JOS 2020 - Bike Week TWO - The discomfort Zone
Really great first week of work & learning under our belts! now it's time to get to work.
The important thing aside from doing the work is to be conscious of how hard you are working. By the end of your last set, do you have more? or was it REALLY hard. For those of you that are new to this, that is the sign of a good vs not so good FTP #s!
This also creates the opportunity for working harder this coming week. Remember, the goal is to be doing your WKO where your Avg Watts are at 95-100% of FTP(Unless defined otherwise by @Coach Patrick ). If you are finding it easy(I hope not) or just difficult, this might be the cause for bumping your FTP and doing harder work. Remember, you are capable of much more than you believe! The phrase "get comfortable being uncomfortable" should resonate in every workout.
Rule #6 // Free your mind and your legs will follow.Your mind is your worst enemy. Do all your thinking before you start riding your bike. Once the pedals start to turn, wrap yourself in the sensations of the ride – the smell of the air, the sound of the tires, the feeling of flight as the bicycle rolls over the road. (now if Zwift only had a smell module!)
harder work now = faster YOU in the race season!
Beyond the physical work, is the psychological work of pushing through the pain, this will help you oodles on race day!
Comments
Coming off a 2 week break to Tanzania, Week 1 kicked my butt. Hoping to be a little stronger this week.
@Paul Hough - I was 5 weeks out from IMMT when I came back from Kili, expect things to really pick up nicely for you. You gained a ton of fitness last week, not to mention hemoglobin!
We're heading to the east coast on Thursday and freezing temps and snow is forecast here all week. I crashed in early December on a patch of black ice while going to work and I'm not taking chances riding to work in the dark, so the biking is going to be light this week and next.
Looking forward to week two!! Going to get comfortable with being uncomfortable!!
With week 1 in the books, looking forward to being uncomfortable in week 2. CnC this week certainly crushed me, but hope this week's ride is stronger! Like last week, I'm not doing any Zwift races during the week and focusing on the prescribed bike intervals using ERG mode.
Definitely looking forward to today's rest day. I think I'm going to hit it out of the park today.
Think I've under-SWADd, so I'm going to add 5W to my FTP this week. . Guess I'll find out pretty soon if that's right or not...
@Angus Whitfield 5 watts is a good carrot to push yourself if you think you are under. There are two sides to the sword. You want to maximize gain so if its not feeling hard enough go for it. If you are affecting downstream workouts bring it down a little. Remember we have ranges and you don't need to hit 1.0 of FTP all the time as our energy levels change throughout the week.
I also find that I can get a good portion of my FTP back relatively quickly so if you were not training as hard come in thus the estimate you should see good returns. My best ever is 260 typically up to 245, it will be relatively easier gains (not easy) then I'll have to work much harder for the improvement beyond that number as the curve flattens out.
I'm finding one of the nice features of WKO5, just converted from version 3 is that it will model you FTP. It told me after Saturday's ride that my new FTP is 234 up from 219, so I guess I get more than a 5 watt bump. Given I'm new to the software and building in to intensity this OS I'll pare that back slightly as I did struggle with a couple workouts this week.
hey folks, another way to look at this is that the way The Tuesday intervals are written are not the way they are shown in the TR & ZZwift wko files. those files are ridden as steady efforts.
what you are supposed to be doing is an increasing effort. this is great for helping you SWAG your FTP. start out where you think it should be.
every 1:30 increase your effort by 1%; at 220 watts, that's a 2.2 watt increase.. by the end of a 12' interval (or 15') you should be at a high HR for yourself (we all end up differently) for me this means peaking in the mid to high 160s (HR).
as the WKO is written, you should be at a 1.2IF, that's VERY hard. a good way to do this is to set your FTP higher in the program, and then lowering the starting point by 10% (to where you think your FTP is) now you have 20% (Zwift limits adjustability to 10% up or down from baseline)
if you push to far, too hard, yu can always back off.
Hopefully that makes sense for all
Got in 2X12 no idea where but a very hard effort as the power metre continues to act up and another 7' what I figure was around .8. Hard for me to discern the effort level as it's been quite some time since I've done FTP efforts.
Big step up from last week. Thanks @scott dinhofer for the explanation on how to do.
