2015 NOS Week 10 Bike – Find Your One Thing
One of the foundations of EN race execution is your “one
thing.” As the coaches say, when you get
deep into a race your body is going to start revolting. You need to have planned out your argument
against your body to keep going. That
is, why are you doing this, what is motivating you to keep going? I think it is the same thing over the course
of a training cycle. As we get deeper
into the OS (or any of the plans) your body is tired, you’re less motivated and
it becomes easier to make excuses to skip workouts or not push as hard. Have your one thing ready for those moments
when your body is telling you not to get up early for the workout or happy hour
sounds better than the pain cave. Use
your one thing to finish that 15 minute interval rather than cut it off at 12
minutes.
Go out there and get it done and then come back and let us
know how it went.
Comments
Do not underestimate the value of the wisdom and guidance being offered by Doug's post below at this juncture. Just well said!
Good luck to all scraping for those inches! The payoff is real!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO4tIrjBDkk
All of you are knocking it out of the park! Very motivating and inspirational! Keep leading!
SS
I had to move the WED ride to today (so it was my third ride in three days) as I won't have time for it tomorrow. This was a last-minute change right in the afternoon so I already had a sweet hour of swimming and 2-3h of walking around in the snow building snow-castles with the kinds in the books.
Well my legs just didn't feel like I would even be able to push through the first 15' and for me the 3x15' are THE WORST of all Z4-rides in the OS ... They are even worse than 2x20'+10' ...
I decided to dial the numbers down a notch and just keep going so the time crawled by slowly and after a while I even managed it till the end of the second 15'!
At that point I was really FRIED - just told to myself "Lets start the last interval and see if you can manage another minute or two"!
Legs were screaming at me after only 2' in the segment while I was watching "Homeland" ... HR must have been sky high and I was breathing very hard.
5' in the segment I drank the last sip of available fluid. Another 3' later my iPad (I use i for watching movies while riding) ran out of battery and I really had nothing else left to distract me so I was just looking at the Garmin Monitor and finally pulled the plug after 10'
Pretty sure if I would have had that "One Thing" by hand I would have managed the final 5' too ... even though a very solid workout booked!
http://tpks.ws/hgFC
@Stefan, even without that 5' you still had an excellent ride. You've put in a ton of work this OS, you'll get it next time.
Thanks for the message and the reminder Doug. Like Stephan, I could have used it before I did the ride today.
I moved tomorrow's ride to today because I'll be traveling later in the week and so I'll move everything up one day. I got on the bike and warmed up and hit the first 14' interval and finished it! Compared to last week it was great. I did a 0.99 for it and rested up for the second. A little (OK a lot) more pain and a little less intensity but I came in at 0.97. OK, let's try #3 and that's where the gorilla came in and body slammed me. I kept arguing with myself that I'd already done more than last week but another part of me kept saying just two more minutes, make it to 5 minutes. OK you got that why not 2 more minutes. Well at about 6 minutes my legs started cramping in various places so I made it to 7 minutes and pulled the plug. I hit 0.96 for the last one. I felt I was at the point of diminishing returns at that point so i cooled down and wet to stretch.
Even though I didn't finish the last 14' interval I felt OK about the ride since last week I couldn't finish even the the first FTP interval. It takes a couple of weeks to get the blood levels back up after a donation so I'll take this and move on. I think that the Wednesday bike should be back to a full set.
Doug, I would also like to thank you for the weekly inspiration. These are the workouts that make us stronger physically and mentally.
3 X 14' Zn 4 WOW! @ 1.0, 1.0, .99 That was a workout. Did run as a brick.
Usually I find inspiration in the blogs to get me through workouts when they get tough. As I was reading this thread this AM before getting on the bike, I felt inspired by Doug and the rest of the crew. Things didnt turn out my way. First of all, my powermeter battery is dead and I am waiting to get the removal piece for my powertap to replace it. So I used virtual power today. My VP is about 10 W lower than with a powermeter and my FTP is 258. I didn't adjust the FTP numbers in TR and just figured 245-250 is my goal. After about 2-3 minutes it became apparent that even holding 230 was almost impossible. I finished the first 14' at NP 227 W. Then I last just about 4.5 minutes in the second set, NP was 209W. Thats when I bagged the workout and went for a run.
