NOS Bike Thread Week 3 - Settling in
How are the legs feeling? Mine are a bit tired these days. Going up stairs is just a bit slower than it has been. A good stretching session today helped a lot. Don't neglect the self-care and recovery aspects of the out Season. It is the recovery time that allows us to do these hard intervals. And STRETCH even though it is not officially one of the 3 disciplines of Triathlon.
The point was made that when doing these efforts in ERG mode in Zwift, The intervals are at one set power although the plan calls for a building effort. One may use the companion app to decrease the output at the beginning and then increase it over the course of the interval so that you are building as instructed or you can do the interval at a steady output.
Coming up this week:
Tuesday : 3 intervals Zone 3 building to Z4 or best effort
Thursday : 2 longer intervals Z 3 building to Z4 or best effort.
Saturday : Long Zone 3 ride with a Zone 4 effort at the end.
PSA: Foam Roller is your friend.
Comments
Missed this AM, going to do it this afternoon. Darn, I will just have to shop online for gravel tires this morning!
I got the ride in. The first two intervals went well. I did hang on for the third one but it was tough. This will all pay of when I do the Assault on the Carolinas in February though, right? ;-)
Be careful in the bike shop. Oh, look, something shiny! I'll take one of those...
Serious side conversation, what is on your Black Friday wish list? Anything fun and bike or tri related?
The run looks a bit questionable for me today. My plan is to do the Tuesday runs at lunch. We'll see what this storm front brings.
Well, I am going to echo @Janyne Kizer. The first two intervals of 12 min went pretty well but the third one was super painful. I had to switch out of ERG for a minute or so but I came back and finished it pretty well although my variability was all over the place. This workout is in the books but not pretty...
BTW, that HR spike at the end is, by definition as hard as I can go. I feel like I am making progress but that last bit is always HARD. Already looking forward to Thursday.... 2 x 20 min intervals, my Favorites!
On the bright side, I bought some 32mm gravel tires for my bike so that should be fun.
I almost allowed temptation to get me to skip the bike workout tonight. Fortunately I did not give in. Got home from work feeling tired and tempted to relax by our outside fire pit sipping on some yummy red wine. Somehow got me ass on the saddle in the garage and just punched through the workout.
Main Set: 3x 10min at 80%-85%, 95%-100%, 90%-100%.
My award = enjoying a big 🍷as I post this 😀
Nice work, @David Ambrose and @Ralph Moore !
Tonight was also hard at 20 min x 2.
I still had to switch out of ERG mode halfway through the second interval. Clearly I am just a wuss.
I was lucky; a non work day today and gosh that seemed to make a difference. Rather than I enduring a long tiring work day followed by an evening in the pain cave, it was an early afternoon visit to the pain cave to tackle the bike workout feeling fresh and energized.
I felt really good hopping on the saddle and did not know what to expect. Knocked out the workout feeling strong...…..main set at 2x 18min at 80%-100%, and felt I could have kept pushing the pedals much longer than the hour workout.
@David Ambrose Nice! Take those days when they come, they seem to get fewer as the OS progresses.
As I look at my power trace above, I notice that I have lots more variability when not in ERG mode and it makes me wonder if some of my difficulty holding long intervals in ERG may be related to a lack of smooth pedal stroke. Got to do some work on that.
I did the workout in the morning. FS said 1 hour so I planned on that -- somewhat dismayed to find the Zwift workout was 1:09 -- how #wrongchat of them! Still made it to work on time though ;-)
great job everyone! Tough week for me. I did the Tuesday wko on wed and it went well so I thought I was turning a corner. Then I attempted the Thursday wko on Friday morning, after a happy hour. I never do weekday morning WKOS so that was hard enough. Never again. Barely hit low Z3 avg for the last interval. I thought today might go better since the workload yesterday wasn’t as planned but that wasn’t great either and was off on all targets. But overall got in about 2.5 hrs at 75%. Hoping next week goes better.
I felt like a newbie this morning. Rode outside on my road bike for first time in about 14 months. I hooked up with the local tri club Saturday morning group ride that goes along PCH (Malibu-Oxnard area of PCH) in SoCal. Took me extra minutes preparing and setting up for the ride. What used to be automatic memory checklist was suddenly trying to recall what I need to have with me (extra tube, food, gloves, etc). I almost pulled out of my driveway this morning forgetting my bike helmet was in the garage.
About a 2.5 hour ride; we enjoyed a few “go all out” sections, then would regroup and ride easier. And we encountered a pretty stiff headwind on the ride back. I forget what a joy a stiff wind is ....ha ha ha. Anyway ended up with an avg IF of 77% for the ride. Legs are a bit tired now but gosh it was thrilling in out several go fast sections. I quickly recalled the past memories of how fun it is to go fast.
Have a great weekend everyone!
@Janyne Kizer I am time constrained too. You can select the workout and then click the pencil button to edit the workout. I just ditch the last little section before the cool down and cut the cool down portion to 5 min and that usually gets the workout down to an hour or less.
Between the OS Weekend Rides&Runs + Functional Strength Program + Travel, I am a little gassed on Monday mornings. Legs are sore, so I am adjusting my schedule to give me a couple more hours of rest when needed. Schedule is a little hectic, but loving my first OutSeason
Have a great week everyone!