Training Status??? (IV)
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I planned to ride outside yesterday as we are getting rain the next couple of days. I got a call from the car dealership where I ordered a new car several months ago in Los Angeles requesting that I pick it up since they were planning to shut down today. I was scheduled to pick it up on Thursday.
I was dressed in cycling clothes and ready to go out the door. I changed, loaded up all the stuff I needed and drove from SD to LA in 2 hours which is record time just traveling with traffic. I turned in my old car, signed the papers and drove home in the same amount of time. I am happy to have the new car and not have it at the dealership waiting for them to reopen.
Today, I am on the trainer - ug.
I was dressed in cycling clothes and ready to go out the door. I changed, loaded up all the stuff I needed and drove from SD to LA in 2 hours which is record time just traveling with traffic. I turned in my old car, signed the papers and drove home in the same amount of time. I am happy to have the new car and not have it at the dealership waiting for them to reopen.
Today, I am on the trainer - ug.
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First Worlds ride, probably the last one for a few weeks, though knowing some of my teammates they'll ride through it despite quarantine orders. I really love Worlds (even more so than actual races) and its going to be hard not doing it. Didn't do well at all; CTL is at 60 and I started out like I was in peak form and cracked early on. Wasn't alone though and our little group worked pretty well.
IMO, being fit raises the immunity system; but you go too far and it cracks. One has to go pretty far to hit that number, and most cyclists (i.e. non or casual racers) don't come close. Reducing your dietary intake is probably the worst thing to do, that doesn't mean gaining a ton of weight. **EDIT** I should probably add doing a century or any 200+ tss ride lowers it for a short period as well, so I'm avoiding that right now.
IMO, I'd just stay in that 70-80 CTL range so when the fog does clear you're mostly there... at least that's my plan.
Had the same conversation with Racer Ex last night. Hella tough to justify training and dieting for hill climbs that are apt to not happen. Guys have a hard enough time staying motivated for a race next week if it might rain. I can't wrap my head around 8 weeks of starving. Kind pulled the rip cord for the week and will reevaluate on a week by week basis.
Hopefully about to start back up this week. Took some time off to get my legs and head straight before getting back on the horse.
I needed to not ride for a little bit and reset my frame of mind. I'd been training for racing, and the uncertainty of the season was really giving me the "what's the point" feeling every time I looked at TrainingPeaks.
At this point, I think I'm going to start "just riding" instead of following a training plan...at least for a little bit. It's extremely tough for me to justify a training plan if there is no "goal".
I needed to not ride for a little bit and reset my frame of mind. I'd been training for racing, and the uncertainty of the season was really giving me the "what's the point" feeling every time I looked at TrainingPeaks.
At this point, I think I'm going to start "just riding" instead of following a training plan...at least for a little bit. It's extremely tough for me to justify a training plan if there is no "goal".
Last edited by furiousferret; 03-18-20 at 10:07 AM.
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The good news is that I've been deemed essential, so I'm still coming to work. The bad news is that I have hardly ridden at all in the last two weeks because we've been scrambling at work to keep things moving with everything shutting down. I may be able to ride Zwift tonight. And I might just fall asleep on the couch instead.
Stay safe, everyone.
Stay safe, everyone.
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Raining and windy so trainer. 2 sets of 4x(1’z1, 1’z2, 1’z3ramp to z4, 1’z2, 1’z3, 1’z2, 1’z3). I someone wants to try this, you can do it as written or up the z by one instead of z3 do z4. Another way to make it even harder is to stay in the same gear. Pick a z2 gear and then increase cadence to increase power. I changed gears today but sometimes I use only one gear.
Since there are a lot of changes, time goes fast and easier intervals seem short. It takes 56 minutes plus warmup and cool down and rest between sets.
Since there are a lot of changes, time goes fast and easier intervals seem short. It takes 56 minutes plus warmup and cool down and rest between sets.
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Ugh. There's goes my last race. I hope some of the summer ones stay but I'm not counting on it.
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2x24ish over/unders for no reason whatsoever. I suppose there are a couple of longer KOMs I would like to retake. Maybe I'll focus on that. I'm not entirely sure what my ftp is as this point so I picked a number for the "over" and another number for the "under" and it felt reasonably correct and went fine.
Last edited by TheKillerPenguin; 03-18-20 at 10:20 PM.
