The new bike numbers from OS have been very challenging. Yesterdays bike was tough, but I seem to be making some improvement! I have "stuff" the next 2 weekends that will reduce training, hope I don't lose too much of the gains! 2 steps forward...
I woke up tired this morning so I turned over and went back to sleep instead of going to the pool. However, this afternoon nailed the 3X1 mile Z4 run. I hit all the intervals at or a little faster my target of 7:25. Sometimes a little extra sleep is a good thing. (Well, I think that's true most any day. )
Had some great workouts so far this week. Those longer swim sets are tough, but good. My running pace at an easy RPE just had a sudden drop, so that is nice, and my FTP intervals are getting a lot easier. Progress!
I did the bike outside after work today on my road bike. After a little warmup I hit the intervals as soon as I got past the last stop light out of town. I did a 1.01 and a 1.02 IF for the two 15 minute intervals. They were hard but I wasn't dying at the end of them like I was in the NOS. I hope this means that I'll have a FTP bump when I test the next time. After all this is the "Get Faster" plan!
I can feel my biking is definitely getting stronger. Did an easy 3.5 mile run before the ride, then knocked out the FTP work at 1.0! Feeling a bit less nightmarish as well. Hoping for a bump in another few weeks, even if that means I will start IM training with some tough zones!
Missed Wednesday's wkos as I was feeling a bit under the weather, Nyquiled myself that night and I feel like I am back at it. Took it a bit easy during yesterdays bike and plan to get the run and swim in this afternoon. Really looking forward to the long ride and run this weekend. Possibly 40 something degrees in Chicago, I may or may not attempt to get the bike out on the road. Also, that whole strained neck thing is gone which is a relief, it made breathing on the swim kinda tough. I'm excited for the next run test, I feel like I am really improving there which is such a confidence booster!
I start the Get Faster tomorrow to end 4-19. I would like to be in sinc with others, but I guess we are all doing our own thing mostly. Looks like it starts me out on week two so I will use the testing numbers from two weeks ago since I have been in swim camp. Shoulder has been bothering me a little after 3 mos of no swimming. Test 1000 TT yesterday and averaged 1:50. I think I was around 1:48 last year, so not bad. I had been worried that my swim would suffer.
So, looking at this upcoming week, one thing has me worried. I have always taken at least one day off for the past several years. This plan doesn't seem to have any days off for recovery. What's up with that?
I also wonder about how one does these bike workouts outside. I imagine that there will be opportunities for me to ride outside in the near future here in Wisconsin as it is warming up.
Looking forward to getting faster. Time to go outside and do the last run of swim camp, 2 x 1 mile zone 4, the rest easy (and outside in the warm sun, !!!!)
@Stephan - I start the Get Faster plan tomorrow as well, but I end on 4/26. I also always take a day off as I have found it keeps me from getting injured. The plan notes the importance of the workouts and I try to not miss the high priority ones or a run workout.
As for the bike workouts outside, how is the terrain where you ride? The roads I ride are full of hills, stop signs, and red lights. It is very hard to do the workout exactly as written, so I try to tailor the work to meet the goal of the prescribed workout. I stick to the trainer for most rides that are around an hour.
@ Stephan, you're right there aren't any off days listed, although Monday is kinda light with only swimming. There are days that just have low priority workouts so you could pick one of those as your off day. Or, you could move the Monday swim to Tuesday and skip the run that day and take Monday off. You can also reach out to Coach Patrick in the micro forum to customize it.
...So, looking at this upcoming week, one thing has me worried. I have always taken at least one day off for the past several years. This plan doesn't seem to have any days off for recovery. What's up with that?
I also wonder about how one does these bike workouts outside. I imagine that there will be opportunities for me to ride outside in the near future here in Wisconsin as it is warming up...
There are a couple of methods I;ve used for recovery in these GF plans. My favorite, which requires tight scheduling, is to play with the timing of the workouts. EG, Monday AM swim, Monday PM do Tuesday;s run, Tuesday AM bike, then "rest" until Wed eve run intervals (moving Wed swim to Fri, and Fri swim to Sat or Sun AM.) The other method is to do what has already been suggested: in your "best" sport (the one you need least improvement in), just drop the lowest priority workout that week, then juggle other workouts to get a full day off (which may actually be 48 Hours or more off).
