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



bg, interesting way to approach the split of the AM/PM workouts. Many moons ago I would try and do AM on the trainer and on the way home I would go through CP and would try and catch a few wheels before I got home. I never had a good PM session but I never approached them with the balance you have. I like it. I am sure it is hard to say but would you say that if you did the AM/PM session as one session with about the same TSS, would you feel the same the next day?

btw, are you still in build or maintain on the CTL slope right now?

tb, this time of the year what type of TSS scores are you trying to hit? I am usually doing the TSS right now in the 130-150 of the five days a week atleast 4 of them and than 1 day of 100 or less. I would bring down the numbers of days of 130-150 type of score down as the weather got better.

bp, right now it is all about building for me and if you have the ability to put in those kind of hours and miles, you will be golden with these type of ride.

A little story from a few years ago in the women's racing results was one woman who nobody knew, no team and was never seen in CP training was beating everyone hands down and moving up the cats quick. A friend of mine found out her training consisted almost daily of 2-3 hours each way of rides into the city from upstate and back to pick up groceries. She had no idea of her numbers but a friend of her told her to race and tried it out. When she reached CAT 2 the success stopped and was not interested in doing more serious training.

I would still do atleast once a week now focus on the IF so the legs do not forget what that feels like when we have to do some pulling instead of pushing. BTW, 238 AP for that distance, NICE!

And since we are all sharing I had a great 3 hours on the trainer today. I finished at ~185 but what was most important was how I felt which was not bad at all. For these rides I love my 42 and since my back went whacky I have found compact to be my best friend. I will see how I wake up but I think I will see if I can do a recovery ride for an hour and spend more time in the TT bars.

I got to see Sucker Punch once and than chapter stopped to my favorite scenes...

-john
 
jsirabella said:
And since we are all sharing I had a great 3 hours on the trainer today.  I finished at ~185 but what was most important was how I felt which was not bad at all.  For these rides I love my 42 and since my back went whacky I have found compact to be my best friend.  I will see how I wake up but I think I will see if I can do a recovery ride for an hour and spend more time in the TT bars.    I got to see Sucker Punch once and than chapter stopped to my favorite scenes... -john
3hrs - superb effort! Couldn't dream of that
 
Originally Posted by Bigpikle .


3hrs - superb effort! Couldn't dream of that
For indoors - me either, but I can imagine how much improvement one could get from those type of sessions. Wish I had the time during the week to get in 2+ hour daily training.

......and in context of trying to up the training hours I had the lovely discomfort of training last night with what feels like a developing saddle sore in the crease. I had the fun task of suffering L4 and the saddle discomfort at the same time. Got to love those types of things that pop up and can add extra moments of joy in training and post training. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif

No worries......back for more L4 tonight with a pre training coating of Lidocaine to numb the area and make sure my bib shorts don't get bunched up again in the crease./img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif

When something like this pops up I sure love the soothing feel of zinc oxide (diaper rash ointment) and a coating of perscription strength antibiotic ointment just for added insurance. For those that are lurking and are new to increased training time, zinc oxide is a thick paste and can be messy, but really does a great job soothing the feel of a rash. Disclaimer: Of course this is just to make things feel better after training and is not part of treatment of an infection or correction to what caused it in the first place.
 
felt and bp, thanks for the encouragement but if you guys have the time I do not think anyone would find it is bad as it sounds. I try and do this time of the year atleast twice a week these type of rides. The key to make them work for me are a couple things

1) I do not do intervals but instead a gradual build and every 20 minutes or so I will see how it feels. If it feels too easy I would increase by 10-20 watts but even with the increase it should not feel like an interval.

2) For me my 42 is a nice size ring for doing touring or just getting around the city. When I was doing some CX I found it to really work for me. I find for myself easy means being able to spin at about a 95 without too much effort. It should never feel like I have to take it down to below a 90 to keep going.

3) Have a few cans of coke around for the sugar high and some great movies on the tube which for means usually means girls with weapons blowing the hell out of stuff. Lock and load type movies like Underworld or just saw Hansel and Gretel recently. I do not need a big plot. I try and make the reason I am there is to watch the flick, not the ride. Or atleast I tell myself that.

4) The last and most important thing in my case is moving around a bit every so often to make sure the backside survives it. Sorry to hear about the pains down under Felt, trust me the back can get in the way and my wife found this restoration cream (seabury??) which I thought was a joke but every time she rubs it on my back at night, I do feel ready for a good ride the next day.

