Week 11 bike thread - 5 times is more than 4
Had to start earyl this week for a variety of reasons, scheduling, impatience, running out of remaining calories and wanting to eat a good amount of the lasagna that my awesome wife made etc. Was starting to actually wrap my head around the 4 x 2.5 and found the 5 x 2.5 a lot harder. These things are really hard. Once again feel the need to point out that I always found the 30/30's pretty easy to get through, not these. I really thought I was beyond the point of having to redefine what it means to work hard on the bike. Guess not. Figure these things are going to have to make me stronger. They had better anyhow...
Did a pretty easy 7:30 warm up with a few spin ups and got to work, 362, 365, 367, 362, 359. Came through the 30 minutes at .98. Tacked on another 10 minutes and got off. Plan to do the run intervals tomorrow, the brick on Wednesday and take Thursday off.
Comments
I do M/W bikes due to my schedule, so today is my usual day.
About 1:30 into the first 2.5'/2.5', I realized there was no way I was going to get in 5 of them; so I cut them down to 2'/2's, and hit 6 of them:
-PAvg 392w (1.19 IF), 400w (1.22), 395w (1.19), 399w (1.22), 403w (1.23) and 389w (1.20).
.87 IF overall at 287w PNorm.
Oh, and this was all after pushing up my FTP to 330 from 320 where it was last week, so it was REAL tough even with just a 10w bump. Hopefully Wednesday will go better and I'll hit the 5x2.5'/2.5's without a problem.
And I realized I shouldn't eat dinner so close to my workouts, I felt the
coming on. Thankfully it subsided.
5 x 2.5/2.5 @ 227, 224, 218, 233, 232W (120, 119, 115, 123, 123%)
10' @ 151W, IF: 0.80
Run: 21' (inc. 5 x 20' strides)
During the ride I didn't think I'd hit the intervals, but checking in WKO afterwards I hit 4 out of 5 at +120%, with 12 minutes of upper Z3 at the end of the ride. I went up a gear and lowered my usual cadence from ~100 to ~90 for the V02 work.
Easy 25 minute run afterwards. I'll hit the pool at lunch for my second swim of the OS.
18' warmup
5 x 2:30 @ 273W, 268W, 266W, 272W, 265W (120% target is 269W)
17'@ 180W, 88RPM, IF .80
Total bike 60', TSS 76.4
23' Z1 run incl 3x strides
After 5' of recovery spinning the 85% actually felt like no big deal and the 25' brick felt good.
First workout of the year that I thought the bucket next to the bike might need to be used.
Entire workout (238 watts):
Duration: 1:02:04 (1:04:12)
Work: 885 kJ
TSS: 86.5 (intensity factor 0.918)
Norm Power: 262
VI: 1.1
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 0 ft
Elevation Gain: 0 ft
Elevation Loss: 0 ft
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 507 238 watts
Cadence: 17 110 88 rpm
Altitude: 603 610 605 ft
Crank Torque: 0 504 224 lb-in
Temperature: 64.4 64.4 64.4 Fahrenheit
2.5 @ 209, 210, 211, 207, 208. (All at/above 207 target)
23' @ 0.81
Now I desperately need coffee...
Did a 20 minute warm up including the 3X3s (1')
After the Z5s and halfway through the Z3 I had pretty much convinced myself to run later today on a treadmill and avoid the 8 degree wind chill scenario.
Congrats to all of you who got up early this morning and met this challenge!
Hit all targets...225 target on VO2 and hit 230, 228, 236, 234, and 231
Then z3 for 25 min at 0.86%.....
