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FEB 2015 Get Faster Folks!

Just wanted to fire up a thread for any NOS folks or anyone else who is in the Get Faster plan right now.  The tail end of my NOS fell off, went to the January Volume Camp which was epic, and then took longer than I had thought to recover, not helped by lots going on at work.  I'm excited to take the gains I did make in the OS into the GF plan now!  

I ran at lunch- 45 min on the treadmill, easy.  I'm hoping the treadmill was poorly calibrated, or I'm have a SLLLOOOWWWW day.  I'll hop on the bike tonight for the 2x15.  

Hope people will post workouts and anything else on here to keep the mojo alive!  Happy Get Faster-ing!

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Comments

  • Thanks for getting this thread going Rachel. Great idea!

    Snowstorms, sub zero temps, power outages, and general craziness has thrown me off a bit. Yesterday I couldn't get to the pool and attempted a 2x20' bike. I fell apart halfway through the 2nd interval. I chalked that one up to a horrible night of sleep prompted by a power outage. Today I ran in the treadmill for 45' and did my best to simulate 2 x 1 mile at z4. My TM is a dinosaur so I went by hr only. I'm so looking forward to those balmy 20-30 degree days to come back!
  • First 15 min interval went well tonight, the second not so much. Made it about 8 min then the wheels came off. Tried to rally two more times and just couldn't do it. I was sick at the end of last week and over the weekend, so I'm going to blame that. Resting up for the swim and run tomorrow.
  • Thanks for getting the thread up and running. I did a bike test yesterday since I blew it the last week of NOS. My Vo2 came in at 289 and my FTP at 227. That's a little lower than it was in week 8 of the NOS but given the last 6 weeks of NOS and then 2 weeks of practically no riding I guess it's OK. It is what it is. I'm going to try to stick with my former numbers since it was just 6 watts higher. I'm not sure that's really that much difference since it's about 2% less.

    Other than that I got Monday's swim in this morning and the Tuesday run in today as well. Nothing to write about really, just good solid workouts. I am shifting the Monday and Wednesday swims to Tuesday and Thursdays just because it works out better with the pool schedule. It's busier on Monday and Wednesday mornings. 

  •      @Rachel, Thanks for starting this thread, I thought there would be many of us on this plan for a while.

          Got Tues. bike done this morning. I lost Tues. as a wko day digging out of the snow we got. Only 8", but that's a blizzard down here.

          2X15' Zn4 both at 1.0, bike legs a little rusty after swim camp, and I got an FTP bump ending the OS. Good workout.

  • Hey all! @Rachel, great idea! thanks for starting the thread!

    Got in 35 min on the treadmill over lunch and heading to the pool in a bit. Feeling really good on my run & swims lately but, man, I cannot find enough motivation to get through the bike workouts this last week or so. Desperately looking forward to some nice weather for an outdoor ride...unfortunately I think I'll be waiting a while for that.
  • 2000 Meter swim today. Did 400 wu, 6 x 200, 400 cd. So damn tough to get into the pool with these temps! I swim in a great 50 meter pool which is outside in Summer months, but its in a bubble for 2/3 of the year and its just so cold in there!
  • It is so cold I couldn't even psych myself up to run on the treadmill because that would require going outside to get to the gym. I did Thursday's bike instead. 3x8', not easy, but actually got it done unlike the bike last night. Wish me mental toughness to go out in the negative 20 windchill to run at the gym tomorrow!
  • After being sick for the last week of the the NOS and one and a half weeks of Swim Camp, I decided I needed to get back on the horse with the February GF program. Since I was sick the last week of NOS, I did not do the testing so I started with WK1 of GF (testing week).

    I did a 1000 swim test yesterday and realized that I can only get better (2:06/100 yd). I was fairly happy with the 5k run test today, although it is the first I have ever done on a treadmill (damn snow and ice). The result was a 2 point vDot bump over the wk8 NOS test - from 33 to 35 at 27:00 for the 5k (yes, I'm fat and slow). I will try to do the bike test tomorrow, the remaining wk1 workouts this week, then jump back in to the Feb. GF plan with everyone else on my way to Raleigh 70.3.

