I wanted to go back to this post by Dave because it had so much in it to consider and I took it to action this week and will continue through the event tomorrow.
Originally Posted by daveryanwyoming .
FWIW, I'd strongly recommend taking Thursday, not Friday as your total rest day before the weekend and make mid Tempo your cap for intensity this week. You're realistically not going to gain any measurable fitness this week and you're nursing an injury.
[COLOR= #a52a2a]I kept my intensity very low this week to let my back heal. I had a good discussion with my chiro and he believe I had bulging disc and the pain was radiating out to my hip. By me using my inversion I was relieving the pressure off the disc allowing it to heal more quickly. Gave my legs a chance to recover from past weeks of increased hours and miles of training. I feel refreshed this morning and my back feels good at the moment. [/COLOR]
Give your body a chance to heal and just ride enough to keep the legs moving this week, get the heart pumping a bit but no sense in pushing either duration or intensity right now. The worst case of 'over-resting' this week is that your legs will take a while to open up. In a crit or short time trial that could be a deal breaker but on a century where you know the crux is towards the end it's not a bad deal to open up your legs in the first hour or so and save something for the hard part.
I'd lean heavily towards easy rides to stay loose and extra rest this week and no big gear slamming if you're dealing with joint issues. Rest completely a couple of days out, open up a bit on Friday [COLOR= #ff0000](1)[/COLOR] and plan to pace the early miles on Saturday to help you loosen up.
[COLOR= #a52a2a]I did a very light warm up on a spin bike and I used a spin bike as my weapon of choice because how it functions. I had very little tension during the warm up and once warmed up I did a series of no more than 5 standing sprints of less than a minute each. The spin bike suits well for its ease of set up and stability in a hard standing sprint.[/COLOR]
Good luck,
[COLOR= #a52a2a]Thanks /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif[/COLOR]
-Dave
P.S. This is a good time to think about riding cagey. Yeah it's not a race but you can approach it like one and ride with a pre-game plan of not doing any extra work, no hero pulls, no pushing the pace or feeling an obligation to roll to the front for the first hour or more of the ride so that you have time to loosen up and assess your recent injury. If everything is good after that hour or two then there's still plenty of time to tow your buddies or do your share at the front but aggravating your recent injury in the opening miles by working harder than you have to isn't going to make anybody happy, least of all you.
[COLOR= #a52a2a]This is something I told my friends weeks ago even before the recent injuries and ailments that I was going to do this event this year at a recreational pace rather than trying to set a PB like I have done in previous years. My decision actually goes back to when Dave and RDO impressed upon me how to go about building the aerobic engine. I decided then that I was going to get on that type of program for at least two years and when I entered some of these annual favorite events I would treat them like a training ride. So far that is what I have done on each of my centuries in 2011. [/COLOR]
[COLOR= #a52a2a]This year I plan to stay on that program, but I now have to consider the injuries and not jepordize long term goals by further aggrivating those injuries. So tomorrow I will not be posting anything here like some great achievement. Tomorrow I just hope to survive the ride with the additional current discomforts [/COLOR][COLOR= #ff0000](2) [/COLOR][COLOR= #a52a2a], keep my TSS low enough that it will not cause more recovery time and just keep pushing toward the goal of increasing aerobic capacity. Plus one of my friends has been traveling with business and will not be able to hammer. So I will keep him company and let him draft me as much as possible at a milder pace.[/COLOR]
(1) - Because of the injury to my back and the pain radiating in my hip over a week ago and having to miss several day of cycling training I did a short 55 mile route. However, this route had a couple of sustained climbs and with the discomfort in my hip it was hard to push the wattage because each pedal stroke felt like a nail driven into my hip, but the other thing was my legs were blocked up (felt lazy and lacking zest) because of those day off. At the end of the route I noticed what Dave points out for a long ride and clearing the legs. By the end of the ride the sharp pain was almost gone, but I also noticed in the last ten miles my legs were feeling more spirited and responsive as some of the steep 1/4 mile rollers would require standing. At the very end of the 55 mile route I felt like I could have done another 50.
(2) - Concerning my hand and potential nerve damage, I had some Deda bar tape at home (certainly a lot more cushion than the tape the shop used. I used the Deda tape with gel inserts on the top of the bar and double wrapped down to the curve in the drops and secured the end with Gaffer's tape. My bar is oversized on the top so with it being double wrapped and a gel insert the circumference on the top looks like that of almost a baseball bat handle. I think this will give me plenty of surface area so any pressure will be distributed more across my hand than in a focal point. I believe what caused this issue is actually my work setup with the keyboard and desk. I am working on trying to change that, but for today I am wearing a wrist brace for carpal tunnel that is helping. I just wished I had realized this sooner. Now I just need to endure it tomorrow and make sure I don't use bad position during the ride.
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Here is why I hope to keep my TSS down below 400 tomorrow.
From
Trainingpeaks
The following scale can be used as an approximate guide:
- Less than 150 - low (recovery generally complete by following day)
- 150-300 - medium (some residual fatigue may be present the next day, but gone by 2nd day)
- 300-450 - high (some residual fatigue may be present even after 2 days)
- Greater than 450 - very high (residual fatigue lasting several days likely)
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I want to ride the event tomorrow and hope to stay below 400 on TSS so that I can recover and get back to my training routine. However, I have another century coming up the following weekend so I will do this event, rest, spin light for a couple of day and do the century on the 14th. After that event I will be back to my normal training routine building on the aerobic engine.
Since last June I have been following something similar (may not be exact) to what I have seen Dave post to others and it has been working out well. Since late February I picked up Saturday to 80+ mile training rides that are typically low L3 for huge blocks of time. Recently going up to 100 mile training rides for Saturday's.
Mon - Off
Tues - L4 Intervals 2 x 20's
Wed - L3/SST
Thur - L4 Intervals 2 x 20's
Fri - Off
Sat - 5 to 6 hours, try not to exceed 350 TSS
Sun - 1 to 2 hours SST depending on Saturday's TSS
In previous years I was not too bad in high spirited group rides of routes less than 50 miles and fizzled if the group stayed at that pace for routes over 60 miles. Now I am seeing the shift and starting to feel good with longer distance.
