procrit

Almost 4 hours of riding today, bringing the weekly total to 14 hours! I had a stomach issue yesterday which kept me from eating the carbs I really needed for the ride, and my legs definitely felt it. Had to stop at a gas station for sugar and electrolytes about half way to finish it out.

procrit

Four hours with a quick 15’ ftp effort yesterday, today is 3 hours planned with a tempo effort sandwich in the middle of zone 2 on the front and back end.

Carbs are literally the biggest game changer to my training, I’ve never been able to ride this volume without suffering or needing extended time off. My only problem now is figuring out how to sustain this volume once I have to go back to work and kids sports start back up haha.

TMonk

I did a great job of recognizing inflammation in my left knee very early and knocked it right out. After some test efforts on Sunday, I felt well enough to ride for 4 hours into the mountains on Christmas morning, 5,600' elevation. Awesome. For those with knee issues - the kinesiotape is amazing stuff and does a great job of "band-aiding" things by keeping mechanics good while you sort out imbalance or inflammation issues.

Today, my weekly off day. Strength routine AM, light jog PM.

procrit

If I ever run into issues again I'll have to remember this. When you have tendonitis or inflammation in the joints it can certainly your curb enthusiasm to train. Four hours & 5,600' of elevation is solid!

procrit

On the diet note, I'm trying to figure out a simple formula for calculating how many carbs I should eat per day as a minimum. Right now I'm thinking something like: 250g + (hours of training * 120). So a 1 hour day would be around 370, and a 5 hour day 850. Today I did 3.25 hours, so I'm shooting for 640 grams. Yesterday I did 4 hours and ate around 750-800 grams, and today my legs were even better! The main issue I'm having right now is simply being able to eat this many carbs (cleanly), without feeling absolutely miserable. I don't know if I'm more impressed with a world tour riders FTP, or their ability to shovel in 15g/kg of bodyweight worth of healthy carbs day after day.

procrit

Legs are feeling a little of that hour of high tempo and the 22 hours of riding I’ve done in the last 10 days but RHR and HRV are still looking good, sleep is great too. Today is 3 more hours on the road bike, then heading to the trails to ride MTB with the family. That will finish my month off with over 50 hours!

Next up is a four day block of rest before I roll into a build phase. I haven’t had more than one day off in a row since August, I’m curious how that’s going to go…

TMonk

Yesterday, day off the bike, strength routine in the AM, lite 2.5 mile jog in the PM. My feet wanted to feel a little bit of "push" so I ended up averaging ~7:30/mi pace without going over z3 HR, a self-imposed limiter, I do not run for cardio (just the impact) so they are often run much slower. Had some pep to my step!

This morning, time crunched 45' TT session with 1x30' in position. Stepped up the power to 5-10w under race pace for the last 5', felt reasonably good.

TMonk

Also, it's looking like I may be able to ride 5+ hours one-way to visit family for NYE. Wife, baby, SIL and niece are driving up. That would put me at around 12-13 hours for the week with a big chunk of real world miles. Which is literally double what I have gotten most weeks since Lilly was born. Sweet!

procrit

12+ hours with a newborn is serious work!

We are headed to the ranch today, sitting at 11 1/2 hours over the last 3 days after riding mtb with the family yesterday afternoon. I’m going to bring a bike with me but likely only do some easy recovery sub-100 watt rides just to move during the day.

I mapped a couple of routes to work this morning while I drank my coffee. 37 miles each way using Stravas heat map and my best guess on the safest roads. I feel like that may be my best option for volume as we get into kids sports season. Recon is needed soon…

TMonk

For sure! Could be peak volume for the year surrounding her birth haha. Had Xmas morning and NYE in that calendar week so that helps.

TMonk

Routine solo segment ride. Like 11,000+ free riding in Watopia when I logged on, so stiff competition! Not even gonna post my Titan's, was like 4:20 on a moderate VO2 max effort and only 26th/600 something... how embarrassing. FF Reverse more respectable, screencap below.

Once again I had plenty of juice so I rode with the A bot for 16 min to get 30 min in zone. Attacked it a few min in and stayed 10-15s up from the group of 23 the remainder. Not easy to do on such a flat course! (Tempus).


307w, 4.7 w/kg

procrit

Today was a total cluster. I left the house at 530am with an intention of cycling to work (37 miles). I got about 3 miles down the road and I ran over a nail that ripped my tire open. Unable to repair it, I had to wake up my wife to come get me. I ended up spinning around the neighborhood for 45 mins before heading into work in my truck.

That said, I brought my bike and a spare change of clothes for tomorrow, so I can ride home this evening and then ride back in the morning.

TMonk

Got my long ride in on NYE! Nice. Up next: more zwift

TMonk

The little one did not afford us the best sleep. was hard to put down, and then woke up 45 min before my alarm. Damn. So I just stayed up. I didn't push super hard on my segment ride today, but it was still good enough to take 2nd on Titan's and 1st on FF Reverse. Rode for another 15 with the A-bot and mostly sat in. Tried one little attack but I got swallowed up a few minutes in. Not the day for me to push super hard.

procrit

It's crazy how much a bad night of sleep can change things. I had a similar problem two nights ago, my whole family was trying to decompress from vacation mode and had a hard time sleeping. My legs were feeling "ok" but definitely were pretty darn tired. I still managed around 3 hours of endurance work, but I felt cooked after. Today I got in almost three hours of endurance again, but felt much better after a bunch of carbs and good sleep. Easily could've extended it to 5 hours but I had to work LOL.