I started to do these rides cause honestly outdoors you will never find an area that you can do these type of steady rides, I can change gears all ride long but honestly you will always hit areas that you will have to go hard and other areas you can not keep the watts up. The trainer takes that all away and it also makes sure you do not coast.

If you got the time one day, give it a shot and enter the ride thinking as fun instead of a sufferfest,. That is something I learned over the last two years was to stop thinking of training as sufferfest exclusive. They can be a fun way to get some where, pass the day and get the health benefits and save some cash on the way. Trust me I can look funny when you see a CX frame, TT bars, disc wheels set with PT and my saddles on the back with rack coming by to get to the office. lawl...

-john

One other thing I almost forgot which has been a side benefit, once you get used to these 3 hour rides on the trainer, 2 hours or less feels so short and makes a 20 minute interval feel so much shorter. It is all mental but that is a good thing.
 
Js- I suspect that doing 4x20 all in one lump may be more mentally and physically difficult than breaking it into two workouts. With regards to recovery, it is hard to say. Sometimes, as with yesterday morning, the fatigue from the night before is very apparent. Last night I knocked out 1hr @ 88% without much effort, while in the a.m. I canned the effort after the 1st 2 minutes. So as indicated by last nights effort and past efforts are a strong indication that my FTP has taken a big jump, sure my legs are loaded after these ~90% efforts, but I have lots more in the tank. Right now I feel great, given that I am within 2lbs of my target weight I added 300 calories per day into my diet and the difference in how I feel is astounding!!
 
Originally Posted by bgoetz .
Right now I feel great, given that I am within 2lbs of my target weight I added 300 calories per day into my diet and the difference in how I feel is astounding!!
Food is not a bad thing at all! The one thing this endeavor does allow us is a bit more freedom in the calorie area. My wife at night gets a bit ****** off at that one for sure when we are having dinner..

-js
 
JS,

First off, 3 hours on the trainer officially crowns you king of the mental focus club! Nice... I tried for a 2x20 the other day. Typically I will do them at ~300 watts with ~160bpm outdoors. I had 280 in the first 10' of the 1st interval and ended with an average of 270, with 170+bpm. I could not bear the 2nd one inside and braved the cold to finish off the workout.

Typically I aim for TSS of 115 through early build. In my base period it consists of 4 days doing 90' L3 rides at lunch with one evening ride of ~2 hours (one day off totally). I'll dance into L4, but certainly not the higher end. Weekends are 5+ hours on Saturday and 2-3 on Sunday. Lots of hours and lots of TSS.

Later base and early build I shift some of my L3 rides into more specific workouts. L4 becomes more predominant. Additionally, I work on some QA stuff that really addresses my weakness. I won't advocate cadence work across the board, but low cadence drills work for me, as do high cadence drills.

I start my base training in mid to late October, so by January and February I am in full swing. My first race of the year is tyically the first weekend in February, and the block of races that I enjoy finish up in late March. I'll have more than a dozen race days (and some days have up to 3 races) by mid March. Since my personal goals are much earlier in the year than most I am looking to sharpen my fitness with L5+ now and the volume that built the TSS and TSB gives way to more intense race-focused efforts.

If I did not race I would approach my weekly composition very different to what I do now. It would look a lot like my base period, with a dose of change mixed in for variety. I imagine it would look a lot like what you do, with some HOP style work and L5 sprinkled in for a couple weeks out of an 8 week block (just to prevent my body from stagnating).

Keep up the good work, you do something that very few people have the moxy to consider.

T
 
Brad, I do not doubt that your FTP has taken a big jump. The consistency of your schedule and the perserverance have had a tremendous impact. A few more calories as you suggest and that rest week/period will potentially be a godsend.

I had a blessing in disguise this year - I got sick. For the first time in several years I had a cold. It forced me off the bike for 5 days and all I could muster for the next 5 were easy rides no longer than an hour. The end result is that I came back completely fresh. It allowed me to see that all the work I had been putting in and suffering through (residual fatigue is an amazing thing - like a thick fog - you train with it for so long it becomes normal, but once you get out of it you can't believe how much it affected you) has a huge payoff. My L4 efforts were off the charts and I felt fresh coming out of them.
 
I've been doing a steady diet of L2-L4 work since September and I'm not seeing any gains in 20MP. I was doing 20 min intervals in September at 220-240w and I'm still doing them in that range this week and they still feel hard. The high end of that range feels like it is right up against 100%. I have had very little life stress during that time. I have been training with a power meter for 2 years and I have been staring at numbers in the 220-240 range the whole time. It's getting disheartening. My CTL is 80 TSS/day and climbing at 5 TSS/week currently.

