ride time: 6:15 (actual time 7:11)
-92 miles, NP-167 (.668), VI 1.12)
Friday: Montgomery Village, MD
-Did a 2 hour easy run through hilly trails (rTSS120.6)
-45min of easy riding
Saturday: Davidsonville, MD
Well, it was not exactly Davidsonville, it started close to there and headed south; it was a very interesting ride, on a 2-3 lane street where cars are blowing by you at 70-80 mph but you feel safe ish because you have a bike lane that is wider then a car lane. I started about 40 miles into the Total 200 ride and the goal was to go 60miles out and 60 back. But about 40 miles in I came to this totally sketchy long bridge with a very small shoulder so I chickened out and turned around then. I extended the ride which was probably stupid since my left knee started hurting about 3 hours in.
-1h easy run first thing in the morning
-Ride time: 6:01
-101 miles, NP 167 (.666) VI 1.04 (I think the NP and the VI was a little better then this considering I spend about 20 min riding really really slowly and tried to figure out what my plan of action should be)
Sunday: Poolesville, Maryland
This is my normal riding area so it is back to home turf to finish up the big week. I was suppose to try and meet up with Nemo but given how my knee was feeling I was too scared to call her the night before. I was planning on going 100 but cut it back to 75 because of my knee.
Ride time 5:40
76 miles, NP 166 (.666) VI 1.07
Monday: I was planning on running 1.5-2 hours, but after I wake up and realized that I was having a hard time walking up and down stairs due to knee pain (and lots of other none injury related light pains up and down my legs), I decided to just take the day as a rest day.
Didn’t do anything again today as I still feel super tired. I think the rest of my week will be as follows:
Thursday: Swim, easy 30min run (if my knee is feeling ok)
Friday: Long Run
Sat: Normal Bike
Sun: Normal 3h bike or Swim and easy run depending on how I feel.
Monday: back to Normal training plan.
Thanks for reading this far, I would appreciate any thoughts or tips that you might have.
I am starting to be fired up about St. George!
Wei
Comments
Sorry to miss you up in the park, but you looked happy when we crossed paths. Nice day.
From the sounds of your report, you need a week off. Your bike wreck, before wrecking yourself on the bike, is a factor. Nice work, but heal thyself.
cm