TMonk

damn work! Ya for sure, especially as you age, diet and sleep make a huge difference. In my 20s I could have a few to drink. eat whatever the hell I wanted, get 6 hours of sleep and then hammer with abandon the next day. not any more.

procrit

Well I'm fighting off an infection of some sort. I was feeling a bit off when I got back from vacation, but I figured it was just stress from getting back to work. Now I'm convinced that its whatever cold everyone has going around... it's not bad enough to not be able to train, it's just bad enough that I know I probably should give it a day or two and see where it goes. Ugh.

TMonk

yikes, hope you get well soon procrit

Today I will try to set a benchmark time up Alpe Du Zwift. Something I can aim to reach again in 3-6 months after my surgical hernia repair on Tuesday, and the subsequent recovery of course. Body weight was a favorable 143.5 lbs this morning, so I will actually adjust that down in Zwift. Typically I just leave it at 145 lbs and don't bother adjusting with daily variance.

I will go hard, but not turn yourself inside-out, hero level hard. A notch above a repeatable interval effort. I don't often do steady state efforts that are 40-50 minutes long, so I will try to observe the first three rules of time trialing:

1) Don't start too hard
2) Don't start too hard
3) Read rules 1 and 2 again

I have a ton of "drops" (Zwift currency) that I stopped spending once I got the tron bike. I will purchase the lightest setup to aid in this effort (Specialized Aethos, Roval Alpinist wheels)

TMonk

I screwed up the first three rules. lol. Made for a pretty miserable second half. On the flip side, it should make or a more reasonable target to shoot for in my recovery, with an appropriately paced effort.


271 watts for 4.2 w/kg, blegh. Wanted 10 more watts today, and a time slightly ahead of Mr. B. Bayne. Another time!

procrit

I ended up recovering hard on Friday and by Friday night I was feeling pretty good. Woke up Saturday feeling like a new man, and hit the road for almost five hours and felt solid even at the end of the ride. Sunday I ended up doing a 2 1/2 hour ride and was a bit tired from Saturday, but not bad. 15 hours for the week, which is a new record for me. Today is a recovery day, just did 45 mins recovery and some stretching, and looking forward to propping my feet up for a bit lol. 8 weeks out from the first race, and things are progressing along nicely.

TMonk

Congrats and GL on your preparation procrit.

Most mornings I help get baby ready by waking her up, showing her the world outside the front door, and changing her. That way mommy just has to sit up to be ready to feed her. So far, Lilly is certainly not a morning person! (similar to her mother).

I will need to take some light weeks after my hernia repair tomorrow, so naturally I wanted to cram some training . Liz agreed that I could go to bed early and relegate my morning duties so I can get 3 hrs in on the trainer b4 work. She also agreed that it would be smart to spend 45 min on my strength routine after I get home. Then, she said that I have been doing a good job being thrifty with my personal spending, and that it would be OK I took a grand or so from our joint checking for a new MTB.

Love my wife lo

burnthesheep

I stand wrong about the transferable nature of fitness, at least for me. I always would supplement bike with run in the off season. For pros, sure, they have such immense volume on the bike.......total sense. For a schmuck like me though, I need bike saddle time.

The year I did the duathlon I won in 2022, my CTL was pretty solid. But, the bike contribution not as much as usual. Whoa and behold, still won category of the regional TT......but only because I improved in aero while losing a solid amount of power. Going back to a time I did still mostly ride though in 2021 when I first won the TT, more power with less running.

This time around, since I'm not racing a du, I'm on the bike. Unless I totally cannot do anything on the bike, then it's a little trot. Whoa and behold, the power is getting on up there as the CTL has both a bigger number and some "area under the curve". Now, just need to maintain that area under the curve to hold that CTL for a few months while doing my intervals to see what I can get out of it.

Also, this time around, doing it right and using the TT bike and road bike on-bike power meters for Zwift. I find my Kickr is a bit optimistic on power. And those years past I was "thinking" doing my indoor intervals and 20min climbs in Watopia my power was a good bit higher than it really was.

Cry in the dojo and laugh on the battlefield comes to mind with taking it on the chin and lowering the FTP in Zwift and using the "real" power that is lower than you thought but is the same meter you'll use to race with.

Anyway, things are looking up. Just need to stay the course. Find volume where I can get it. Juggle family time. Shove the interval workout in when a rest day slots in right.

Also, I'll be giving up a little time with the TT group in spring to only meet them after the ride. I will instead of wasting junk miles to ride to our spot "in town" and riding such a short spot, will ride alone right after work those days on a more focused road down east by my work THEN just park and meet them in town after to chat and share a beer. That should be worth some solid volume/interval management versus years past.

procrit

Got up extra early and rode at 5am, did 90 mins w/ 2x15' at FTP. My legs were not awake and not happy with what I was doing to them at that hour. And as it turns out, my 8am meeting got cancelled as I was driving in, so it turns out I didn't even need to wake up early or cut my ride short! :grumble: Ah well, it's done, and tomorrow is a new day. #ProsDon'tHaveThisProblem

TMonk

ya it's funny how that works. I'm also a morning person and mostly train before work, but a lot of times my legs feel a bit blocked or "asleep" as you put it. Gotta work with what you got.

On the flip side, on the rare occasion that I get a mid morning or afternoon training session, I am often impressed with my performance and sensations, at the same power targets.

topflightpro

I used to get up a 5 am everyday to workout before work. During Covid, I fell out of that habit. I'm now back to evening workouts.

I lift 2-3x a week, and I've come to the conclusion that it's better for me to lift in the evening because my body has all day to move and loosen up, so I am less likely to injure myself.