hubcyclist

after last night's failed over-under adventure, did today's long tempo intervals, 2hrs with 3x30 @ 85% 130tss, felt like less of a failure lol another hard week ahead before recovery.

Ygduf

since getting worked at a race a few weeks back I decided to get fast again.

I'm -5 lbs and have had 3 really nice weeks.

long picture but scrolling is easier than multi-crop

mattm

Nice. I hope week 4 was like < 10 hours and load: < 500?

burnthesheep

You guys are nuts, those TSS scores.

I went out for a recon ride of the course for this coming weekend. Only really one crap corner. It's like an acute angle, nice......not. That's going to be a cluster.

I didn't have much time so only did 2 laps for ~15mi. Race is 4 laps. Gotta stay safe and be smart. There's a good place on the last lap to make sure you're in good position.

caloso

Cold rain this morning. Training partner bailed on me. I was already wet when I got his text, so I did the ride anyway. 2x20' 90-93%. Of course it stopped raining just as I pulled in. Figures.

furiousferret

I have a slight strain in the hamstring. Little to do with training more to do with my hip instability (I've strained or tore every muscle that connects to my left leg in the past 5 years). Going to do my best to balance recovery and training, but I'm not planning on sitting out unless my body tells me.

So long as I do my stretches and wear my SI belt, I should be fine.

Ygduf

this is now week 4 and thankfully it's raining to keep me out of too much trouble. Though I raced right through illness and feel pretty good, still.

Ygduf

wtf is this, r/medical? why is there a picture in that post.

furiousferret

I feel the need to justify low TSS weeks to this sub, especially the 2 people that follow me on Strava (although I suspect its a bot on their account).

Thanks for reminding me to shave.

TheKillerPenguin

Finally worked back above the 4hr duration mark again. Feels pretty normal! Almost too normal. Suspiciously normal.

I've focused on getting in a lot of sweet spot since lower volume usually allows for higher intensity, and as my volume has begun to increase it seems to have paid off the way I wanted it to. Glad it is working out, I think I would've pooped myself in anger if it didn't.

Ttoc6

Day off today, so I played with tt position a bit. This position is pretty damn close to uci legal. I pushed my saddle back, raised it a bit and lowered the front end 20mm. My back leveled out and I feel I'm tucking my neck better than I was before. Thoughts?

New:
10mm setback.jpg

Old:
30mmold.jpg

furiousferret

That's an awesome CX bike, all you need is orange bar tape (like mine).

The position looks close, but I think your seat needs to be lowered just a tad.

tetonrider

Your head is lower--can't say for sure if that is faster for you, but it certainly looks to be tucked in more. Eyeball is often wrong on these things. That said, the basics are there.

Back doesn't look what I would call level.

Why are you going UCI-legal? Maybe move the saddle forward and up; consider pushing the pads out further ... IF getting toward level is your goal.

hubcyclist

2hrs today with 6x5min @ 110% followed by z2 @ 65%, was tough but doable, so I'm feeling good about myself for now lol. On a whim, I tried this vega sport product for pre-workout, supposedly for energy and what not, tasted terrible, so even if it did help me I wouldn't try and consume that ever again

Ygduf

also worth noting that it's difficult to do an entire tt staring at the ground behind your front wheel

TMonk

VO2 max workout today on Fiesta:

3' @ 122%
4' @ 117%
4' @ 113%
4' @ 115%
3' @ 120%

The first two were very doable, the second two were hard. The last one is a bit skewed too because I had to coast/soft pedal for a few seconds to not slide out on the 1 corner at Fiesta (it was wet) so the last 30" or so were all-out.

Also, I started my ride in the drizzle at ~48 F so I think I earned my hardman points for the day . Fortunately the showers were light and intermittent so I never really got soaked. Long sleeves, gloves and a wind vest did the trick for me today.

Fingers crossed that it's dry for my commute home this evening! If not no biggie it's only 8 miles.

rubiksoval

Vo2 max workout on a hill on the way to work this morning. Managed to total up 15:30 minutes at 95% vo2 max with almost 11 minutes at 100% vo2max (about 130% ftp).

Hit 25 minutes at ftp on the way home.

Ouch day.

TMonk

How do you target 100% VO2 max using a power meter? Is 130% a good approximation on average? If so, 11 minutes at 100% VO2 max is indeed very ouch.

aaronmcd

Not sure what my VO2 max power in right now having not done VO2 work in many months. Record 5' is 400, this year I've hit 345.

Did VO2 work today. Did 4x4:30 at about 115% successfully but it was hard mentally just getting back into it. Better than last week where I failed to break 105% on the 3rd effort. Hopefully I can work up to 6 or so efforts at 30 more watts in a month or 2.

It seems the VO2 is the most important for racing for me - having a low threshold means I really need that extra power for recovery and hanging on at my limit. Might have been able to chase back on after my crash on Saturday if my VO2 was up to my racing standard.

I want to add in sprints this block, but OTOH my threshold still needs work and Im never gonna win a field sprint anyway. Actually I may not even participate in a field sprint cuz I always go for a last ditch 6 minute attack knowing my weak sprint lol.

Ttoc6

Thanks for the TT advice. @Ygduf, I can actually see up the road pretty well in that position. The way the aerohead helmet fits on your head, it looks like I'm extremly head down, but lets me look up the road enough that I only have to pop up every once and a while to check further up the way.

@tetonrider . Becoming UCI legal is less of a reason and more of an effect of playing with position to see if I can get this hump out of my back. I've been trying for years to get a flat back, but I'm convinced it's just not how my body is shaped.. Yet I still try. Going to ride the tt bike for tomorrow's ride and see how the power output feels in this position, will lower the saddle a smidge though. When you say pads out, do you mean along the length of the bike, or the width of the bars?


Today's workout was a fun one. I really like this "tuning" period of workouts. A total of 12 minutes of work over a 75minute ride. It's damn hard work at way above threshold, but it's nice to have short intervals! Much easier mentally to suffer through when your longest "on" period is 1 minute. 100TSS in 75 minute for itsn't bad either lol

Enthalpic

If you cant get lab tested using a ramp test (MAP) is probably better than a % of FTP.

wktmeow

My position makes it pretty hard to look up the road the whole time, so I find myself looking 6-10 ft ahead of my front wheel and glancing up the road every 20-30 seconds, from the guys I talked to though it sounds like that's fairly common.

@Ttoc6 have you tried moving the saddle back at all to stretch you out some? Guess it depends if you extend out at the upper back or at the shoulders, but it might help you get flatter, but it's also hard to tell where youre at now since that photo seems to have some wide angle distortion to it. Can you post another but more level with your torso?

Ttoc6

There is about a 5cm saddle set back difference between the two pictures posted above. I can try pushing it back further. I'll try to get a few more pics tomorrow when I hop back on the bike.

I looked at some 'pro' timetriallist / triathlete pics today while at work and it seemed almost split between people like bradley wiggins and fabian cancellera ( super flat back) and people like Domoulin or Lance armstrong (round/ hunchback). I guess I'll do some more reading, hard to find any sort of data on this and I don't want to plop down the money to go to the local wind tunnel quite yet. Got some lower hanging fruit to get first.

TheKillerPenguin

is there like a short flat loop you can do laps on close by? You could do ghetto aero testing with that.

Ttoc6

yes, but they're covered in snow right now and it's too cold to ride without a jacket lol.