Ya I figured you wouldn't have, based on what we know of you and what I've read about riding down there... sketchy. Honestly I think I would also stick to stationary.

It's a work in progress. I rode 6 times while we were gone, 5 with the fan. It was great. We'll see what happens as the temps rise down there. But it seemed a definite step up from using the resort gym. As you've noticed training stationary is a great way to maximize time.

Was scheduled to do the sufferfest 'full monty' test, but I'll be damned if I care about supra threshold power right now. Not planning on doing a ton of VO2 max or sprint style efforts for the next few months since I'm going to get that muscling around snowboarding.

In any event, did the half monty, which is a ramp test followed by a cooldown and then a 20 min interval at LTHR calculated from the ramp test.

FTP was spit out at 242(+6) with a MAP of 311(+16) with a comparison to the last test on Nov 17th. I think the numbers are slightly fudged because I had a small spike after 'quitting' the ramp from my jumping off the bike to grab my inhaler since I started wheezing at the end of the ramp test. I emailed them to see if the data could be cleaned up at all, but still pretty pleased. I was shooting for an FTP of 240-250 by the end of the calendar year and I'm pretty much there. I haven't really been doing much structured training at all recently so I'm pleased.

But also ECCC road season is canceled... so there's that. I doubt I'm going to have the motivation to put in more than 5-7 hrs a week indoors of riding. Will try doing more yoga and PT exercises. If my 'gravel' bike ever gets finished, I'll likely try to get out on that once or twice a week if time and daylight permit. That actually sounds nice.

TTT Tuesday on Fiesta on TT bikes 2x20K TTT. I felt great during the second effort. I like these TTTs a lot. They are over 30 minutes each and the effort structure is in a over under format with a slug of power required at the exchange to get back on and of course, there is a very high execution component and mental engagement.

Yesterday, was back to Fiesta on road bikes for 3x(8 reps of 30” on 1’ off) and then 25 minutes of tempo. I thought these were fun. That is just sick. It was another chainless day and my legs requested that I put the chain back on. They said this is getting ridiculous. Efforts were 1.3 to 1.5. I do the hard efforts in the drops versus hoods and bias the cadence down.

I bumped FTP last week, I will leave it alone for now and just declare victory and enjoy the moment.

Good stuff Hermes ! Always good to be feeling 'in the groove'. TTT is very engaging and exciting and has been my favorite discipline the last couple seasons. After each break from TTT events, I'm pretty psyched out/scared going into our training sessions because of how tough the guys are that I roll with, but a couple sessions later, I'm in the groove and solidly contributing. I will second the part about getting back on the train - that's the hardest part!

I woke up feeling quite drained and fatigued this morning, but started to feel a bit better about 30 min later after some food and coffee. I'm not sure if I'm overreaching with the volume or just didn't eat enough yesterday. I'll continue to monitor how I feel in the morning and throughout the day and scale back my ambitious plans for next week if needed. On that note, I'll make sure to fuel plenty throughout today to set myself up for (a planned) 8 hrs over this weekend, including 6 tomorrow! Maybe scaling back the red wine and pushing up the sleep a bit will help get through it!

sweet spot is going swimmingly, decided to make things interesting for my usual friday Z2 workout and increased my target by 2%, since these have been really easy for me. I think it was pretty good, made the 75% portions just challenging enough to know I was doing work. But I'm keeping my FTP the same for this coming last week of sweet spot workouts, don't want to push my luck too much, and maybe just keep the 2% increase for any remaining z2 workouts

Tried my first zwift race. 3 minutes in wife plugged a space heater into the wifi power strip and tripped the circuit. By the time internet was back on, Zwift calculated me at 20 seconds behind. It was a fun 3 minutes I guess? Will try again tomorrow or Sunday.

Zwift racing is hard! Just a total slog. But fun when I'm fit.

What course/distance was it?

3x30 @ 90% today, pretty solid with my HR staying just below 160, which is what I like to see. Speaking of zwift racing, I jump on random events when I'm doing erg mode (seeing event placement, even if I'm dropped, provides a modicum of motivation) and today I went on a crit city B race. No surprise, steady power is not enough to hang in races, esp with the hard starts. Winner was 3.8w/kg, whereas I'm like 46th with the same w/kg, except steady

If you were serious about your cycling that would be grounds for divorce.

Bro tomorrow's our 1 year anniversary! Or was. We're def getting divorced now.

