It's killing me but..........

[hrumpole]

Sat: local hero (shorter intervals) plus 20 min in the sweet spot (195w) (Extra shot at 95 percent)
Monday: 2x20 @ 214, 215 plus 3:30 @ 250. RPE dropping slightly, and execution improving (smoother graphs). Recovery really good (HR from 174 to 124 in 2 minutes). Breakthrough hopefully coming soon. Adding that extra 20 min really seems to help once the intensity is dialed down so that it's challenging, but not a gut buster. CTL now at about 50. 70-80 qualifies as a "base", I think.

 

[hrumpole]

Absolute ****. 3x8: 220 (executed properly) 215 (executed properly) 220 (complete s--tshow). 10 min OU executed properly (208), followed by 10 minutes of SST that felt like an all-out sprint. WAY worse than last workout. Evolution in reverse.

 

[swampy1970]

A strange quandary. I'm going better than I ought to be and I have a hard time believing that just chucking in the odd 5 minutes of hell is responsible for it... Maybe I need a big rethink of my training and drag in a barrage of shorter intervals to pull my threshold power to where it should be rather than the usual masses of L3 till ya blow and L4 to push it up gradually.

Maybe its time to pull the laptop out with "the thing that should not be" interval countdown timer on it... The summer of 96 was the last time I did those and my legs still hurt just thinking about them. Death on a KingCycle rig... Ugggg. A few weeks of these will get the 250+ mile brevets done faster LOL

 

[danfoz]

Originally Posted by swampy1970 .


Maybe its time to pull the laptop out with "the thing that should not be" interval countdown timer on it...

Haha yes! Obey your master... disposable heroes was my countdown from that fine selection.

 

[hrumpole]

The good news:
55 miles, 16.2 moving average with roughly 3900 feet of climbing (elevation corrected). Temps in the 40s. A new PR for that distance at any time of year. The bad news: PM battery crapped out in the first half-hour. That ride could have been an NP buster. I'll never know.

 

[larryg45]

Originally Posted by hrumpole .

The good news:
55 miles, 16.2 moving average with roughly 3900 feet of climbing (elevation corrected). Temps in the 40s. A new PR for that distance at any time of year. The bad news: PM battery crapped out in the first half-hour. That ride could have been an NP buster. I'll never know.

Nice work./img/vbsmilies/smilies/icon14.gif

 

[hrumpole]

Time will tell if this is a massive breakthrough, or a technological snafu and worthless. 2x20 @ 243, 242. Felt awesome, and executed perfectly. Nonetheless, that is a big jump. Although I hit a 1x20 @ 234 in January, I've had a hard time repeating that number. Wonder if the dying batteries in the PT were giving me bad readings in the last few weeks, or if the new batteries make no difference. Still, I'll take it. Time will tell if it's ****.

xpower for the hour at 220. Time to bump that FTP??

 

[RapDaddyo]

Originally Posted by hrumpole .

Time will tell if this is a massive breakthrough, or a technological snafu and worthless. 2x20 @ 243, 242. Felt awesome, and executed perfectly. Nonetheless, that is a big jump. Although I hit a 1x20 @ 234 in January, I've had a hard time repeating that number. Wonder if the dying batteries in the PT were giving me bad readings in the last few weeks, or if the new batteries make no difference. Still, I'll take it. Time will tell if it's ****.

xpower for the hour at 220. Time to bump that FTP??

Probably valid numbers. The only thing you might want to do is zero your torque if you don't do this every ride. Weak batteries should not account for inaccurate data. How long has your battery icon been blinking? The consistency between the two efforts is significant. I think the 2nd effort is the more significant of the two in terms of predicting your FTP. It may not be >240, but I'll bet you could do an hour at 235 if you are rested and motivated. And, look how early it is. A steady diet of L4s from now to mid-April and you'll enjoy your road rides much more. With an FTP near 250W and > 3.25W/KG, you can keep up with just about any group. Well done.

 

[swampy1970]

Originally Posted by hrumpole .

Time will tell if this is a massive breakthrough, or a technological snafu and worthless. 2x20 @ 243, 242. Felt awesome, and executed perfectly. Nonetheless, that is a big jump. Although I hit a 1x20 @ 234 in January, I've had a hard time repeating that number. Wonder if the dying batteries in the PT were giving me bad readings in the last few weeks, or if the new batteries make no difference. Still, I'll take it. Time will tell if it's ****.

xpower for the hour at 220. Time to bump that FTP??

Fairly easy to verify - do a "stomp test" and check as per the powertap manual.

From personal experience - a 35 to 40 minute effort during training is about equal to what I could do for an hour motivated during a race.

 

[swampy1970]

Originally Posted by danfoz .


Haha yes! Obey your master... disposable heroes was my countdown from that fine selection.

Damage Inc.

Nothing more need be said...

