Stupid Bike Trainer Question

Michael Byerts

Since I am very new to the Haus, and to the training philosophy in general, I may be a little high maintenance for a while as I get my footing.  Sorry about that!  I am doing the pre-OS workouts targeting a January start.  I have been having trouble with the bike workouts, and I thought I should see what you folks think.

The Pre-OS plan calls for a couple of intervals beween 5 and 8 minutes long (so far) at Z4/Hard pace.  I don't have a power meter, so I am doing these based on HR.  I want to get these intervals done right but I keep messing up because my HR is way different than my rate of perceived exertion:  I am dying about 4 minutes in, even though my HR is below my lactate threshold from tests last season.  My average heartrate for each interval has been 3-10 beats below threshold.  My understanding of threshold is that even 8 minutes should feel hard but I shouldn't be counting down the seconds after 4 minutes.  Something is wrong because I have run well off the bike in Olympic distance races after averaging higher heartrates during the 40k ride.  I can think of a few explanations for my difficulties:

1)   I am really out of shape, especially on the bike.  My last race of the 2010 was in September, and I took an extended break through the end of November.  I ran some, swam none, and rode occasionally. 

2)   My threshold heartrate is ste too high compared to my actual fitness.  (This is related to reason number 1).  I need to re-test in January and re-calculate.

3)  My previous tests were done outside on a relatively flat course in a 30 minute time trial, while these sessions are indoors on cheapy trainer (Ascent fluid $99).  Resistance is never uniform, and it's hard to keep conditions consistent from workout to workout.  I know HR is supposed to be different indoors vs. out, but the skew in the numbers is massive.

Should I just keep plugging away and wait to re-test in January or do something else now?

jburbatt

If you don't want to wait, you could always retest now and just use those numbers in Jan (since it's really not that far away and it sounds like it might be pretty off). Then on the testing day you can just do a normal workout. Or you could just manually bump it down for now until you test in Jan. I would think that with your extended break your fitness is not in the same place it was before. If you are dying, I would not keep pushing it until Jan. It would be awful to burn out before the OS even starts!

murphy.m.j

 when i started the OS plan for October, in the 1st week I did not test due to 2 reasons a) i really did not understand the concept of what testing was about and b0 I did not want to see negative numbers; FTP -120 versus FTP +120.  I was totally out of shape and decided that I will do the workouts as much as possible till i can work to complete them,

What I am saying is that until recently i was not able to complete the bike workouts at all; coming close but now finally able to do a complete workout the way I think EN says I should do the workouts.  As for the running, well that is still a work-in-progress but I know I am improving alot, more so then any other year.

so it really depends on yourself on what you want to do; you can reset of just continue, either way it wont matter much.

Michael Byerts

Thanks to both of you.
@ Jennifer: I'll probably just dial back the intensity based on my rate of perceived exertion for now and re-test in January. Two weeks isn't that long.
@ Michael: glad to hear that other newbies are struggling some. Not happy that you were not able to finish somw workouts, but glad that I have some company in misery.

jburbatt

If you are having trouble completing the workouts, check out this wiki http://members.endurancenation.us/Resources/Wiki/tabid/108/Default.aspx?topic=WorkOut+Triage on doing a Workout Triage. That being said, if you are struggling a lot to do the work you might want to post in the Micro thread and see what RnP think about what you should do. Maybe dropping down the OS level (since the plans are all hard, they just ramp up the intesity differently) would be helpful. I'd imagine it would be better than consistently not completing workouts.

Kitboo

Most of us are crying with the Pre-OS rides---for one, it's the drainer. For me, the only intervals I've done short sprints to get a fork to eat cake.

For the 2-3 weeks until Jan OS, starts just forget about the HR. You'll be testing it soon enough. Go on perceived exertion. The Pre-OS is a likely more of a mental exercise of preparing oneself to ride steady and hard intervals on a trainer.

Michael Byerts

Thanks again! I will ignore HR until I test. I can complete the workouts okay, they just seem to thrash me, and I was puzzled by the large disconnect between what HR was telling me (dude, you're not trying very hard), and what I was feeling (wow, this hurts). They aren't perfectly correlated, especially when fitness is low, but I had expected that they would bear some relationship to each other.
Part of the problem is that I get almost no data output from rides on the trainer. HR works but I have no clue how fast I am going or how much work I am doing.

mgraffeo

Without a power meter or any experience doing these workouts, sometimes even RPE is skewed. So, think about it this way. FTP is pretty similar to the effort you would hold in a well-paced Olympic distance tri (it's slightly harder than that, but for the purposes of the pre-OS, ignore that). If you are working harder than that, you're working too hard, especially after a prolonged period of detraining.

Don't forget that you still get the 'go faster, raise your FTP' adaptations at 90%, and even 85% of FTP. It's not 'all or nothing'. So, if you slightly undercook a workout, it's not a big deal.

atasic

 II think Mike gave an excellent advice. Go by RPE for now primarily, than after the test in Jan use HR and RPE. All you have to do when using RPE on these intervals is ask yourself can I maintain this for an hour. If you have a doubt on a 5min interval, you have gone too hard.

For me, HR lags during intervals so badly that it is not usable in the first 15-20min, than after, it settles, I can use it. We are all different, just keep that lag in mind and if you drive it in the first interval to your estimated threshold, if correct, you have overcooked it.