3 laps of Paris! It was cool to have pre-race starting line butterflies at least, even if I was stationary in my basement.

Happy anniversary.

That said my wife knows to stay out of my way when I'm doing the training. You have to learn them.

Do not plug space heaters into power strips or extension cords. It is a fire hazard even when you're not blowing the breaker with other loads. Many "space heater" fires are actually from the low-quality extension cords the people plugged them into melting.

Oh yes, I have had that discussion with her before. We had another one when she told me what happened...

5x10’ @ 95-ish%. I usually do 2x20’s for sweetspot, so this was an interesting change. That last one was tough. But it was a beautiful day and it was nice to actually ride my bike outside.

So I did another 100k on Zwift. We closed a 4 minute gap and I probably did my strongest effort in awhile, that felt good. Didn't think I could do it post op.

It always amazes the differences between Zwift and the Local Ride. I would say, "Pelotons are like schools of fish," on the local group ride and get responses like:
"How may times did you crash and hit your head again?"
"Moron!"

But then I would go on Zwift and say, "Pelotons are like schools of fish" and I'd get replies like:
"Indeed"
"I did my thesis on the Linear Flow Dynamics of Katsuwonus pelamis, I may have to run some models to compare"
"There are some small mathematical variances, but you are correct..."

172.5 53/39 SRM on paceline for about 400 bucks
https://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=263143

Had 7x10 sweet spot between 88-94%, supposedly easier than yesterday of 3x30 at 90% but today was tougher with the residual fatigue or something. Ctl is at 89 and tsb -17, one more work week in this base phase before recovery

5x12’ @ 88-94% today. Did them outside doing laps of the local municipal golf course listening to podcasts. Now doing the sunday crossword and watching the football game. Later on I think I’ll yell at the kids to turn down the thermostat for the Full Dad Perfecta.

1:20 of Z2 on erg mode feels way harder if you snowboarded for 3 hours that morning!

4 hours of endurance riding over the weekend. Great weather.

That's been on online swap meet on FB for a week or so, too. Good group to find gear.

Blows my mind its still there! I was talking to CDR about it and I guess SRM still doesn't really play well with non SRM head units so... Womp.

I'd definitely buy an SRM for $400 (especially one with a newer battery), but I can never find one with 165mm cranks. 172.5 is so 2000s. :D

I have a wired 172.5 SRM 5 sitting on my shelf. Been there since 2014. Can't even give those things away.

You could contact them about an upgrade! I think they cut deals for that... atleast that's what CDR said lol.

More sweet spot, 4x20 @ 90%, was solidly just under 160bpm, next couple of days are going to be tight with training with some other life stuff, hopefully will get up early enough to get them done

3 sets of 14x30s on/off VO2max intervals this morning. Thought I was going to die during the first set and then weirdly after that it wasn't too bad. Shrug.

Ramp test last night. ~328W FTP again, for the third month. I think I may be able to kick the plateau by March when the warmer temps allow full effort intervals more easily. The cold weather clothing makes it more challenging to hit it hard w/out overheating then freezing. Still happy with the strong base and steady FTP. I've been quite a bit higher but like 10 years ago, and I'm rolling up on 50 this week so not expecting to go beating my young self any more...

That's awesome that he's out there killing it. WR jr has been doing this since April so his FTP is going up like 10-15W/month still. Will see where he ends up. He does benefit from loving training. He will go do hill repeats, sprints, WRI, etc. and has even gone out on solo 75 mile rides in the countryside. He has his first MTB races (NICA) next month, so at least he'll get some competition in there - fitness can't hurt, but there are some insanely talented bike handlers in the league.

It's pretty awesome that you've got the same deal going on though. I never thought any of my kids would swing a leg over a road bike. Now he's showing me cat3memes at dinner :P

Sweet spot rocks.

My 9 y/o started riding (like we got him to ride without training wheels) in March and in April I got him a used road bike, which he begged me for (and of course the novelty wore off and he didn't ride all summer lol). But we made it a point to make him exercise given lack of school based PE/playing so we started riding everyday and by the end of the outdoor season here we were averaging 13mph in our neighborhood loop (which for me is 90ish watts). I have him on zwift on virtual power on a fluid trainer so it's hard to tell what is reality, but he's been averaging 100w. He's probably not going to get into racing, but it would be a fun benchmark for our outdoor rides to be 15mph at some point this year.

Heck yes, although the good times are coming to an end in a couple of weeks, going to be hurting myself with the sustained power build plan on trainerroad.