I set up my trainer in the garage this morning. Thought the fresh outside air, altough humid, would be nice. WRONG!! Weather.com said 88% humidity after I stopped the workout, and I had no fan set up. Stupid of me, but now I know to not do that anymore.
Hope the intervals go better for everyone else today.
That being said, today's 3x15' at FTP was tough. Hit .97, .97, then .96. Kept thinking after 5' of the last set that this is more than you did last week so just go as much as you can. MIT was hard and my watts were falling but made it to the end. Hopefully next week will be easier because I got through the whole workout!
Bottom line is that about 10 days ago, I figured out that my life was going to be seriously messed with for two weeks.
As of Sunday, Jan 28, I am in sunny CA, but bikeless, and will be so for the remainder of this week. (I am visiting my father on the occasion of his 80th birthday.) I talked to Patrick a bit about how to deal with that before learning how messed up the previous week would be. But the bottom line is that I decided to do a very bike-intense week last week and just fit it in whenever time allowed. I did "bike camp". Six days in a row of bike workouts Dec 22-27...basically using the workouts we proscribed anyway. By day 4, I had to put in a couple 1-minute breaks in the FTP intervals, especially since they were at a new, elevated FTP. Day 6 was just an ABP ride with 40 minutes of ~87% intensity and 5 extra hard 30 second intervals at the end. Airline travel was my rest, and yesterday was my first full day of bikelessness in CA. Time and bad internet connections made it really possible for me to update as I should have last week, so sorry about that.
So I still won't be posting much on this window for the week...since I won't be riding...it's "run camp week"! ;-)
But I'm hoping this two week interruption will at least not be harmful to my OS. I'll be reading your exploits!
I finished the 3x15s @ 1.00, 1.00, 1.01
Pretty tough, but I'm starting to have some success divorcing my mind from my legs and pushing thru any doubts about finishing these intervals. I also didn't have nearly the FTP bump as many folks, so am not having to deal with that as the wko's step up in intensity
25' with my son & pooch as an EZ brick after. This afternoon, we are cleaning out the closets and garage, but the real "work" is done for today!
Came down with the crud after last Tuesday's bike session and pretty much took me out for the whole week. Started feeling better yesterday. Today attempted the 3 x 14' FTP intervals. Wasn't sure what to expect. Was a little weak, didn't want to over do it and set me back even farther. First interval was hard, but got it done @ 0.99. Two minutes into the 2nd I backed out as I didn't want to blow up and miss another week of OS. Instead did 10' @ 0.84 and then 14' @ 0.72. Felt good to do a non-fever sweat. After the bike did a nice easy 25' run.
1) 253W (1.01)
2) 255W (1.02)
3) 255W (1.02)
Will run later today
3 x 15 done today. definitely had to find that one thing on the third interval.
Nice work everyone, keep it going.
Did my Tue bike yesterday...
WU w/ 12' Z3 @ 258 watts
MS: 2x 14' Z4 @ 300 & 300 watts
Had to drop the 3rd set to squeeze in before dinner.
http://www.strava.com/activities/234336323
1hr9min and 96 TSS
Yes, Doug's words were great. I did my 3 x 14' at 0.98, 0.97, 0.98. The last 5 minutes took something and it really helped to have some accountability and purpose. It was definitely one of the hardest workouts of the NOS, but it was manageable and I think my zones are just right for me at the moment.