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Cranked it pretty good today. I think one of the good internal questions we can ask ourselves is 'why we do this.' Surely it isn't only to race, or to win, since there's really not a lot of that. On the most modest timelines we all pretty much suck. But we get health, and satisfaction, and enjoyment. I love...love...getting on top of an interval. I absolutely love the subtle sense of my breath after I'm training. I know the feeling intimately, and can tell so much about my mind and physical well being just by tuning into the way I breathe in those moments. There's more to all this than just pulling a wheel up to a start line, and then crossing the finish line. It may be a long while until any of us get to do that again. If our happiness or satisfaction between now and then and is contingent upon the activity we would identify as 'racing,' it is apt to be a long hard dry spell. If we label this an impediment it will be. But what kind of opportunity might it be? If we look at it as a chance to work on some aspect of the mind, or our body, or attitude might there be a way to pull something positive from it?
Last edited by gsteinb; 03-19-20 at 11:57 AM.
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Agreed. I love the feeling of being fit, lean, muscular and in touch with my body. I don't really plan on backing off on my training, for now at least. Should hit ~16h this week with some intervals tomorrow and a big one Saturday. Although that will probably be solo or with 1 or 2 others max, for obvious reasons.
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Great post gsteinb. The health and satisfaction of training has always been the biggest reason why I race. It really had to be when I had young kids because I could only make it to a few races a year for several years. A close second, however, is the comradery. Riding a lot more alone, a lot less (if at all) with friends is going to take more adjustment than missing 1/2 a season (or more) of races.
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Amen to that, I hardly do road races (although I have had pretty full CX seasons the past 2 years) but I'd keep training even with no races. Training for me as just been about self improvement, not results (because clearly I fail if the goal were results lol). So when people say they don't want to train because "they don't race" I kind of shake my head because training is more than racing, people want to be fitter people and training helps achieve that, even if competition or even "riding fast" isn't the goal. I think a lot of recreational cyclists would enjoy riding much more if they put some effort into some degree of structured training.
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I do understand the zen part of which Gary speaks. A steady, hard pull when you get that breathing thing going, there's nothing quite like it. It imprints on your brain and you feel it later. Just this Sunday I got in a line with 7 or 8 guys for 15 miles with no stoplights or traffic. I kept thinking about it later and how much fun it was. Is that weird?
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not weird at all! I love rolling a small group or full on TTT - let's get some speed!
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Cranked it pretty good today. I think one of the good internal questions we can ask ourselves is 'why we do this.' Surely it isn't only to race, or to win, since there's really not a lot of that. On the most modest timelines we all pretty much suck. But we get health, and satisfaction, and enjoyment. I love...love...getting on top of an interval. I absolutely love the subtle sense of my breath after I'm training. I know the feeling intimately, and can tell so much about my mind and physical well being just by tuning into the way I breathe in those moments. There's more to all this than just pulling a wheel up to a start line, and then crossing the finish line. It may be a long while until any of us get to do that again. If our happiness or satisfaction between now and then and is contingent upon the activity we would identify as 'racing,' it is apt to be a long hard dry spell. If we label this an impediment it will be. But what kind of opportunity might it be? If we look at it as a chance to work on some aspect of the mind, or our body, or attitude might there be a way to pull something positive from it?
For me at least, 90% of why I train is to race - and 99% of why I race is to win. It hasn't always been that way with me but it is for sure now.
Without the possibility of racing in the near future it does make my question all of it. But I'm training as if racing is right around the corner for now!
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And on that note I did a "ramp" test on the Tacx earlier tonight.
One thing that confuses me is the Tacx reads about 25w lower than the Power2Max cranks.. so my FTP is either 262w or about 285w..
I hear there's a way to sync the Tacx to the P2M (or any external power meter), I need to get on that I guess. Explains why "100%" of my FTP on the Tacx felt so hard..
One thing that confuses me is the Tacx reads about 25w lower than the Power2Max cranks.. so my FTP is either 262w or about 285w..
I hear there's a way to sync the Tacx to the P2M (or any external power meter), I need to get on that I guess. Explains why "100%" of my FTP on the Tacx felt so hard..
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Indeed. The feeling of accomplishment of finishing a hard workout or hard ride is cool. But as you know, the feeling of winning an actual race is next level ****.
For me at least, 90% of why I train is to race - and 99% of why I race is to win. It hasn't always been that way with me but it is for sure now.
Without the possibility of racing in the near future it does make my question all of it. But I'm training as if racing is right around the corner for now!
For me at least, 90% of why I train is to race - and 99% of why I race is to win. It hasn't always been that way with me but it is for sure now.
Without the possibility of racing in the near future it does make my question all of it. But I'm training as if racing is right around the corner for now!
I feel you. Not being argumentative, but I am saying the absolute opposite though. For me there's more to it all. We're not racing any time soon. I'd be shocked if races are salvaged this year. My body is the same though, and it needs to move and feel a certain way.