Did 2 x 15' intervals. Re-SWAGd my FTP up 5w to 245
1st interval: broke it into 3x 5min sections - hitting 234, 239, 244 averages
2nd interval: broke it into 4x 3min sections - 245, 249, 254, 259 and then wound it up every 60s for the last 3mins - 266, 285, 325
power curve looked like a Mont Ventoux stage - false flat then crazy uphill!
Everyone who's done this - well done!
Everyone who's about to do it - go for it!
That hurt............
Just finished the Tuesday week 2 on Zwift.
A) Why is there such a discrepancy between the WKO on FS and Zwift (at least Level 2)? It threw me for a loop as I hit the second interval (and had an epic fail at the 10 minute mark).
B) There is also a big discrepancy between my reported TSS on Zwift and Training Peaks (i.e., today was 62 on Zwift, and 38 on TP). Which is accurate and is there a fix?
Ride on.
@Andrew Lustigman report back and tell us what your FTP setting is at in TP, and what it is set at in Zwift......
And by the way, nice work getting it done this morning!
Thank you for this. There are two bike power categories in TP - one is "Default Power" and the other is "Bike Power". Neither of those numbers are the same as my FTP in Zwift (they are much higher). What numbers should be the same as Zwift?
Honey I'm home!!!! Brutal two days at work. WOW. Legs are throbbing but here I am ready to go. #CPR
TP - Bike Power needs to match Zwift FTP to have similar TSS scores.
Tuesday bike done, did the L2 wko.
1st interval 5'-6'-1' for a .91 avg
2nd interval 4'-6.5'-1.5' for a .93 avg HR 159
Good workout.
@Andrew Lustigman - per KMF's example above, the Threshold # should be the same.
@Shaughn Simmons - what is the right method under "choose method?" and is there something specific that should be chosen from the "threshold power" dropdown to get this right?
also, @Andrew Lustigman - this will only change your PMC for today forward. I can show you how to fix it backwards when we get coffee next.
I use Andy Coggan.....
Great work team. Love seeing the effort. I still struggle with my SWAG FTP indoors so the Tuesday workouts are tough. I will adjust up/down next week in companion app. I just redid L1 wk1 so 3x6mins. My last interval my cadence slowed and HR leaked mid 160s so I was working. Will bump up time next week. Looking forward to Thursday’s work
I did the L3 TrainerRoad workout this morning as two, steady state 15 min efforts. I guess I did it "wrong" considering the posts up above? Is the issue the workouts as Coach P wrote were not translated properly into TR and Zwift?
I'm doing my bike session in ERG mode, so I'll likely continue to do them as steady state efforts. I do think my FTP is a little low as today's first interval felt good, HR climbed as expected, but probably lower than it should be. HR and RPE climbed nicely throughout the second interval, the last 5 min were tough, but manageable.
@Jeff Phillips - I will be doing this wko early evening. I will use the zwift files to do it, and I will be in ERG mode.
on the zwift screen shown below(grabbed a random image off google), on the left where it shows you the workouts, is an intensity toggle. You can toggle this up or down 10% from the FTP setting. This will continue to keep you in ERG mode, but move the target wattage.. the wattage will only move on 5 watt increments in the display, but 1% is that of your FTP in terms of the effort.
Now you have to figure out ahead of time in any of these workouts what Range you need to toggle through. If you need and then set your FTP in zwift to allow you to have the proper range. sometimes just having your FTP in there is the right call.
today's workout has me in a range from 193 - 241- thats a range that covers a bit of real estate, the ONLY way to do this is to set my FTP in the middle of the range (217) this will almost cover the range using the toggle buttons.
👍️@scott dinhofer TR has similar functionality. I'll adjust next week's to be in line with what's written. Thanks for providing clarity
As you guys make your adjustments, also strive to hit something close to the stated TSS targets in each bike wko along the way. The stated TSS target is one measure of how you know if you are over/underachieving assuming you are also using a relatively accurate FTP.
You can see the TSS target while in Zwift when selecting the wko.
@Shaughn Simmons, where is that TSS target? I'm not seeing it in the Final Surge email for my daily workouts.
@Paul Hough I can't speak for Zwift, but when I go into TrainerRoad and look at the workouts there is a TSS, .IF, and kCal target for each one
@Paul Hough per above:
You can see the TSS target while in Zwift when selecting the wko.
@Shaughn Simmons, I use Rouvy, not Zwift. If final surge doesn't give TSS goal, then it's irrelevant to me.
@Paul Hough - I plan on trying Rouvy out as we approach the longer IM training rides for IMSG leading up to May.