    As always, it is great to read about everyone's work and progress.
  • That's an awesome run test result John! Woo hoo! Onwards from here!
  •   Got Wed. run done today on TM. We haven't had cold weather like this in 20 yrs.

      2X1 mi. Zn 4 @ 8:30 & 8:20 paces.

  • Are the Get Faster bike workouts in TrainerRoad? Thanks.
  • Nope. But you can easily create them using TR's Workout Creator Mode in Mac or PC. I have a VO2,FTP, and Saturday template I just modify astbe intervals chnage weekly. Takes about 5 min to make one, less than a minute to update before a workout. If you can use a mouse, you can use the Workout Creator.
  • Thanks, Al. I have no problem creating workouts but wanted to check if they were there before I started doing it myself. I appreciate the info.

  • A lot of the Tues/Thurs GF workouts overlap with OS workouts as well, so you can just find the correct one. But making them might be just as easy.
  • Also, just a heads up for GF folks doing this plan for the first time... the Saturday bike is BRUTAL! It is long FTP intervals, and then when your legs are toast and you are crying for your mommy, VO2 stuff (I have a word I'd prefer to use over stuff, but I'll keep this PG) pops up. It is normal to struggle and possibly have points of surrender, especially the first week. Don't feel like a failure, keep at it, and you will get there!
  • I just started creating the TR workouts yesterday and when I got to this Saturday, I was perplexed! That is some serious work. I did 3 x 10' @ FTP this morning and really struggled. Followed up with 35' run on the TM at z1 with strides. I pulled this from week 2 since I am not testing this week.

    Is there a way for us to share TR workouts that we've created with EN? That would be great and we can all grab a handful to work on. Although, I agree with Al about tweaking them once you have a few done.
  • Brad - I haven't found a way to use someone else's TR workout either directly or as a template ...

    This is my first week in GF, round #2. I did the first 6-7 weeks from Mid Dec-end Jan, then went skiing for about 3 weeks, now back at it with Saturday being my Monday ... which makes today Saturday 

    So far, I've done a swim TT, about 30 seconds slower after 3 weeks off than my initial TT in Dec, which was after a couple of weeks of swim prep work. I did a bike warm-up thing last Sunday, mix of FTP, VO2 and steady state intervals. Tuesday, I *tried* to do a bike test, but found 5 minutes into the 20 min interval that I was not going to get within 3-5% of my previous FTP, so I converted on the fly to 4 x 5' (1') @ 1.0 FTP. Yesterday, I did 2 x 1 mi (4'), 2 x 1/2 mi on the local middle school track in lieu of a 5k Test. I've already done a 5k and a 10K in Jan, and both were spot on for a 45.4 VDOT. The first mile was 10 s slower than my TP, the next interval was on the nose, and the 1/2 miles were 10 s fast. Today, I did the swim for Friday. 

    I've been nursing an on and off Left knee swelling, patellar-femoral syndrome thing since I left the hospital three weeks ago (following a ski crash which resulted in a small intra-cranial bleed). 

    The first time through, I did the Adv plan, and did just fine with the running and swimming. But the biking threw me for a loop, so I totally hacked the plan on the trainer. This time, I'm thinking of modifying, at least for the first 4 weeks, by doing a mix n match of the GF plans, doing Beginner for the rides, and Adv for the swim and the run? Thoughts?

  • Planned day off for me- between the -32 windchill and the 14 hr workday today, no time to GET FASTER. Keep at it folks!
  • Wednesday's swim/run combo was the best work out for me yet. negative split each 100 in the pool - that feels pretty cool! Yesterday I did the prescribed bike + a couple longer intervals because I think I am going to miss the long ride this weekend. I am heading up to northern MN for a cabin weekend with old college friends. Packed running gear but saw -24 degrees as the low on Saturday so I might just call it a lazy weekend and enjoy some recovery time.
  • @Al - funny that you bring up the mix n match thing - I was thinking this through while I was swimming today. Aside from the hassle of loading and re-loading the plans, I don't see a reason why this is a bad idea. This is the first year that I've jumped to advance after using the intermediate plans the last 2 years. What I've come to realize is that just because some of us may be able to "tolerate" the advanced plan for 1 or 2 of the disciplines, that doesn't mean that we are as strong at the others...at least in my case. That being said, after peeking at this weekends bike workout...I'm frightened!