One oddball thing is that I tested my 20MP on 10/20 at 273w, but I have never come close to reproducing that number. I did a 4x5(5) this week coming off a day of rest and only matched 273w on the first interval. The 20MP test before that was 254w at the peak of the season.
 
Originally Posted by gudujarlson .

I've been doing a steady diet of L2-L4 work since September and I'm not seeing any gains in 20MP. I was doing 20 min intervals in September at 220-240w and I'm still doing them in that range this week and they still feel hard. The high end of that range feels like it is right up against 100%. I have had very little life stress during that time. I have been training with a power meter for 2 years and I have been staring at numbers in the 220-240 range the whole time. It's getting disheartening. My CTL is 80 TSS/day and climbing at 5 TSS/week currently.

One oddball thing is that I tested my 20MP on 10/20 at 273w, but I have never come close to reproducing that number. I did a 4x5(5) this week coming off a day of rest and only matched 273w on the first interval. The 20MP test before that was 254w at the peak of the season.
It sounds to me as though you are riding your 20min intervals at too low power if your goal is to increase your aerobic power. My rule of thumb is 90% of my max power for a given duration. So, based on my approach I would have been riding my 20min efforts at ~.90x273=246W. Also, when did you last retest your 20min power (or any duration) fresh? If you want to see where you are, my suggestion is to take a day off then do a constant power to exhaustion test. If I had your numbers, I think I would choose 265W. Just get warmed up, set it on your target power and then hold that number until you can't any longer (the mind is willing but the legs aren't). That will give you a valid MMP data point, regardless of the actual duration. Who knows, maybe you'll go a full hour.
 
Also, when did you last retest your 20min power (or any duration) fresh?
On 10/20 I pulled off 273w for 20min after 1 day of rest, but I think it was a fluke or my power meter was off. I can barely do that for 5min after 1 day of rest now. The average speed of the test was no higher than normal and I did it on the same course which is in a valley protected from wind. I didn't note what I was running for tires. Prior to that back in June I did 257w on 4 days rest but after 5MP, 1MP, and 20sec tests on the same day. I also did a ~20min TT at 254w in May. At first I believed the 273w number, but I have since become very skeptical.

I should note that I road 10-15 hours/week with 2 1-1.5hr workouts/day during the week and 1 3-5hr workout/day on the weekends; 2 off-bike days/week. Consequently, I didn't do 2x20 at 90% FTP every workout. I did a lot of L3 during the week and L2/L3 on the weekends.
 
Originally Posted by gudujarlson .

back in June I did 257w on 4 days rest but after 5MP, 1MP, and 20sec tests on the same day. I also did a ~20min TT at 254w in May.
I agree with you that the 273W effort is an outlier. It sounds as though your 20min power is in the 250-260 range. Assuming the high end of the range (260), 90%MMP would be 234W for your training rides. That seems to be what you're doing now. If you want to see an improvement in your aerobic power, my suggestion would be to increase your weekly volume of L4s (if your schedule permits), not intensity.
 
Originally Posted by RapDaddyo .

I agree with you that the 273W effort is an outlier. It sounds as though your 20min power is in the 250-260 range. Assuming the high end of the range (260), 90%MMP would be 234W for your training rides. That seems to be what you're doing now. If you want to see an improvement in your aerobic power, my suggestion would be to increase your weekly volume of L4s (if your schedule permits), not intensity.
That's basically what's been going through my head. I've been thinking of converting some of the L3's to L4's and, because my first race is April 13, converting some of the L4's to L5's. I'm also planning to get back out on some group rides on weekends. but there aren't that many to choose from in Februrary in Minnesota. It was 7F this morning when I got started. But anyway, I don't seem to be responding to a steady diet of L2/L3/L4 and I don't know why.
 
Have you tried the BB HOP style of workout? I found those to be very helpful in breaking through a plateau. 88-90% effort baseline power and NP spikes every 3 minutes. I counted 25-50 pedal strokes while doing them, but they are essentially intended to last ~15 seconds. You can vary them so that the NP burst is further apart (e.g. every 5 minutes) or the baseline power is lower (~85%), but the format gives you nice SST/L4 work while adding a little helping of intensity to the plate. When done right they present a nice little challenge. You can build up to an hour in duration with the surges every 3 minutes.

