2016 JOS Wk 10 Bike Thread - Honor your training Self
As I wrote on my FB page last night, we honor the life of Nancy Reagan who passed away yesterday: you can read the rest there. But I digress and my ADHD comes back to Tri Training, for you(and me), it is week 10, we all have things we wished we did better in this OS (Except for Trent the tank who seems to nail every wko with precision
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It is time to honor yourself with one week of as close to perfection as you can come. Work on getting in every workout. If you are like me, don't do the bike in the AM and say "oh, I'll do the run this evening." Because we both know that doesn't happen!
nail every interval. If you can't do it at 1.0 (and you aren't necessarily supposed to) then do it @ .95, just as nike says, do it! Next week you will know what is possible in training!
and lastly, if you have been reticent on punching in here, commenting on you training partners & displaying your accomplishments, find the extra 5 minutes, please
Comments
1st interval went well with a good struggle in the last 4 minutes, but nothing epic - .98
2nd interval was a real cage fight, especialy in the last 5 minutes - .975
3rd interval - Mind could have gone over matter much better. My initial goal was to stick it out for at least half of the interval, but I quit after 2 mins.
My feeling is that I am probably overcooking some of my longer runs and that is creating some accumulated fatigue that is hurting me on Long Bike interval days.. Giving into the thinking of doing better at working at and not above levels to provide better downstream Wkos, I have ceded the 3rd interval to this idea.
https://www.strava.com/activities/511568405
@Trent, consistently impressive. @Scott, 3x15' is a bear, especially with new FTP numbers, especially if you try to do them closer to 1.0.
I trained through some lingering illness over the weekend, which left me pretty fatigued and sore yesterday. Today I woke up feeling better, but quads were still a little sore. Not great, as quads are a pretty essential tool for the 3x15'. Oh well. Decided to do the first one at .95, which was smart. First 5 minutes were tough, but then I loosened up. Spent the last 5 minutes closer to 265, ended at .96. Targeted 1.0 for the second one, faded a bit at the end, finished at .99. Two minutes into the third, I popped. Decided to do 2' on, 1' off, until I was toast. After six of them @269-274NP, I was indeed toast. So, I got in 42 minutes @.95+, 75 minutes @230NP. Good enough. Looking forward to a big Thursday showdown with the Z5's.
After being sick all weekend, feeling better, but bike workout turned into 3X10'@ .98, .98, .99. Power a little low, heart rate got pretty high, and I sweated bucketfulls. Hopefully burned most of the crud out.
Run done as a brick outside, starting to get nice here.
@Scott, thanks for the leadership and inspiration.
This sounds stupid, but I am just getting the hang of this 0.95-1.0 stuff. I thought I could just set my zones, but the Garmin zones don't match the EN zones and I can't edit it on my 500 (unlike my 910)- or CAN I???? So I realized that I have to pre-figure what 0.95 is, then stare at my Garmin and try to keep it there or higher. 3x15" this AM ended up at 0.94, 0.96, 0.90... I was feeling the effects of 15K hilly race 48 hours ago! That compares to 0.88/0.96/0.88 last Tuesday when I thought I was just supposed to stay "in the zone" by listening to the Garmin beeps.
But I think I get it now! And I think these new (lower) zones will feel about right once I practice holding that one number I'm aiming for.
I hate Tuesday. Yup, I said it. It is the toughest day of the week for me. Tuesday is my 3rd work day and this week my shift started Sunday evening then started right back up Monday morning. It is very difficult for me to drum up the energy needed for the long FTP workouts. Today, my plan called for 12', 20', & 12' at best effort (95 - 100%) I hit the first interval and tried to stay conservative. I knew the 20' interval was going to be a bear. I made it through at 267W and then tried to recover. I started the 2nd and it was a fight right from the beginning. I was very evident that 20 minutes at that pace was not going to happen. I would lose a lot of watts once I passed 12 minutes. So, I adjusted my goal and tried to equal the first interval. I had to drop my cadence but kept it above the full on grind mode. I finished #2 at 268W. However, this is where my confidence began to fade. I immediately started to think about shortening the last interval to 10 minutes or maybe 8 minutes. I got started and once again I dropped my cadence. I started out at 85 rpm, but quickly dropped to 80. and started the fight. I swear that gorilla bit me. As I got to 8 minutes, I had regained some of my confidence. I took a glance at Rule # 10 and just kept going.. I was able to finish this interval at 263W. I owe the gorilla 8 minutes in the ring, but I did get in some quality work.
https://www.strava.com/activities/512175915
Well, I had interesting results today and it was another kick my butt workout. I did the intervals at .99, .97, .96. I was expecting to hit 1.0, at least for the first two, like I did in Saturday's workout. That last interval was a huge struggle but after a short recovery, I was able to do the last 4' interval at .85. Then had a good run on tired quads/legs. The main difference I can think of between Saturday and today was that I had more sleep Friday night/Sat morning (about 7.5 hrs). I was up at 4:45am Monday and today which gave me about 5 hours of sleep each night. So, I need to get more sleep, which I already knew! On the bright side, my NP in all 3 intervals today was higher than last Tuesday's = improvement.