    Today I did the Friday swim. I found the sprint part of the 200's tough. The difference between my speed between "sprint" and "easy" is negligible at best, however the effort seems to be ten fold for me! I did 2500 meters total - 1 hour.

    Tomorrow I will be skiing and hope to get the 1 hour run in first if temps allow it. Sunday, I'll shoot for that bike!
  • Re: Mix n match...I plot out my workouts 4 weeks in advance on a white board I keep in my "Tri Office". So it was pretty simple to first load in  the beginner plan and fill in the bike workouts, then load in the advanced for the swim and run. My season plan has four weeks of GF, the two weeks in Chile/Peru, then the second 4 weeks of GF. I'll see when I get back if I still need to split between beg (or Int) and Adv. But usually, the "easier" plans have caught up with the advanced by that point anyway.

  •    Sat. blke wko done. This is my first time with "Get Faster", that was a challenging workout.

       2X15 Zn4 both @ 1.0, 6X1.5's @ 1.17, 1.15, 1.15, 1.16, 1.15, 1.22 + 2X12' Zn3 both @ .82

       Good 2hr ride.

  • Thanks for starting this thread. I just found it. It will be good to compare notes and keep up the motivation as I try my first Get Faster plan.

  • I'm a bit outta sync...Yesterday, I did the Saturday ride, today, I ran a 15K race. It's the third in a local series of 5/10/15/20 K (or miles for the gluttonous). I'd won the first two in my AG, so I went again today, even though I have only run three times in the last four weeks, which also included a stint in hospital for a head injury (I'm fine now, just need to not get another concussion in the next couple of months)

    Anyway, I tried to teeter on the knife edge of going as fast as I could without causing so much DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) that it would impact next week's training. Instead of the 1:09:XX my VDOT would project, I aimed for 1:12 for this 9.3 mile circuit. Hit that exactly, along with the 143 HR I was aiming for. Since I had maybe 3-4 minutes of cushion over the next fastest based on our 5 and 10K times, I was still able to win by 1 minute. The key thing I learned is ... my unconscious central governor is still intact, as he kept me going at precisely the RPE, pace, and HR I had projected. All I see on my watch when running is cadence and total distance, with 1 mile splits, so I guess the TBI did not affect my racing control center, wherever that is 

  • I did the bike today and got the low end of the FTP intervals. I got to the Vo2 intervals and went out a little too hard on the first two and that cost me on the last two. The first 2 were in the 1.23 range and the last 2 were the 1.17, so I guess it averages out. Then I tracked on 25 minutes of Z3 work and then did the last 50 minutes in Z1.
    The other thing that was new to me today was that it was the first time over used my Flo 60 front wheel in the wind. I had wins from every direction and they were pretty strong at times so it took some getting used to. The bike felt much more solid when I was on the aero position than when I was riding in the horns. I'm glad that's the case.
  •     Sunday run done. Legs still feeling yesterday's bike.

        MS: 2X1 mi Zn4 @ 8:30 & 8:20 + Zn 2 work for a 70' run.

  • @ Mark L. 2X re legs feeling the bike.

    2X 1 mile at 7:16 and 7:24 (goal 7:25) The rest at 8:55 or a fast Z1. 7.83 miles total in 1:10 on a gorgeous Sunday morning.

  • Swim report: one thing about doing 2 x the GF program, with a three week gap between the two ... I get to compare performances the firs time through with the second. As to swimming, my TT was 2.6 sec/100 yds SLOWER the second time around, but my next two workouts saw pretty much the SAME times in the intervals, +/- less than 0.5 sec/100. And they certainly felt easier this time around. So that's a bit reassuring.

    The running and cycling in the first week, I can't compare, as I did the first week differently each cycle.

  • Was able to run outside today, so much better than the treadmill!
  • I've been visited by my eternal enemy Crohn's disease the second half of this week, so my only workouts have been intervals between running to the bathroom and curled up in the fetal position. However, caught this flare early and been popping steroids like a champ, and today was a big improvement. Hoping to get an easy workout in tomorrow and work up from there. As much as it sucks, it is a good reminder that I am lucky to be healthy most of the time, and to embrace what my body can do. 18 weeks til CdA!
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