2017 JOS Wk3 Bike Thread - Rule 10 - It never gets easier, you get faster
Welcome to your week 3 bike thread.
As this famous quote by Greg LeMan tells us, training, climbing, and racing is hard. It stays hard. To put it another way, per Greg Henderson: “Training is like fighting with a gorilla. You don’t stop when you’re tired. You stop when the gorilla is tired.”
I remembered this during Saturday's slugfest with the gorilla (which he won in the final 8' Z3 interval, if you aren't dying on your final interval, think about whether or not your FTP is set high enough.
As I often coach people in business to leave their comfort zone and do something that scares them every day, my personal outseason goal is not just the physical workout but learning how to push through the discomfort zone to a new zone of comfort, one that is no easier, but is faster.
Now that we are beginning our third OS week and 2nd full week of WKOs, the rythym and time management of the work should become more manageable as duration of intensity builds, particularly on the bike....
Looking forward to learning from all of your posts as we have a great group here doing a great job of sharing knowledge.
Comments
Have a great week all!
SS
The ebb and flow of the OS. The last bike felt great this one very difficult.
2X10' .97 and .99 2X6' .84 .85. Glad there was nothing longer and definitely a 'building the mental 6 pack day'. I had to work through the last 6' of the second 10' interval.
I completed the 3 x 11' intervals at 1.0, 1.0 & .96 and a 8' interval at Z3. As Scott stated, it's amazing to me how mentally and physically tough those 8 minutes are at the lower intensity. I think it's truly where the mental game is pushed to another level.
I followed the bike with a 20' TRP treadmill run with strides and am happy to have a full day of rest ahead of me now!
Great work everyone and keep it up!
Total tech fail on my part this morning. Apparently my power meter battery died right in the middle of my 2 minute rest between hard efforts, which then caused my Garmin ant to fail - all of which took about 10 minutes to repair so by the time I got back on the trainer, the legs were just mush. I couldn't even get back into a good warmup rhythm so I went for my 20 minute run instead. It's all good! On the plus side I did get my hard ride playlist ready and it was helping me kick butt that first 10 minutes!
https://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/5028573-2017-os-wk3-tue-beg
Question is, should I think about bumping my my FTP a hair?? Training Peaks suggests I push my FTP up to 182. Legs felt wobbly trying to walk down the stairs. A good sign that I pushed it!
Overall, very happy with the progress so far. Even before the os, was tipping the scales as 232, todays weigh-in was 219. If you trust the body comp scales, my Body fat % is down 10% in the same period of time.
To put it in perspective, when I raced tremblant in '14 i was 189.....
I went to the gym after work and did a minimal treddy run of just over 3 miles at just over a 9'/mile pace... sloooowww for me... then home and finally pushed self on trainer with a 100.3 fever (I think that raising body core temp from WKo helps kick bugs as well)
well.. did my warmup, and the first 11' interval saw the gorilla look at me with sympathy as he flicked me off the bike after 8 1/2 minutes... he let me dance around an 8' Z3 interval, and i was happy to take a hot shower and crawl into bed...
My treadmill run after was on the slow side, having done it pretty fast on Saturday and suffering too much on Sunday.
Ultimately, doing the work that lets you do the next day's work is more important than following the workout recipes into a brick wall.
And Catherine - doing the FTP intervals at 0.96 or so is just fine, assuming you had a good test. You'll probably be saving yourself from a crash later in the OS if that feels right. :-)
Heading downstairs in a few to get the vo2 30/30's in and the brick. Then party pants time! Bonus, I have a massage scheduled for tomorrow. I'm having a couple niggles I need to address and since it's all about consistency for me, better now than later.
Like Mike, the short Z5 work doesn't seem to make me slobber on myself like the long Z4 has and I'm glad to have the weekday bike work complete.
I'm planning to lift weights in the morning and have a short TRP run sometime later tomorrow.
Great work everyone and keep it up!