Now, doing FTP workouts outside: I've used a couple of methods. One is to find a good "long" hill - at least 300' (preferably more) elevation gain @ about 6% grade - and just do hill repeats. Ideally, I want to take 8' on those, and do as many as I need to get the full work time in, e.g., if its 2x15', that would be about 4 hill repeats. Or, there is a local park with a "Five Mile Drive" (that's it's name) which is one way, and closed to traffic for an hour or two each morning, longer on the weekends. It's a bit rolling, but I just power my way thru that, and it takes me 13 minutes, so 2-3 of those usually does the trick.
VO2 intervals are harder, as I really want to be free of any potential for conflicts with cars or pedestrians. Luckily, within 2-3 miles of my house, there is another park with a very steep hill on a dead end street, takes me 2' to get up it, so I go just as far as I need or want for the intervals, usually 45-90 seconds, turn around, coast back down, rinse and repeat.
Basically, I use the gradient of hills to get my FTP and VO2 work in; trying to find a longer (7-8 mile) stretch of smooth low traffic road with no lights or commercial driveways, good shoulder, flat, etc, takes me about 12 miles from where I live. I save that for FTP tests.
I live in western Wisconsin where it is very hilly much like the 3 sisters of IM Wisconsin area. So, it seems that I can do hill repeats for a lot of my workouts and just watch the power. Long Flat stretches are harder to come by (without traffic) but they are there as well. I look forward to being more intentional with my training. In the past, I've just gone out and done mostly zone2 long rides with some trips in to zone 3 up the hills.
My swim is not my strongest, but I finished around 1:14 at IM Wisconsin last year, and don't think I can get much faster than that without a ton of work. I have more room to improve on in Bike (6:07 last year) and Running (4:35 last year). So, dropping an occasional swim will probably be my first pick.
BTW thanks for the ideas on Trainer Road. I did create three workouts for this upcoming week. I added the IM Louisville video to the 150 minute weekend workout so that I have that to watch. The first workout took me forever, but once I got the hang of it and created snippets, it started getting easier.
Snow is melting here in Wisconsin. Getting excited!
Ran outside, jumped puddles, 20 minutes warmup, then 2 x 1 mile zone 4 (7:27, 7:23), zone 2 1 mile, then cd, for 60 minute total.
Mark, Glad that we are starting together. Not sure why I end on April 19th, but I do have an early half (Toughman Wisconsin) June 20th so I imagine it was to get me building up the volume. I may use the trainer more than in the past, but once the weather gets nice here, it is hard to get back on the trainer.
I did yesterday's ride today and the second FTP interval was a cage fight but luckily I was outside and I outran the gorilla. The Vo2 intervals were pretty consistent except for the last one. My rear tire sprung a slow leak and I noticed it during the last interval. I was in a section of road with some 90 degree turns and when I went around the first one it felt like the tire might roll off the rim so had to ease up on the next corner which made the overall NP for that interval a little low. Luckily it was a very slow leak and I was able to get home by topping up the pressure a couple of times. It's much easier to change a tire in the workshop than out on the side of the road. I got in 34 minutes of Z3 before slowing down to Z1 for recovery.
Good run today- enjoyed the warmer weather and the later sunset! Did 12 miles as I've got a half marathon April 4 that I want to attempt to PR at. Another week in done kids!
Skipped my swim this morning, and decided on the hill stride workout this evening after work. I was still sore from the weekend, but now I have another 24 hour break before my bike ride tomorrow evening.
Hill stride workout was kind of fun. Haven't done one of those before.
Lots of fun training the last few days for me - it's warming up in Chicago, hurrah!! Friday - longest swim to date. Lots of fast guys around me - very humbling. Did a short run right out of the pool on the treadmill. Saturday - 2.5 hours of riding OUTSIDE! I didn't really follow the workout plan, but it was nice to be pedaling outdoors for a while Sunday - 55 minute run also outside! Monday - struggled through the swim workout, badly. My last 200 was 10 seconds slower than my first. Decided to turn the garmin off after that and just focus on technique for the remaining sets.