@ everyone - great teamwork helping out Leslie with the technical issue!
Lots o strong work getting done here
Onward!
I ended up breaking the 45 minutes of work into 4 blocks instead of 3, but got it done. 0.99, 1.02, 1.00, 1.03
I find myself getting through the last few minutes of intervals by knowing how many crank cycles I have left and just counting...I guess I figure I can get through if I can quantify it. 200 strokes seems doable, but if I have to start counting at more like 400, I know I'm in trouble. :-)
4X4's done this morning, really felt hard. Didn't help that with this warm spell, the cave is about 10 deg. warmer than usual. All intervals @ 1.11, HR close to 160.
Run done as a brick.
300 watts is proving to be too luring for this 149lb middle-aged dummy. FTP says I should be targeting 290-91 for these VO2 intervals. Last week I targeted 295NP and finished in Hindenburg fashion.
Today I just tried to hold between 295 and 300. First one was a big-time challenge, finished at 299NP, reasonably confident I could make it 3 more times. Second one felt like the first, but the watts started to slip with 30 seconds left, and I had very little response. 297NP. So, after going 1.13 and 1.12 on the first two, I shouldn't have been surprised what happened next. The third and the fourth may have been the two toughest intervals I've done in the OS. Pure misery. Mentally I wanted it, but the legs just stopped firing. 280W felt like 310W. Finished with a 289NP (1.09) and 284 (1.07). Another classic H --> Z.
Will I learn my lesson next week and stop trying to overachieve in the quest for the 300 Club? TBD.
@Leslie, it wasn't too long ago you were wondering how and whether you'd ever be able to do all this crazy hard work indoor on a trainer. A month or so later . . . nailing it like a vet. Very nice work.
@Ed, thanks for the great advice. I follow a very similar build approach with my Quarq on the tri bike. Current Lap NP is pretty accurate with the Quarq within a minute after starting the lap. But with the PT on my road bike, the previous interval watts (typically 150~ for warm up) affect the subsequent Z5 Lap NP for several minutes, making nailing NP on a 4-minute interval pretty challenging. This morning the first minute NP was probably a slow climb from 150 to 210, from 210 to 260 during the second minute, finally getting close to 290 after 3 minutes. So . . . my solution is to focus on 3s power primarily, just trying to keep it steady, let NP eventually catch up over time. I may experiment and add Lap Avg P to a screen and see if it normalizes more quickly, thus giving me a better opp to build through each interval. Gotta be better than my current interval routine of steady - steady - tremble - pop.
I prescribed myself on Zwift to erg mode (making me hold prescribed watts) for the 4X4 @ 275watts. HR was way lower this week for these so a good sign that body is adjusting. Hopefully it'll help in the race up Haleakala next week.
I head off to Hawaii tomorrow for two week on vacation so points no doubt will be sporadic but i'll try and get some epic pics to post. I'm not slacking while there as i'll keep doing the OS workouts and throw in the bike race up Haleakala and doing the Maui half marathon while there.
Tomorrow I will do Saturdays ride. My local team and bike shop Fraser Bike is hosting the Slow Twitch Road Show on Saturday, so I will be there getting a swim analysis (huh...should have swum a bit?) and checking out all the stuff!
@Leslie, you will find yourself coming up the curve quick, hitting those #s 48hrs after a 15k race is serious work
@Mike - even if you aren't hitting the #s you think you should be, you're doing some serious work... wondering if you are chasing #s you aren't ready for yet? asking as I feel I may be doing exactly that.
tonight the Gorilla left the cage bloodied and told me he's been waiting for the beating I just gave him
4x4s at 1.10 1.08 1.09 1.10
now an hour's rest & then outside for the brick
Everyone, Thanks for the inspiration. I read a bunch of posts before hopping on my bike. I could feel right away that the run from yesterday was going to have something to say about tonight's ride. It began in the WU. Not only could I see that my heart rate was climbing fast, I could feel it. I had one smooth interval, that was the first one. The other 3 intervals were battles. My heart rate graphs look like Devil's Tower. It raced up passed 160 in each interval and then just kept creeping towards 170. Tonight, this was not comfortable. I finished my bike (304W, 299W, 301W & 301W) and hopped on the TM for a brick. Although I had plenty of muscle power for the run, I had zero will power to extend it beyond 1 mile. Tomorrow will be a toned down day.
https://www.strava.com/activities/513732824
Sat. bike work done. 15' @ .98, 5' E, then something a little different, 10 X 1'(1') @ 1.14, 1.14, 1.18, 1.18, 1.16, 1.21, 1.24, 1.21, 1.2, 1.25, then 10' @ .84. Good workout, felt pretty good.
Run done as a brick. Legs a little torched.