 

[hrumpole]

Originally Posted by RapDaddyo .


Probably valid numbers. The only thing you might want to do is zero your torque if you don't do this every ride. Weak batteries should not account for inaccurate data. How long has your battery icon been blinking? The consistency between the two efforts is significant. I think the 2nd effort is the more significant of the two in terms of predicting your FTP. It may not be >240, but I'll bet you could do an hour at 235 if you are rested and motivated. And, look how early it is. A steady diet of L4s from now to mid-April and you'll enjoy your road rides much more. With an FTP near 250W and > 3.25W/KG, you can keep up with just about any group. Well done.

There was no warning-I use a Garmin 500, so there's no battery indicator that I'm aware of. I will make sure that I zero the torque, and see what happens next time. In terms of the workout itself, the only thing that changed is that I spent 5-10 min warming up on a foam roller working my scapula, hip flexors, etc. I felt much better when I got on the bike. (I'd like to think that was the difference-maker).

(F keeping up. I've had too many people look back, put their heads down, and crack me like a quail egg. Payback is a b----ch.)

 

[hrumpole]

It's been very warm in the mid atlantic, and I was sweating like a fiend in the torture chamber. RPE and HR way way up for particular zones. 20 min at 196 and it felt just horrible--power right at the bottom of the sweet spot. Finished the tempo/sprint sets, but had a hard time finding rhythm. (Garmin set on auto zero, though). So Tues may have been the best day ever, and it may have been junk.

Bumped critical power to 230 in GC for purposes of keeping track of CTL. Hope springs eternal.

 

[RapDaddyo]

Originally Posted by hrumpole .

It's been very warm in the mid atlantic, and I was sweating like a fiend in the torture chamber. RPE and HR way way up for particular zones. 20 min at 196 and it felt just horrible--power right at the bottom of the sweet spot. Finished the tempo/sprint sets, but had a hard time finding rhythm. (Garmin set on auto zero, though). So Tues may have been the best day ever, and it may have been junk.

Bumped critical power to 230 in GC for purposes of keeping track of CTL. Hope springs eternal.

Be careful about how you interpret these data. I have found that the only thing that matters is how my legs feel. Some days my HR is up, some days it's down. Some days my lungs are burning and I feel that I am struggling to get enough air and some days I am breathing as I would on a brisk walk. On those days when all my indicators are that I'm struggling, I just ask myself how my legs feel. If they feel good, I ignore the other indicators and just power on. It's only when I don't have any snap on the downstroke that I know I'm not having a good day. And when that happens, I just call it a day and hopefully I'm not 50 miles from home.

 

[swampy1970]

hrumpole,

Payback is a b***h, however it takes a fair bit to go from being "the cracked" to the guy that shells folks out the back. Going from from to the other is possible but just plan on it taking a while...

If you're sweating like a fiend in a torture chamber then you need a bigger fan - if you're training indoors that is. If you're planning on doing much more training indoors moving into spring and summer then bigger = better. Check out Alex Simmons blog as he's got some good info on this.

 

[hrumpole]

Originally Posted by RapDaddyo .


Be careful about how you interpret these data. I have found that the only thing that matters is how my legs feel. Some days my HR is up, some days it's down. Some days my lungs are burning and I feel that I am struggling to get enough air and some days I am breathing as I would on a brisk walk. On those days when all my indicators are that I'm struggling, I just ask myself how my legs feel. If they feel good, I ignore the other indicators and just power on. It's only when I don't have any snap on the downstroke that I know I'm not having a good day. And when that happens, I just call it a day and hopefully I'm not 50 miles from home.

RPE was through the roof, and legs felt really heavy. Just seemed like such a big falloff from the last effort, and I was only doing one of them. Not like it was a waste of time, I don't think (?)--just not necessarily what I was hoping for. Temp's going to drop in the next few days. I'll see what happens.

 

[hrumpole]

swampy-
I've seen his fan. No way will the mrs let me bring a tornado machine in the house. As to cracking people, I'm talking more about on hills than flats. There's a couple of half to mile or so climbs on my weekend group rides right before the regrouping point where I just haven't been able to respond to accelerations. I'd like to be more competitive on those. (And I am--but only for about 30 seconds.).

 

[larryg45]

Originally Posted by hrumpole .

swampy-
I've seen his fan. No way will the mrs let me bring a tornado machine in the house. As to cracking people, I'm talking more about on hills than flats. There's a couple of half to mile or so climbs on my weekend group rides right before the regrouping point where I just haven't been able to respond to accelerations. I'd like to be more competitive on those. (And I am--but only for about 30 seconds.).

In time hrumpole. Rome was not built in a day and neither will your ftp. Based on your posts you have been progressing along very very well. Keep up the hard work
and the time will come when your no longer getting dropped.