Getting back on with the bike, completed my 2x15' (278,274) at my new ftp settings from OS. Legs felt a little sluggish, thought about skipping second 15 minutes, but stuck with it and finished strong the last 5 minutes although my heart rate was topping out.
Now let's hope I can get up in the morning to do my swim. Been feeling lazy when it comes to getting up early.
OK, so it's week 5 and I've done almost all of the workouts so far this GF edition. My legs were starting to feel pretty sluggish on the ride Sunday so I decided that I would dial back the leg workouts this week to allow for a little recovery. I've been thinking about getting a new road bike so I decided instead of doing the normal bike workouts I'd go to bike stores and test ride road bikes. I'm not sure I'm giving my legs that much rest because I've been seeking out hills, hammering some short sprints and generally putting the bikes through some rather intense short rides. Boy has it been fun! Two LBS down and several more to go.
Sometimes I feel like I would do better if "weeks" were 8 or 9 days long, with 1 or 2 days punched in for recovery. Maybe when I come back April 1, I'll try doing the 4 weeks I'll have left for GF over a 5 week period. That would fit perfectly with starting my IM build on May 3rd. I bet I'd be less likely to be tired or injured.
Case in point: this week, I shifted my Monday from Sat to Sun, and I moved my TP run intervals from Tuesday PM to Wed AM. I feel so much better, and not the least bit guilty. Now all I have to do is some trainer intervals this evening.
Only my second time on the treadmill this winter, that;s how nice the weather has been here. I went 7 miles in 1 hour, on my old friend, the 4th treadmill from the end, which is under a fan and also has a fan directly behind it. I did the usual 0.5 % incline, and placed the machine right at my VDOT pace (7:24) for the intervals, resulting in an HR right on target. I feel like a part of the machine when I'm doing that.
Probably a dumb question, but I can't find a clear answer. The red exclamation mark, the L And M. I'm guessing speak to, don't miss work out, moderately important workout, and low importance workout. It doesn't seem to speak to intensity as some of the low are very hard it seems.
@ Stephan, you won the prize. That's exactly what the codes mean.
Thanks. So for my training I made the decision to run the exclamation point today (well most of it 2 x 1 mile, z4, 1 x 1/2 mile z4). I'm skipping tomorrow's Low priority bike workout which seems as hard at 2 x 15 ftp because I have an unavoidable work conflict and need to travel. I had thought of doing the bike ride and skipping the run. I have to say I did not like that run today. everything in me screamed.
This morning I did the week 3 GF swim. Did pretty good. Legs cramped up on the last 100.
My calves/achilles were a tight bundle of annoyance last night. They felt ok when I ran Z1/2, just not ok when I sped up. I decided to just run for an hour easy, then start working with my trigger point stuff. Have had trouble getting swims in this week with my schedule vs pool schedule, but should be able to get one in tonight before biking.
Working 12 hr days the last 10 days to support a plant outage, but still getting wko's done, hopefully work schedule will be back to normal by the end of next week.
Wed. run done outside, after all the cold, ice , and snow it was 66 deg. at 5am! Intervals a little off, low back acting up. 2X1mi @8:45, 8:30, 2x1/2mi @ 8:22, 8:19 paces.
Writing this from a work conference in Chicago. Didn't get in a workout yesterday, but did get my bike in for fitting in Madison on the way to Chicago. Won't likely work out today either as I drive home his afternoon. Plan on adding swim to tomorrow morning and doing all other workouts over weekend. Feels good to have my bike fit better. Got some new look pedals too as they were wobbly and probably contributing to my knee and hamstring problems.
Traveling by car wears me out.
OK< EDITED. ended up getting to the YMCA tonight after I got back. A family member wanted to go and workout so I got motivated and put in my 2200 yards at TPACE. I'm feeling stronger on the swimming again. I'm not as worried as I had after skipping swimming for three months. It's coming back. Yeah!
