Hermes

Beast mode.

BTinNYC 

Week 1 thoughts.
The TrainingPeaks plan I picked seems to be On The Money. The workouts so far have been doable, but really suck at the end. Today was Aerobic Endurance, 170 minutes at z2...and the last 30 minutes I was not happy, but felt great after a shower; not dead. Perfect.

caloso

Missed the start of the local ride but managed to get out for a 2x20’ sweet spot workout before settling in for an afternoon of football.

edit: Heh. Looks like I managed to get a KOM. Yay me!

Hermes

Saturday Fiesta 5 laps TTT. We were planning 6 but the wind was difficult and at the edge of blowing debris. Sunday was a track workout warmup and 4x 3km flying team pursuits. The problem with a two person team pursuit and 9 laps at the track is someone has to do 5 laps in the lead. Weather at the track was perfect.

I am now in base training ie base mode versus beast mode.

revchuck 

Yesterday was my strongest endurance pace ride in a few years, three hours with an IF of .75. Okay, it was my first ride since before Thanksgiving, but it was still good. I felt strong throughout the ride and could've gone longer, but coach capped it at three hours.

TANSTAAFL applies, though. I had a strength workout later in the day and I was dragging.

I had to shuffle the schedule for the first part of the week. Today was supposed to be a "free" day where I could take it easy, tomorrow was supposed to be an endurance pace ride with 3x15' sweet spot intervals plus a strength workout, and Wednesday was a 2-3 hour endurance pace ride. Mother Nature threw me a curve ball; tomorrow is supposed to be heavy thunderstorms with the possibility of severe weather (hail, strong winds, etc.). I did the endurance pace ride today, a shorter version (2:13); the first half was strong, but then my legs decided they were tired and the second half was about the same TSS I usually do. Just the strength stuff tomorrow and then the intervals on Wednesday.

Things are going in a good direction.

TMonk

2.5 hrs on the hamster wheel this morning, high z2. Longest ride of this rest week. Ramped it up into tempo zones for a while during a couple of the Tour de Makuri group rides, but otherwise spun low z2 in the desert flats and watched cycling vids on Youtube

Hermes

Fiesta 2x20km TTT in z2 with 10 mph headwind on the back stretch. I guess we let the old people in because we planned 3x20km TTT and only did two. The wind just sucked the life out of us. So it goes.

revchuck 

3x15' threshold intervals today during a wind advisory, the first one started in a place that funnels the wind so the first few minutes were ~13 mph. It felt rough starting out but got better as I warmed up. I was tired but not trashed at the end. Progress!

I was supposed to do strength training yesterday, wasn't able to get to the gym until around 5 PM. It was packed, with most of the folks being women, and most of the women being young, fit, and attractive, and who apparently got their workout clothes out of a spray can. I made it partway through my first circuit when I ran into a line waiting to use the machine I needed, so I left. Concentration would've been difficult anyway. I'll try it again this afternoon prior to rush hour.

TMonk

The gym is just so time inefficient... Scenery aside, I get bothered by having to wait around. Shame, b/c I do value the heavy olympic lifts (squats, deads etc) and think they are great for whole body strength and wellness. Maybe someday I'll have a setup for that in the garage.

For now, my 1x/week lower body routine involves dumbells, a platform, and some resistance bands for lighter stuff. Abs twice/week. Upper, not doing anything formally, just peppering in a few sets each of 20 pushups and 10 pull ups per week.

caloso

My winter plan is to do a TRX workout plus burpees twice a week. So far so good. Today I put up the Xmas lights so my upper body workout was setting the ladder. Went for an unstructured ride afterwards, and took a little detour down a dirt road to look at the hawks and the clouds.

BTinNYC 

This week I added legs to my upper body and core workout and the squats hurt more than I expected! About 40 minutes with the massage gun got me unkinked, probably started with a few too many reps.

Hermes

I am such a baby. I thought it was too cold to go outside so I set up the Smart Trainer and did a z2 workout. And it still feels like I am putting in 25 watts more than the trainer power meter is reading. I am going to put my power pedals on the trainer bike and compare the pedal power to the trainer power.

revchuck 

Today was supposed to be 2-3x15' at threshold. The first two went about like they were supposed to; when I started the third, it was like my Power Tap had a hole in it and was leaking watts. I got two minutes into it and stopped, gave myself a minute, and re-started it with the same result. I figured I was done with the interval and finished the ride...with tired legs into a strong headwind, of course.

CTL is up to 44, ATL is 65. My coach told me her goal for me is to get my CTL to at least 50 by the end of the month. Based on the schedule on Training Peaks, my projected CTL will be 52 at the end of next week.

himespau 

Am I the only one who gets a bit salty when a website calls a week's training "Base" when it sure felt like pretty high intensity work to them? Log into intervals.icu, to see my load for the week and am thinking, "Base? F, base. Tuesday night was a ZRL race with 13 sprints (sure I didn't go 100% on all of them because that's not possible for me when they're that close together and there was a lot of easing between sprints), Wednesday was long Z2 (so ok base), Thursday was a TTT, Saturday was 3 hill climb races with 30 minutes recovery between each and warm up and cooldown, Today was tempo. My legs shouldn't be feeling so wrecked if I had just been doing a week of base." I mean looking at what I just wrote, I can sort of see why it'd be called base as there was a lot of time spent recovering between efforts, but just seeing "base" pissed me off like the algorithm was disrespecting my efforts.

