Originally Posted by
Hermes
Welcome bampilot06. Here are a couple of ideas / observations for you...not criticisms.
We have two sets of Garmin Ralley duels. My wife uses her on her track bike and mine swap between track and gravel bike - no issues. The earlier versions of Garmin vector pedals had battery compartment problems that lead to power spikes. Garmin provided a hardware fix.
Not that I have to but I do not understand the relationship between the target power and actual power in the chart. It seems like you are putting in power when it should be zero. Also, there are power spikes on the recovery part of the workout. What is that all about? Terrain?
Your heart rate drops and then ramps up 1/2 way through the interval. Maybe that is normal for you. My wife and I doing a similar our HR ramps and then holds or slightly builds over the intervals. Of course that is with 17 years of continuous training and racing.
When I do a hill climb race, my power will be constant as along as the terrain is steady. If the terrain changes to a flatter terrain, then I gear up and apply more force to keep the power up. If I just hold level of effort and let the cadence increase, the power will drop. That is independent of the power meter being used.
Years back, I did some similar 5x5 and I found it difficult to find terrain that worked. I used a couple of hills to that provided a relatively constant grade for the 5' on portion and the coasted back for the off portion. Today, the coach and group with whom I train, we do not do this type of interval. Not saying it is wrong, we do other intervals.
We have a guy on our racing team that is constantly looking for the perfect interval. It does not exist. There are three energy producing systems to train and a number of ways to do it. What I have found is that consistency is key and I do not focus on performance. I focus on level of effort (power as a guide) and completion of the workout against a plan and goal. I am a power junky but I do not let it be a limiter.
You can blame
TMonk and me for this response. I was also in on the idea of inviting members such as yourself into the racing forum. Now, I bet you are really glad you posted something.
Hermes! Thank you so much for the feedback!
I honestly only have a vague idea about what I am doing. I also have a tendency to my own worst enemy, over think, push myself too hard, as well as occasionally borderline over train.
I have been riding for about 5 years. When I started I was obese and had a fitness of zero. First 3 years was me riding on my days off, typically 4 on 3 off, slowly racking up miles. I kind of got addicted to my mile count, fed my ego. Started doing group rides, got faster, and about 3 years ago when I thought I was fast I decided I could win races. Boy was I wrong. What I thought was fast was not fast at all. So I started training loosely with an official coach, he introduced me to 30/30s and 5 min threshold intervals. That was about the extent of my training up until this past year.
This past year I really wanted to get serious with the racing. My team has a lot of good guys on it, and I wanted to actually contribute. I started using garmin training plans to kind of get some work out ideas, some structure. That was good in the beginning but the workouts were kind of easy and some were just silly. LAJ has been kind enough to help me, and has guided me, I was posting in Addiction, but TMONK recommended that I come here.
Okay, so the 5x5 well 6x5 for today.
I use a 2.5 mile stretch of road in a neighborhood. It’s the main drive so no stops signs, traffic is light, road is wide and all the cyclist use this section. It is fairly flat, but does have some small dips in the road. I usually can anticipate these and keep the power fairley consistent, today I could not. I like your response about the “perfect” interval because I have been beating myself up doing these trying to maintain that “290” or whatever I decided to hold. I feel like a failure when I deviate below that.
So in between sets, where the power should be “zero”, that was me building this workout and I just left it in the default recovery. Usually I would have put zone 2 or 1 there. When the set is over I just pedal lightly and recover for a set time. The spikes you see, are actually me standing up and turning around in the road. Crazy that they are that prominent in the chart.
I am not understanding the HR. When I start the interval set I slowly but steadily bring the power in until I see the number I want and I then focus on keeping the effort that is required for the power . My HR takes a second to catch up, I assumed that was normal. My fitness is extremely high, could that be the cause of the delay in HR I think you are talking about.
Depending on my days off I typically average 12-15 hours in the saddle a week. Typically I am only home 4 days a week.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated.