It's smart to pay attention to these things early in the season if you plan on having a long season. Big holes dug early are sooooo hard to get out of.

Consensus first workout back after the 'Vid.....probably worth about 5w drop in ftp temporarily. Legs were like "yeah, this is cool". Heartrate/breathing was higher than legs RPE. I'll say it probably take a week or two and it'll be back.

30min at 97% of ftp avg power, but under/overs. I'm happy with it. I just need patience.

Sounds like standard issue post-rest week groggy legs. Glad Covid didn't knock you on your butt!

Vid or not, I had to take a week. A 500 TSS week is a lot for me personally. In the two months before that I had a record amount of weeks interspersed that hit 500+. It was time. It forced my hand.

I had downtime to tinker with hardware on the TT bike. And cruise forums for used helmets and skinsuits. Hehehehehe. :twitchy: :innocent:

used helmets, fine, used skinsuits, gross....

also LMK if you come across any xtra small Pactimos haha

Indeed, that is why I only have sex with virgins...
:)

gotta pick and chose your battles I guess

Internet is down at the house, so no Zwift. I suppose I could have run TR on my phone using data, but decided to just get dressed and ride laps around the park in the fog. Too dark to see my computer so I just rode by feel. Nothing special, but it was a nice reminder to go outside and be cold for awhile and it makes the hot shower so amazing afterwards.

Had another decent sized day @ 3.15hrs on Sunday to wrap up my first big block of the year with 1700 TSS over the last two weeks. I didn't die and actually pushed out some good number over the weekend, so that's a good sign. "Recovery" this week, which is generally less volume but with intensity, so some super short 4x5' SS intervals followed up by 8 x 1' @ 140% with 1' recovery @ 55% in between.

Made the Zwifty break on Saturday. Failed at sprinting and caboosed across the line. Fun workout though.

Vol + Tempo/Threshy Sunday. I basically do tempo up epic kom and threshy up to the radio tower. On the reverse epic KOM I do tempo up to the big dip 2/3rds of the way up and threshy after.

15hrs last week with decent intensity overall. 17 this week I think, 19 next.

Assuming you have a "9-to-5," how do you fit that kind of volume in? The adequacy and experience of smart trainers and Zwift definitely helps, but I struggle to get in 10-12 hours with no kids and a relatively flexible work schedule (albeit variable ~40 to 60 hrs/week...college professor).
I'm pretty sure I just lack the discipline...

I just graduated from my master's program a month ago and I am taking full advantage of what is likely to be at least a few months of downtime.

2021 was a real struggle - I wrote my master's thesis in the spring and interned 30hrs/wk along with taking writing-heavy classes in the fall. We were also taking care of my wife's mom while she went through chemo last winter. I got in 556 hours - which compares favorably with prior years - but I didn't get to do much periodization because I was fitting in riding where I could. The lack of base resulted in less repeatability and dead legs towards the end of races. That said, my 1x efforts across the board were at or near personal bests, which certainly helped maintain motivation. Staying relatively consistent has let me come back very, very quickly too, now that I am able to train with more purpose.

2014-2019, I was self employed and simply worked flexible part time hours, so it really wasn't so hard to commit to periodization.

In general, my approach is to use times of high motivation to put good habits in place. Those habits are what create discipline, which is what will carry you through training and workouts when motivation is low.

I'm just starting to up my intensity this week now that my paternity leave has ended, I'm back at work, and my wife and I have started to get into a routine with the little one. Today was just a one hour group ride on zwift with a few efforts thrown in, tomorrow is week 8 of the ftp builder sessions (with only 45 seconds recovery between efforts. That is going to hurt), and I round off the week with 2 different sweet spot sessions. I'll have my commute on Thursday and Saturday. But Saturday will be the long way around, circa 40-50 miles, and will round out the week nicely. Sunday and Monday will be rest days due to travelling to London with the little man to register his birth at the US embassy.
I'm way down on mileage already this year due to not only the little man arriving, but moving. I used to commute 20 miles/day 3 days/week. But the new commute is half that and interspersed with the train. And the route is through the city centre a d main roads instead of through the countryside. But even though my volume is way down, my fitness hasn't suffered. My FTP is within 5 watts of what it was at the end of the season, so no doubt it will only go up from here. I'm going for a BBAR (Best British All Around) recognition this year, which for women is at least a 20 mph average over a 25, 50, and 100 mile TT. I was off by 4 minutes on the 100 and 1:30 on the 50 last year, so well within my reach for this year.

Congrats on your graduation! I remember working on my PhD dissertation and feeling like I had zero time...so I feel ya! Thanks for taking the time to fill me in on your secrets.

Dude I can't imagine writing a PhD dissertation, masters level was enough work!

RE: hours. I thought about this a bit yesterday. I'm a regular "salary man", an O/T exempt scientist (chemist) who's like a 44 hr/week kinda guy, although that varies a bit. I'm married and childless, although we're currently TTC so I see that time going down once there's a kid in the picture.

I manage to average around 15 hrs per week during base. Going above that without using PTO or holiday days is a challenge, since I can't manage continual weekends with big rides both days. There are a lot of 5am wakeup calls. There's also a lot of commuting, and I am fortunate enough to live about 30 minutes away from work, so I can bookend an hour or so on top of my training, whether that is indoors or outdoors. Some of that is necessary for warmup/cooldown, but certainly not all. The commutes home probably offer no training value at all, but hey, it beats traffic (well, almost) and is a nice way to end my work day. Still, I count those hours.