The first and half way through the second was near my FTP, but then I really started to blow up. The rest was about Z3+. My HR was in the stratosphere (deep into the 170s only half way through the second set, when the 160s are my Z4) and I could tell things weren't working as planned. Dunno if the calibration on the bike I was on was out of whack (I use a spin bike at the gym - same one every time), or it was just one of those days, so I switched gears so to speak and targeted my Z4 heart rate instead of my power.
@YOU FOLKS WHO'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE: If things are starting to go way off base, like with me yesterday, is it a decent fall back on targeting HR to salvage some semblance of a good workout?
I've also been AWOL. Over the last week or so from posting my wko's on this forum. I had a day last week where I had some bad ITB pain during a run and followed that up with a nasty cut on my hand. As I sat around feeling sorry for myself, I got some inspiring messages from the team and it was the kick in the pants that I needed. I still haven't run since last Friday, but have been hitting the bike WKO's hard.
Yesterday I did a solid 3 x 15' @ FTP wko and followed it up this morning with an all out 5 x 5' @ 112-113%. I'm feeling the fatigue as I i type this. Tomorrow I am skiing with the kids and after lots of stretching I plan to try a run on New Years Day and hope that the ITB thing was an isolated incident.
Happy New Year to all and keep the mojo going!
3 X 15 @ .98, .99, 1.049
@ Brian, The answer I have for a lot of things, and your question included, is "it depends". If your HR was soaring because the bike calibration was off then yes it was probably a good thing to go back to HR and finish up. However, if your HR was high because of something else like fatigue or the early signs of an illness then maybe not. HR is subject to a lot of things. You could have been dehydrated or it could have been warmer than normal or, as I mentioned, it could be a sign that you're fatigued or getting sick. I usually take my pulse every morning to gauge my overall wellness, If it's higher than normal I know that I'm either coming down with an illness or I'm getting over trained. Either way I know that I need to back off a little on the training or things will derail quickly. (If I'm getting sick I can sometimes stay in bed for a few more hours and that helps a lot.)
What it boils down to is being in tune with your body and trying to figure out if it's one of the bad things like fatigue, over training, or illness that's causing the anomaly or if it's an equipment malfunction or some other environmental factor and adjust the workout accordingly. If it's the former then going really easy or shutting the workout down all together is probably wise. If it's the latter then doing what you did is appropriate.
This summer I was doing the full Vineman and my power meter started crapping out about mile 80 so i reverted to HR for the rest of the ride. It was a really hot day and I had been watching my HR all day long as a secondary metric and it had stayed constant for most of the ride so I was confident in going with it for the rest of the race. I did have to watch it on hills though since HR doesn't respond as fast as a power meter.
WU w/ 12' Z3 @ 0.85IF
Then 4x 5' at target 1.10IF (330watts)
Started conservative but managed to ramp up throughout: 322, 327, 333, 337
That's it for 2014 ... looking forward to a strong new year!
http://www.strava.com/activities/235024213
5x 5' @ Z5: 1.05, 1.08, 1.12, 1.17, 1.15, and an extra at 1.12. I felt very good today - great for the ego! My extra interval was because Freebird came on the speakers. It's absolutely impossible not to hammer hard during the second half of that song!
Having a very odd week: My Z4's are feeling like Z5, and my Z5s are feeling like Z4s. Short sessions like today (and many of you will do tomorrow) don't seem to be a problem at all - in fact they're fun. The multiples at 15' or 20' is where I crack. If I can improve on these over the rest of NOS, I'll be a very different cyclist at the end!
Happy New Year everyone!
Thurs. bike done. 4 X 5 Zn 5: 1.12, 1.11, 1.10, 1.09. That last one was tough.
Total workout 1:05 @ NP 297 / IF 0.95
NP of intervals were pretty spot on target of 343 -> 347, 346, 344, 348, 357
http://tpks.ws/Ma1V
Standard EN w/u including 12' @ 0.86
5x5' @ 1.10, 1.10, 1.11, 1.11, 1.11
Will run later to finish of the HRC and snag my 5 bonus points
Then, it's recovery tights+socks and College Football Playoffs!