Duration: 1:00:19 (1:00:20)
Work: 541 kJ
TSS: 85.1 (intensity factor 0.924)
Norm Power: 173
Then jumped on the treadmill and nailed it
After exploding halfway through the 2.5s on saturday, tried a little different approach this morning... Instead of 120% or nothing, I went with "work as hard as you can but do them all". Did the full 60' and, unsurprisingly, had my highest IF on Z3 effort since my FTP jump. Perhaps more importantly (*shout-out to Eric Beach's "VO2@ fail" thread* and of course, RnP workout triage guidance as well), I did more work this morning than I would have otherwise and feel good (psychologically):
1X2.5: 314 (117%)
1X2.5: 311 (116%)
1X2.5: 320 (119%)
1X2.5: 311 (116%)
1X2.5: 324 (120%)
1X20: 218 (IF .812)
Total workout of 1:00:14, 240w (.893)
I know breaking them up into smaller bite-sizes is potentially preferable, but didn't feel like doing that (can't come up with a better reason for not doing it that way than that)
I didn't get all 5 done. My head was spinning and decided to settle for 4. The rest of the workout was good, but these VO2 sets are killing me. The FTP work seemed easier.
Are some people's bodies better suited to FTP work and others VO2. I often joke with my friends that I have great slow-twitch muscles but no fast-twitch thus my ability to go relatively hard for a long time, but I suck at quick sprints??
I'm the same Jon. On the swim, bike, and run I can easily out perform many training partners day after day in the long stuff, but anything faster than 400s in the pool, 800s at the track or 5 minutes on the bike and they are in a completely different league and leave me in the dust.
What I have learned in the last few years is that VO2 max work is by far the hardest for me but it also produces the best gains in my fitness. Do the best you can with the VO2 work and then get ready to see a nice improvement when you go back to FTP work.
Has anyone else looked at their behind in the mirror lately? I don't know about you guys, but I am starting to resemble Beyonce in some aspects due to all the VO2 work I suppose?
Let's keep working. Spring will be here in no time.
Within EN we focus on benchmarking YOUR current FTP and working to improve your FTP. Don't worry about some guy like P or ChrisG who is putting out close to 400 watts on his VO2 intervals.
1: 290w
2: 295w
3: 297w
4: 299w
5: 294w
15 min more at about 88%, then a nice easy jog around the neighborhood.
@Daniela - my calves have been very tight lately, and a number of minor (so far) aches and pains. I've been doing more stretching/yoga, etc than ever before, and I think that is helping to hold everything together. I also just got those trigger point rollers and although it's to early to tell for sure, I think they may be helping my calves and quads.
Anyhow starting at the screen and learning the display/functions sorta took my mind off my legs.
325, 321, 327, 323, 325
then like 15 minutes at z3. (amazing to see how quick tss builds in z3 in real time) even when my ftp isn't right.
Nice work everybody
@Daniela - feeling it a lot. Did a 10 miler on Sunday that put me over the top. So, I took off today to give the calves and achilles a rest. I think I'm running the "knife's edge" on fitness vs. over training - especially these last two weks. Last thing I want to do is get injured and lose all this great OS stuff.
Bottom Line: you bet!
120%...117%...119%...116%...128%
Had a touch of gas left in the tank, felt like burning some fuel on the last one.
The balance of the ride was not fun. Phoning in the run, it's snowing buckets & I don't feel like packing up for a 20 min run at the gym.
Great work all.
Got mine done this morning. The first two I did as 1:30/1:00 with 30 seconds rest. I hit the last three and it was brutal. I got in 15 minutes at 85% and a 3 mile run in the snow.
Didn't do anything after vo2m work, was gassed. Did my run at lunch and the legs just didn't have the snap. Did 16 x 1 / 1
Entire workout (198 watts):
120%, 68%
120%, 65%
123%, 55%
120%, 58%
123%, 50%
then another 25' @ 178w (0.869) for a total bike at 1:01:44 @ 189w (0.922)
Quick change and onto the deadmill. First 4 miles around 8:30 or so, slowly speeding up. Last mile was 6:58 (5 secs off my Z5 pace).
Total run 40:04 @ 8:01, rTSS 47.6 and I feel great! The 15 miler on Sunday didn't set me back... love it!