Day 5 of bike test ride week. Today was a nice day here but it supposed to start raining tonight so I took off early and did tomorrow's bike then went and did an 11 mike bike on one of my two finalists, a Cervelo R3. I liked it so much that I decided to buy it, so tomorrow I'm going back to get a proper fitting.
Comments
Did Thurs. bike this morning. Even though it's a 'green" wko, the bike is a discipline I need to improve(W/Kg).
2X15' Zn 4 both@ 1.0. A little harder being 3rd straight leg day.
I'm excited for the next run test, I feel like I am really improving there which is such a confidence booster!
No Fri. swim, another round of ice and snow closed the pool. Closed fitness center and icy roads meant no run either.
Sat. bike done. 2X15' Zn 4 @ 245w ea.=1.0's, 8X1.5"s @ 1.14, 1.15, 1.15, 1.15, 1.16, 1.15, 1.14, 1.18: tough wko, felt good.
So, looking at this upcoming week, one thing has me worried. I have always taken at least one day off for the past several years. This plan doesn't seem to have any days off for recovery. What's up with that?
I also wonder about how one does these bike workouts outside. I imagine that there will be opportunities for me to ride outside in the near future here in Wisconsin as it is warming up.
Looking forward to getting faster. Time to go outside and do the last run of swim camp, 2 x 1 mile zone 4, the rest easy (and outside in the warm sun, !!!!)
As for the bike workouts outside, how is the terrain where you ride? The roads I ride are full of hills, stop signs, and red lights. It is very hard to do the workout exactly as written, so I try to tailor the work to meet the goal of the prescribed workout. I stick to the trainer for most rides that are around an hour.
There are a couple of methods I;ve used for recovery in these GF plans. My favorite, which requires tight scheduling, is to play with the timing of the workouts. EG, Monday AM swim, Monday PM do Tuesday;s run, Tuesday AM bike, then "rest" until Wed eve run intervals (moving Wed swim to Fri, and Fri swim to Sat or Sun AM.) The other method is to do what has already been suggested: in your "best" sport (the one you need least improvement in), just drop the lowest priority workout that week, then juggle other workouts to get a full day off (which may actually be 48 Hours or more off).
Now, doing FTP workouts outside: I've used a couple of methods. One is to find a good "long" hill - at least 300' (preferably more) elevation gain @ about 6% grade - and just do hill repeats. Ideally, I want to take 8' on those, and do as many as I need to get the full work time in, e.g., if its 2x15', that would be about 4 hill repeats. Or, there is a local park with a "Five Mile Drive" (that's it's name) which is one way, and closed to traffic for an hour or two each morning, longer on the weekends. It's a bit rolling, but I just power my way thru that, and it takes me 13 minutes, so 2-3 of those usually does the trick.
VO2 intervals are harder, as I really want to be free of any potential for conflicts with cars or pedestrians. Luckily, within 2-3 miles of my house, there is another park with a very steep hill on a dead end street, takes me 2' to get up it, so I go just as far as I need or want for the intervals, usually 45-90 seconds, turn around, coast back down, rinse and repeat.
Basically, I use the gradient of hills to get my FTP and VO2 work in; trying to find a longer (7-8 mile) stretch of smooth low traffic road with no lights or commercial driveways, good shoulder, flat, etc, takes me about 12 miles from where I live. I save that for FTP tests.
Thanks for all the information.
I live in western Wisconsin where it is very hilly much like the 3 sisters of IM Wisconsin area. So, it seems that I can do hill repeats for a lot of my workouts and just watch the power. Long Flat stretches are harder to come by (without traffic) but they are there as well. I look forward to being more intentional with my training. In the past, I've just gone out and done mostly zone2 long rides with some trips in to zone 3 up the hills.
My swim is not my strongest, but I finished around 1:14 at IM Wisconsin last year, and don't think I can get much faster than that without a ton of work. I have more room to improve on in Bike (6:07 last year) and Running (4:35 last year). So, dropping an occasional swim will probably be my first pick.