2X12 30/30's done.
https://www.strava.com/activities/845447430
Right-side power meter still isn't recording on the single-leg spins; changed the P1 battery but no reading; may need to remove and re-add from the Garmin
My warmup is a bit old school (at least for EN), in that I do the 5' easy, 5' alternating 1/1/1/1/1 FTP/easy/FTP/easyFTP, then 5 minutes of recovery pushing up to about 85%. Those 1 minute FTP are often some of the hardest intervals of the day. ;-)
Anyway, my Z5 is 260-280. Here are the average powers I hit:, 293, 287, 287, 287, 292, 296, 290, 289, 295, 288, 309, 311, 291, 303. (evidently I can't count or add)
Second set: 304, 291, 303, 312, 325, 338, 303, 314, 318, 305, 323, 303, 317
So obviously, I don't have the self control I should. Either that, or I really need to work more on my FTP, because I swear, I'm not really killing myself on these and could do another set of a dozen without a lot of strain. This is my easy bike workout for the week.
So I ask those that have experience thinking about VO2 vs FTP...any thoughts?
(And yes, I got my treadmill brick run in...nothing too exciting there.)
So ... nothing to add other than +1!
Your second 30-second set was consistently higher than the first; seems like power should be in the 300-325 range. Or maybe even higher. Our Z5 power range tops out at 120% of FTP -- for me that's too low for super-short sprints. Nothing wrong with 140% in my book so long as you can recover quickly and be steady across all the intervals. (As a disclaimer, I take 45 seconds of rest, 30 is too short)
I returned from NYC business trip Wed night...got on the bike yesterday after work and buried myself:
https://www.strava.com/activities/845432548
Traveling throws everything out of whack to say the least.....reading your posts puts everything back in order!
SS
@William--I have the same thoughts regarding the 30 second intervals. The longer zone 4 work is much harder for me than the shorter zone 5 work. The shorter intervals are also my "easy" day. I am thinking of riding the zone 5 intervals at a higher watts next week to see if it negatively impacts my runs.
I did complete both the Tuesday and Thursday rides this week. I had to push the Thursday ride to this morning due to work and hockey. I am still getting back into the swing of things with my run following the Disney marathon, but the bike is back.
@William - Like you I find the 30/30's the easier bike workout of the week. I've always had room between my ceiling and roof 1.20+. I did not put my 5' test number in the week one run thread but it was over 250 which is what my 208 FTP 20' test designates for my upper z5 numbers (z5 229-250). I know I could have pushed harder over the 5' test but did not totally bury myself so I could get in a good 20' test, basically I went controlled but hard. If I had to do an all out 5' test I honestly think 260-270 would be doable, maybe 275.
So what does this say I am a better at short bursts, maybe have a better capacity to handle anaerobic exercises. I did a lot of this kind of stuff for 18 years but that was also 20 years ago. Additionally given the previous OS's 30/30's were at the high end Z5 with the 60% over the back half of the 30". I find the low Z5 (229 for me) a little too easy and am considering going back to the old protocol upper Z5 with 30" at 60% for the rest period. The real rest will come between the sets. Further if I recall correctly there was less recovery time between sets, currently for the beginner OS 5' between 2X(6 X30/30). I'll try to look up an old plan at home. I know in week two my HR did not get in to the 160's for the 1st set of 30/30 and just barely got there for the second. Max HR was 177 and 180 for the two tests I've done this year so no where near working hard enough in my opinion.
Finally the old school VO2 work had us doing 1', 1.5' and even 2' vo2 at the upper limit. So in the past we have done a higher intensity, with a prescribed lower bound on the recover time 60% and less recovery time between sets.
Personally I liked the 1' to 1.5' VO2 sets even at the upper z5(250) watts. My caveats are I'm not running much, going for 15-20' this week and I came in to the OS in very bad shape. Going forward I'm still considering lengthening out the intervals to 1' but keep the low Z5. I may also institute the lower bound of 60% for the 1' recovery. I know right now they are too easy but I'm very cognizant of the fact that too much intensity will bite me very fast given my fitness coming in. We both also know the fatigue that mounts over the OS so finding that line of working hard enough to get good gains versus maximizing gains could push you in to overtraining.
Having said that I do want to get in all my workouts in so I am still following the plan but was thinking about starting a thread with Coach Rich in the macro forum about this after another week or two. My schedule's off and will be doing the 30/30's today after work so yet to do week 3's vo2 bike efforts.
edit
Maybe we should take this to the general discussion forum to get more eyes on it.