With more focus, I could probably achieve the same fitness with 2 or even 3 hours less per week. But I like what I do so we'll continue for now.

Bailed on my FTP test on Ven Top this morning, but hey, again I'm not stressin' it. I was at about the same power as last month half way in, and HR a bit jacked, I think that extra cup of coffee prob wasn't a good idea. I also rode FF reverse at 15 watts higher yesterday in about the same amount of time. Things were looking grim so I pulled the plug.

Lots of things going on, new to attempting testing indoors, a month late on training, too much coffee, not enough motivation. But hey, again, my big gains usually come in Q1/Q2 when I'm doing more hammering and intervals. I know the endurance work is stacking up "in the bank" and the gains are coming. FTP testing is always weird for me this time, so again, I'm not stressin'.

Direto's drive belt seems to have snapped. Mid race :(

Lasted about 700 hours though, which seems good? I think I still recommend the Direto, unless it is worse than the belt. Time to perform surgery...

I'll be happy if my Saris lasts that long. I'm probably at about ~200 hours less than that I reckon.

I headed out this morning to do a 2x20' on the TT bike before work, Fiesta Island this time instead of the trainer. It was cold (for us, mid 40's) and I was cranky, and stiff. Fortunately I ran into a racing buddy who kept me some company, said he was just looking for some mellow miles, so he rode my wheel for the 2x20' and we chatted for a bit before, between and after. I kept it a reasonable z4 around 260w for both which is around 4.0. I think I would have gone slower if I didn't have someone to entertain!

This was my first time riding outside since one of our local track coaches gave me a complimentary fitting and pushed me a little forward and lower. The saddle needs to come fwd 0.5 - 1 cm I think, I was having to move around a bit and even had to come out of the saddle briefly on the last one. He has one of the narrow nose ISM Adamo's that he might let me borrow; I think I'll like it.

I've used my gen1 Hammer since 2017, and I do most of my riding inside, so maybe around 2500 hrs of use considering 10ish hrs/week for 5 years? I've wondered if I should do preventive maintenance at some point just to make sure there's no drop off in usage because it's definitely part of my everyday life.

did 3x30 @ 90% yesterday, which was a little more tiring than prior efforts like that. Today was an uninspired 3.5hr z2 session. I guess I'm just at the stage where I'm kind of all set with the phase, it's my last week of work for base so it makes sense. Gotta take it easy tomorrow (and it's my bday tomorrow!) and then attack a big weekend of riding, and unfortunately shoveling up to 18in of snow lol.

I don't have a build plan fully mapped out, I won't be going with TR as much as I love them, I'm thinking of an ftp progression starting 3x10 and working my way up from there for a few weeks. It's an area I often neglect and want to try and see what focused FTP work does for me.

HBD hubcyclist !

I've read you can just buy a regular automotive belt instead of the expensive cycling branded one.

I'm back. The 'Vid off week is behind me and that bad first workout from earlier in the week is behind me. Last night workout back to some good form. About the best one I've done in a while. Maybe in a year. I did two and a half different under/over threshold workouts to get about 48min total at 100% avg. It's the Le Col Zwift workouts by pro cyclists. Did the TT one from Wiggins and Liz Armstrong. Repeated the Armstrong one for the first set to get more time.

Next week I'll do that night again, but try to go Wiggins, then double the Armstrong workout. If I can do that, that's a total of 56min at an avg of 100%. Then I'll bump the ftp by 5w then repeat my weeks.

US distributor is sending me one for free! Gotta love Elite.

How much less TSS do you all typically run in weeks you've upped the intensity with some hard intervals? I'm trying to get in lots of solid Z4 time with the weather as it is right now.

I know you have to ignore the drop in CTL a little bit, but how much and for how long you can do that and make gains?

Like, if you average 420 TSS/wk normally, how many weeks and to what TSS/wk could you drop to for making some gains. Like, go from 420 down to 300 for 3 weeks. Then back to volume?

Workouts are going well in week 1, but don't want to slack on volume too much. But not worry about volume to the extent I sabotage the workouts.

Looking back at my historical TSS. it looks like it doesn't really drop a whole lot until deep summer when I like purposely de-train. The volume is down, so I have more time which is nice, but TSS didn't dip a whole lot. I think the volume/intensity tradeoff was somewhat even for me.

After a certain minimum in CTL, I think lack of volume would start to have negative effects on your fitness. I think this is both a ride duration and weekly volume thing. Are you able to squeeze in a 3 hour ride per week by getting up super early? I think I remember an nationals level college athlete and pseudo-pro here (ZeCanon) saying that riding at z2 for under 3 hrs offers no training benefit to a trained athlete.

I had a misconception about needing some more form to complete the ftp building workouts.

Come March, time won't be an issue.

I can generally maintain TSS if I'm sleeping and eating properly. If I'm stressed out I tend to hit a wall and TSS naturally needs to be reduced. It's really so specific to your own circumstances I don't think there is a hard set rule. I would suggest you start conservatively on week 1 and if it feels good up the TSS through weeks 2 and 3.

I like this idea.

Most "plans" ease people into the hard work anyway. They usually start you with short/fewer sets, then add quantity and duration of sets as plans progress.

3x30 @ 92% today, was fine until the last 5ish mins then much burning lol last sweet spot workout of block, 4hr z2 tomorrow (maybe if I survive snow shoveling) and then easy week