The effects for me have been to teach my body to recover from "efforts" at a higher power output than I am normally comfortable with, and to lower my PE during steady state SST/L4 intervals. They have worked on both counts.
 
I have not done an hour of power, but most of my workouts have been outside and so they contain a fair amount of power variation. My NP is often 10w higher than my average. I have also done some 40-45min SST + warmup/cooldown workouts which is basically just riding to work as fast as I can.
 
tb, there is definitely different approaches to training when planning for racing. What type of races do you do? Sounds like you are part of a weekly race event like we have around here in CP and PP. I commend you on doing the training during your lunch time. I am really a morning person and if I do not do it in the morning than I just do not do it. Your training schedule is well rounded and you are putting quite a few hours on that bike once you add them all up. NICE...

Thanks for the words of encouragement.

bp, the breaking up of the workouts really are interesting to me and I have to try and see how WKO++ handles it. Does it consider similar to a next day ride? I look forward to hearing the new FTP breakout number. I have been following your threads for more than a year and you have made amazing strides already.

gudu, As far as hitting the FTP wall, what was your best full hour since September? I ask cause when I first started my training many moons ago I set my numbers based upon a 20 minute test which honestly over estimated. Once I took down the numbers and did a push method I saw the improvements. As RDO suggests take down the L4 efforts to 230 and see how it goes. If it feels too east after 20 minutes just keep extending them. As a footnote, the 20 minute power test said I was a 260 but my best hour was really a 245 ever and once i brought it down to the 245 for all my numbers I saw improvement.

tb, love the BB HOP style of workout. I tried it a few times last year. Great stuff...

-john
 
It's common to plateau if you're not stressing your aerobic capacity. I think you put your finger on it above when you said you were considering converting some of your L2/L3 efforts to L4. I think if you did a steady diet of 90%MMP efforts in the 20-40min duration range, you would see aerobic fitness improvement. You're riding enough total hours (10-15) to improve, I just think you're not creating enough training stress with your current workout schedule.
 
As far as hitting the FTP wall, what was your best full hour since September?
I've never done a 60MP test. I've estimated my FTP based on 95% 20MP, Monad, and ride files. My last estimate was 244w in June and I have not seen anything to suggest changing it.

It sounds like mostly revolves around 20 minute L4 efforts but what are the rest workouts like? Rest days?
I've tried a variety of things since March last year, but last week went like this:

M PM: L4 2x20 (235w,238w)
Tu AM: L3 90min
Tu PM: L1-L3 90min
W AM: L5 4x3-5 90min
W PM: L2 90min
Th: gym
F AM: L3 90min
F PM: L2 90min
Sa: L2/L3 Group Ride 4.5hr
Su: L3 1hr Snowbiking (cut short due to family event)

I've been doing this L3 focused thing since December. Before that I was doing a more L2 and L4 focused schedule. Starting this week I've decided to add back more L4.
 
gudu, if you rides need to be in the 90 minute range than you can not do L3 and see improvement. For me you only see improvements in L3 rides when you can do longer rides. RDO is the expert and in my experience I would try and keep your workout closer to TB laid out in the previous page especially if you are getting ready to race. Like RDO said you need to do more SST/L4 in those 90 minute rides cause right now looks like lots of L3 but they are just not long enough from my experience. With 90 minutes they need to be harder.

You are confident in your FTP so .9 of 245, starting with 2 x 20...steady diet. If you are going to do the AM/PM I like bg pattern where he keeps them fairly equal and fairly short and intense. I have always been a big fan of

M-off
T- L4 - 4 x 10 @ closer to 95% of ftp
W - SST/L4 - 3 x 20, 2 x 30 or 1 x 60 @ .9 of ftp
Th - L3/SST - .8 - .85 of ftp and just feel it out but I would like to not do intervals but instead just a gradual increase as you ride.
F-off
Sat - SST/L3
Su - L2

and change it as TB does closer to race times.

-john

Also as I looked at it closer I see that you are doing the split of 90 minutes AM/PM and while that does add up to 3 hours of L3 I have not tried it that way but my feeling is that you do not get the same benefit of doing a straight 3 hour L3 so imho if your sessions need to be 90 minutes than go with the .9, 20 minute workouts that we know work. Also I can see with that much time AM/PM can get you pretty tired and I think the change up will get you a bit more rest as will be a lower TSS score for sure.

BTW what are your TSS scores on those AM/PM days? Got to be pretty high...

I have not seen a schedule like that one before, interesting stuff.