BTW thanks for the ideas on Trainer Road. I did create three workouts for this upcoming week. I added the IM Louisville video to the 150 minute weekend workout so that I have that to watch. The first workout took me forever, but once I got the hang of it and created snippets, it started getting easier.
Snow is melting here in Wisconsin. Getting excited!
Ran outside, jumped puddles, 20 minutes warmup, then 2 x 1 mile zone 4 (7:27, 7:23), zone 2 1 mile, then cd, for 60 minute total.
Felt good after the initial 20 minute warmup.
Mark, Glad that we are starting together. Not sure why I end on April 19th, but I do have an early half (Toughman Wisconsin) June 20th so I imagine it was to get me building up the volume. I may use the trainer more than in the past, but once the weather gets nice here, it is hard to get back on the trainer.
Skipped my swim this morning, and decided on the hill stride workout this evening after work. I was still sore from the weekend, but now I have another 24 hour break before my bike ride tomorrow evening.
Hill stride workout was kind of fun. Haven't done one of those before.
Sunday got the tempo run in @ 0dark30 outside because of DST, nice change up after all the interval work, and nice to be running outside.
Monday- finally got a swim in, between work and weather hadn't swam in a week. Felt rusty at first.
Tues. bike done this morning. 6X1.5 Zn 5 @1.14, 1.18, 1.18, 1.18, 1.18, 1.19. Hill repeat run done as a brick, again good to be running outside.
Friday - longest swim to date. Lots of fast guys around me - very humbling. Did a short run right out of the pool on the treadmill.
Saturday - 2.5 hours of riding OUTSIDE! I didn't really follow the workout plan, but it was nice to be pedaling outdoors for a while
Sunday - 55 minute run also outside!
Monday - struggled through the swim workout, badly. My last 200 was 10 seconds slower than my first. Decided to turn the garmin off after that and just focus on technique for the remaining sets.
Now let's hope I can get up in the morning to do my swim. Been feeling lazy when it comes to getting up early.
Sometimes I feel like I would do better if "weeks" were 8 or 9 days long, with 1 or 2 days punched in for recovery. Maybe when I come back April 1, I'll try doing the 4 weeks I'll have left for GF over a 5 week period. That would fit perfectly with starting my IM build on May 3rd. I bet I'd be less likely to be tired or injured.
Case in point: this week, I shifted my Monday from Sat to Sun, and I moved my TP run intervals from Tuesday PM to Wed AM. I feel so much better, and not the least bit guilty. Now all I have to do is some trainer intervals this evening.
Only my second time on the treadmill this winter, that;s how nice the weather has been here. I went 7 miles in 1 hour, on my old friend, the 4th treadmill from the end, which is under a fan and also has a fan directly behind it. I did the usual 0.5 % incline, and placed the machine right at my VDOT pace (7:24) for the intervals, resulting in an HR right on target. I feel like a part of the machine when I'm doing that.
Thanks. So for my training I made the decision to run the exclamation point today (well most of it 2 x 1 mile, z4, 1 x 1/2 mile z4). I'm skipping tomorrow's Low priority bike workout which seems as hard at 2 x 15 ftp because I have an unavoidable work conflict and need to travel. I had thought of doing the bike ride and skipping the run. I have to say I did not like that run today. everything in me screamed.
This morning I did the week 3 GF swim. Did pretty good. Legs cramped up on the last 100.
Working 12 hr days the last 10 days to support a plant outage, but still getting wko's done, hopefully work schedule will be back to normal by the end of next week.
Wed. run done outside, after all the cold, ice , and snow it was 66 deg. at 5am! Intervals a little off, low back acting up. 2X1mi @8:45, 8:30, 2x1/2mi @ 8:22, 8:19 paces.
Thurs. bike done. 6X1.5's @ 1.15, 1.17, 1.18, 1.19, 1.24, 1.27(312w)
Fri. swim 5X400's went well, paces good.
Traveling by car wears me out.
OK< EDITED. ended up getting to the YMCA tonight after I got back. A family member wanted to go and workout so I got motivated and put in my 2200 yards at TPACE. I'm feeling stronger on the swimming again. I'm not as worried as I had after skipping swimming for three months. It's coming back. Yeah!