 

[swampy1970]

Originally Posted by hrumpole .

swampy-
I've seen his fan. No way will the mrs let me bring a tornado machine in the house. As to cracking people, I'm talking more about on hills than flats. There's a couple of half to mile or so climbs on my weekend group rides right before the regrouping point where I just haven't been able to respond to accelerations. I'd like to be more competitive on those. (And I am--but only for about 30 seconds.).

Well you either need a bigger pair of cojones or sweat buckets over the wifes best towels in order to change that. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/wink.gif Either way you need a bigger fan because it's effecting your training and the extra stress wont make recovery any easier either.

Hills are the killing fields of bike riding - even half mile ones. If anything those are the worst as it's VO2 max to the max and also factors in weight. Basically, you need less meat on your bones than a butchers' pencil and increase you power by a bunch but if you have a plan you can get there. For me, I can't seem to be able to get both accomplished at the same time. YMMV.

FTP is always something that's nice to have more of but those sub 8 minute efforts are often the territory of folks whose FTP might not be the best but they can ride short time trials like nobody's business. Even shorter hills require less FTP and more brute grunt and are often the territory of the big guys that can put out stupid amounts of power for a couple of minutes. Watch the classics - you'll see the likes of Boonen (who's about 6ft3 and 180lbs) shred up those shorter steep hills after 200km but you'll never see him up there on the bigger climbs.

30 seconds - that sounds like you're going completely anaerobic ie L6. If you have a good base of L3 and L4 work it may serve you well, if this is really what your goal for the year is (too get revenge on the smaller hills), to do some honest L5 work. If you don't have a good base of training to tap into I'd wait. Your time will come...

 

[RapDaddyo]

Originally Posted by swampy1970 .


Well you either need a bigger pair of cojones or sweat buckets over the wifes best towels in order to change that. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/wink.gif Either way you need a bigger fan because it's effecting your training and the extra stress wont make recovery any easier either.

Hills are the killing fields of bike riding - even half mile ones. If anything those are the worst as it's VO2 max to the max and also factors in weight. Basically, you need less meat on your bones than a butchers' pencil and increase you power by a bunch but if you have a plan you can get there. For me, I can't seem to be able to get both accomplished at the same time. YMMV.

FTP is always something that's nice to have more of but those sub 8 minute efforts are often the territory of folks whose FTP might not be the best but they can ride short time trials like nobody's business. Even shorter hills require less FTP and more brute grunt and are often the territory of the big guys that can put out stupid amounts of power for a couple of minutes. Watch the classics - you'll see the likes of Boonen (who's about 6ft3 and 180lbs) shred up those shorter steep hills after 200km but you'll never see him up there on the bigger climbs.

30 seconds - that sounds like you're going completely anaerobic ie L6. If you have a good base of L3 and L4 work it may serve you well, if this is really what your goal for the year is (too get revenge on the smaller hills), to do some honest L5 work. If you don't have a good base of training to tap into I'd wait. Your time will come...

I agree with the thrust of this post. A good FTP gets you in the game, but a good AWC (anaerobic work capacity) makes you a player and not a looker. What some don't realize is that AWC is a partially non-renewable resource. Granted, the largest part of AWC recovers quickly (e.g., 30s half-life), but the other part recovers very slowly (e.g., multiple hours half-life). So, it's not the first anaerobic effort that you can't respond to, it's the 5th or 6th or 10th. But, I also agree with the priority -- FTP then AWC.

 

[hrumpole]

Some good news today. Seems that the earlier breakthrough was in the ballpark. 3:45 at an NP of 203. Elevation corrected vertical = 6500 (Garmin connect).


Peak 60 minute NP=229 (the second hour), with average HR in tempo zone, which suggests that RDO was right about being able possibly to hit 235 for an hour. (Peak xpower=207. Big difference, and can't figure out why-supposed to be basically the same. 22w is a lot over an hour-to me, anyway). (By way of comparison, two months ago I hit an NP of 229 for 20 min with avg HR in mid-threshold and I thought I would spew a lung).

CTL is at about 52, and I'd like to see it hit 80 before I try working on the shorter intervals. Since starting on December 1, my belt has come in 2 notches (down to the last one), my jeans are too roomy, but my weight has not materially changed. Performance on the road has definitely improved.

Hard for me to say now where my strengths will lie. Seems to me there's still too much to learn and not enough data. As a younger person, I'd characterize my running strengths as distances of 400 yards or less. But I was a lot lighter, and not a cyclist so this is all pure navel-gazing. More likely for me to be the kind of person that could "pop" up a shorter rise than grind out mile after mile in the alps. If I can, seems to me that the first step is to get FTP up over 3 w/kg, and then pick an event.

(The way Coggan explained it, each one of those anaerobic bursts is a "match". The bigger and deeper the base, the bigger a matchbook you can build. Is that what you mean?)