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It was supposed to rain yesterday but I got out for a two hour tempo ride from PB to Swamis that ended up with a lot of SST and threshold. Part of the motivation was that after Swamis that included a bio break, hand washing and hand sanitization and careful avoidance of others it started to rain in Solano Beach. I did not want to be cold and wet so I put it in high gear and managed to ride out of the rain and beat it back to the start.
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It's been the longest 9 days at work that I can remember; transitioning 1000 people to work and teach from home. 3 days ago I reminded myself self-care is important in a crisis, got out for an hour each of the last 3 days. About to head home and do it again before logging back in for work.
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And on that note I did a "ramp" test on the Tacx earlier tonight.
One thing that confuses me is the Tacx reads about 25w lower than the Power2Max cranks.. so my FTP is either 262w or about 285w..
I hear there's a way to sync the Tacx to the P2M (or any external power meter), I need to get on that I guess. Explains why "100%" of my FTP on the Tacx felt so hard..
One thing that confuses me is the Tacx reads about 25w lower than the Power2Max cranks.. so my FTP is either 262w or about 285w..
I hear there's a way to sync the Tacx to the P2M (or any external power meter), I need to get on that I guess. Explains why "100%" of my FTP on the Tacx felt so hard..
I'm having the same issue with my Kickr, though not as bad as 25w. About 5-10w when at or above threshold, pretty spot on for z2 stuff though. A spin down helped tremendously. I just do Zwift on the computer but keep my Garmin running so I can see my *real* watts and adjust the ERG setting accordingly. So yesterday's 4x5's @ 290ish were actually 300ish per Garmin. Annoyingly it shows the lower number on Strava though so now I seem more out of shape than I already was
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And on that note I did a "ramp" test on the Tacx earlier tonight.
One thing that confuses me is the Tacx reads about 25w lower than the Power2Max cranks.. so my FTP is either 262w or about 285w..
I hear there's a way to sync the Tacx to the P2M (or any external power meter), I need to get on that I guess. Explains why "100%" of my FTP on the Tacx felt so hard..
One thing that confuses me is the Tacx reads about 25w lower than the Power2Max cranks.. so my FTP is either 262w or about 285w..
I hear there's a way to sync the Tacx to the P2M (or any external power meter), I need to get on that I guess. Explains why "100%" of my FTP on the Tacx felt so hard..
Neo's are supposedly the gold standard for power reading, so if that's both indoors I'd probably believe the Tacx.
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Moderate day today, started with 30' of TT bike on the trainer, including a 15' SST effort in aero. I had the bike on there from yesterday (raining) so I just kept it there for the start of my ride. Then headed out for an hour total including 1x10' at about 101% and then 1x3' at about 125%. A ~45 min z1/2 spin home from work later will round out the day. Work is classified as an essential business since we have a diagnostic division that has emergency COVID funding. Not my department but we're small enough (~60 FTE) that we all get to come in, which is good for my sanity, as long as people are adhering to the rules and mostly staying home outside of work.
Tomorrow will be 6 hours of (solo) zone 2. Hopefully I don't get too bored out there...
Tomorrow will be 6 hours of (solo) zone 2. Hopefully I don't get too bored out there...
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I have a bunch of credit at my old LBS. What smart trainer should I buy?
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Latest Version of Tacx Neo.
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Is that differential outdoor power numbers, if so that's about right. We're it becomes a PITA, is when you try to calculate that into your tss, ftp, etc. Now Cycling Analytics does an indoors modifier, which mine is set at 10% (which is probably more like 8% but 10 is easier to translate).
Neo's are supposedly the gold standard for power reading, so if that's both indoors I'd probably believe the Tacx.
Neo's are supposedly the gold standard for power reading, so if that's both indoors I'd probably believe the Tacx.
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As for Indoor / Outdoor numbers; some say its just heat that causes it, my (and many others) believe you can generate more power outdoors because your are locked in place. The heat definitely is a factor, but personally there's no way I can hit outdoor numbers because you can't generate extra power by rocking the bike and using my upper body to stabilize, manipulating wind and grades, etc.
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I think he was saying his trainer reads 25w low relative to his power meter, not that he's losing power when riding indoors. I connect my quarq to zwift instead of my trainer for the same reason, though in my case I believe my trainer reads high.
Sprints yesterday. Up to 1197w peak / 1067 10sec. Was gonna ride outdoors today but alas, it is raining and a bit on the cooler side.
Sprints yesterday. Up to 1197w peak / 1067 10sec. Was gonna ride outdoors today but alas, it is raining and a bit on the cooler side.