BTinNYC 

😀 😀 😆
Yeah. 175 miles doing base this week. Hamster wheel, indeed.

Hermes

My “base” algorithm is coach saying DO NOT GO into Z3. Then he looks at the post ride data. And I get a totally laughable result from my Garmin 830 at the end of the ride. Sunday after an 1:45 ride, it said I did recovery. Yeah baby. I am all in on that analysis.

I find the app based stuff and analysis kaka and not indicative of the workouts I have been doing for the last 15 years. So it goes.

Saturday 2x20km TTT in z2 and Sunday a 1:45 coastal ride.

BTinNYC 

The applications are wacky at the other end of the cycling spectrum too. After one year of good cycling work, I'm just now turning a corner on heart rate; I can do much harder work at a lower heart rate. Very very cool!

Except Strava says I'm dogging it because I'm not blasting off over 150 bpm all the time.

TMonk

Opener efforts today on Z, I make a 2 hr ride out of it with SST up Epic KOM (~24 min), threshold+ across Fuego Flats Reverse (~9.5 min), and a leg burner up Zwift KOM (~2 min). Felt like garbage during w/u and on the first interval, almost chose to bail on the remaining efforts and just ride z2 for a bit. I have a big block coming up here so I wouldn't feel bad about dialing back my efforts a bit.

But, I soldiered on and wasn't pleasantly surprised to feel my body respond nicely when I ramped up to threshold+ at 50 watts higher during the second interval. Good stuff. FTP test tomorrow.

TMonk

FTP test, second consecutive time indoors. We do have Fiesta Island nearby, and my power is slightly higher outside, but I've been wanting to develop an indoor protocol for a while as it is more repeatable, reliable and convenient.

On Tuesday mornings there is a 3R iTT series on Zwift, featuring a 12.2 mile TT. So it's longer than the 20' protocol, but at least consistent. I find it somewhat motivating to race against other avatars, knowing that they are being powered by other racers suffering in their respective garages or spare bedrooms.

Today, I started on the back foot near the end of the 12 rider group. But, I rode a great negative split and a few other riders seemed to do the opposite, so I finished 4th overall and felt good about the effort. Moved the FTP dial up 4 watts since last time. I am up against my largest volume block now, and some intervals in January, were I expect similar gains after each month.

Hermes

TMonk Were you riding your TT bike or road bike and if the road bike where were you on the handlebars - tops, hoods or drops for the test.

We are doing termite intervals today. We are doing a thermal fumigation and waiting for the heat team to arrive and heat up the affected areas. Once they start the process, we are out of the house for 8 hours. Plenty of time for them to cook some crystal meth -Breaking Bad.

We are riding our bikes, working out and hanging at the gym or Starbucks.

TMonk

Hermes I was 100% on the road bike and riding it like I would when testing outside, mostly on the hoods. However, my avatar in Zwift was on a TT bike. which is of course faster. I suspect when doing these events, most riders are doing whatever they have to IRL to make the most power they can, and configuring their virtual avatars for maximum speed

himespau 

That's how I do it. Usually my FTP test protocol is a hill climb race (when I'm usually on the lightest virtual bike I have - Cadex tri bike and disks if it's a flat TT), just because psychologically, it helps me to fight through the pain a bit longer if I'm getting the reward of seeing virtual me going as fast as possible even if power output is what I care about not finishing time. Having virtual rabbits to chase helps too (sucks when I get in the front row). I used to love doing Bologna for FTP estimates, but then it started taking less than 20 minutes and I'm not sure I've been back since.

TMonk

Sounds about right. Yeah the tempus TT's are a bit longer than 20 min, but I'm focusing on the first letter in the FTP acronym here, so as long as it provided a consistent basis to gauge my fitness and pace subsequent workouts, it's all gravy.

One thing that is slightly detrimental to the TT for me, is that on the slight 2% grade on either side of the Oasis, I definitely surge to 5.5 + w/kg for a bit and then ride at 3.5 for 20s on the downhill to recover. So not great for my overall average power, but is better for my overall speed. Even if the FTP test is my goal, I can't help but "race" it a little bit when the opportunity is there

Hermes

TMonk Back in the day of team structured workouts and coach sponsored training camps, there was always a discussion of what position and on what course does one test for FTP. And I do not remember anyone that used a TT bike on a flat to rolling course. In reality, all those the discussed the matter felt that they were 10s of watts lower on the TT bike and these were the ones that were good TT riders.

FTP SmefTP, it is just harder to make power in a TT or pursuit position. What I end up doing is using my TT or pursuit position for the harder intervals. At least that way, I am training the position for more power as well as the physiology.

If it is pure power you want, nothing beats a good fitting road bike working against a grade riding on the hoods. I bet some of the Zwifters have oxygen generators and breathe pure oxygen as they ride.

TMonk

Yeah my road/TT disparity is more like 15-20 watts to be honest. But I think my position is too aggressive and I recently raised the bars a bit, feels way better. Hopefully I can bridge that gap a bit more.