Ttoc6

Had planned to do a full TT sim today, but the wind was really blowing where I ride. Couldn't even get into the aero bars so I did a couple of zwift races instead. I was supposed to do these "racewinner" type intervals. zwift racing almost always poaays out like that anyways. Lots of over-under in the sweet spot. So I guess it's close enough.

caloso

Did the River Ride, my usual Saturday ride. Big group, fast group, didn't have the greatest legs so I spent the first half just trying to stay out of the wind, spent the second half giving myself permission to get dropped as long as I could stay attached 30 more seconds. I guess that trick worked because I finished with the main group.

Wylde06

1:10 today..80tss. Did a 3 minute interval (first little hill on zwift) then a 30 minute sweet spot interval (epic climb on zwift). Feel pretty good about the ride considering how sporadic my training has been this last month and a half.

Ygduf

time trials today. TT bike and merckx. Lost to winner by ~30s, was 3s out of 2nd place. Good run for me considering I had to go first when it was still 41f.



2nd run an hour later and 15f warmer on the road bike - should be the merckx course record

mattm

112 miles today.

did the local hammer/sketch ride, won some of its sprints, then we continued on for 70 more miles.

hubcyclist

last day of base, actually completed a whole trainerroad plan (sweet spot base 2 - high volume) start to finish, which is a minor miracle. ctl is at 76 and I guess I'll go into one of their build programs, likely general build. while I dread anything over threshold due to not having done much of it in a really long time, I'm looking forward to improving it.

furiousferret

The home situation has essentially taken me out of the sport for a few weeks. The funeral is next week, and we had one today because a pushy relative wanted it to fit her schedule, so my wife has to grieve twice. We have a bunch of relatives staying at the house next weekend so we're accelerating plans to fix up our extra bedrooms. Problem is the contractor bailed with a half done job so in addition to all the little things I have to paint and lay tile.

So I'm putting in about 6-10 hours for home improvement each day and I'm either too tired to ride or its too late. This is probably the first time since I've been racing I've had to stop training for something other than injury and with the form I had early last month and my 'A' race in 3 weeks its pretty frustrating.

I'm going to try and get the miles in next week, the big thing is if I can get a tile installer on short notice.

Ttoc6

Yesterday was a 3 hour endurance ride in the cold with a buddy. Kept it good and easy the whole time just chatting. Was quite the enjoyable ride even if it was only 19 degrees when we started.

This week is hard core recovery after 6 weeks of intensity with no real rest. Legs up, lots of carbs and easy spins into VoS this weekend.

Erzulis Boat 

Dealing with a lot of wind today again. Rode a bike without power, so I used Strava "power" today.

Took a year off, so I am burning it down. Lactic acid comes on quick, but also leaves super quick. Put on a load, here it comes, but as soon as I stop the effort, it's gone almost instantly. That's an easy fix.

hubcyclist

nothing for me today, getting myself mentally prepared for build and which test protocol to try tomorrow lol (probably the new ramp test in trainerroad).

my wife is trying to get back into a workout routine and we only have the cycleops hammer, and she has absolutely no interest in it or apps or anything. She is pretty much the type who does not want to tinker with stuff and just get on and ride. So I may have to suck it up and get a dumb trainer, or at least one that isn't fully interactive. It's just funny how different we approach things, I just love the tech and it adds to the fun and motivation.

Ttoc6

Try the ramp test in erg mode and then do an easy spin afterwards. It's a good workout and it'll surprise you, I'm sure.

ntnyln

VO2 work continues with 7x(3'x3'). My 5' power is my best metric, but power drops significantly when looking for repeatability. Hard to picture the beginning of the season the way I'm getting my butt kicked here. First races are 5 weeks away with first target not until the beginning of April so there is time for it to come together.

hubcyclist

did the trainerroad ramp test, not sure I exactly did it right lol my legs started to tire at the 130% (351w) 1min step and kind of faltered but kept at it and did the 136% step (366w), so if I were to take my best min I'd have an ftp of 281 but it's probably more likely 275. whatever as long as I don't completely fail my intervals coming up I'm ok! the challenge for me is that you're supposed to remain seated, which gets hard sometimes as the intensity ramps up

on the bright side, I set an all time best 5min power (321) and 8min (302), I can hear the chuckles of the far more accomplished folks here lol

TMonk

Easy week leading up to Valley. My planned 2 hr ride shaking down the race bike turned into a 1 hr fixie ride after sleeping in a little too long and then seeing that the roads were all wet and crappy. Even still, I cut that down to 30 min because I wanted to get to work sooner.

I'm tapering, is what I tell myself . Same thing I said when I flatted out of a group ride on Saturday, cruised Mt. Soledad easy with a friend and spent 30 min at a coffee shop. Tapering .

hubcyclist

It's weird, I had an easy week last week, just z2, and my legs have felt more tired than prior weeks when I was doing many and long sweet spot intervals. Not like super tired, but not totally fresh either. Maybe my legs don't like taking it easy lol

TMonk

Ya I think there is a sweet spot for activity level if you want to have optimal form - takes time to find it.

burnthesheep

Peak and fades today for an hour. Came out to 250w NP. A turd in the gym walked over and stood right in front of my fan during one of the intervals oblivious to the fact I was using it. I'm dying here man, c'mon.

Getting on the scale this morning I saw I'm where I wanted to be for my first race. Good news there. The workouts look like I'll be pretty close to hitting what I want on the next 20min test.

hubcyclist

well i'm a glutton for punishment, after the ramp test I took a couple of hours off and did 2x15 @ 280w to see if I could handle it. I could! 4.0 w/kg!

TheKillerPenguin

Asthma confirmed :-| but I do get to train normally again, which is nice!

Wylde06

This is probably the worst winter of training for me since I started racing.

Hopefully once I do get back into some sort of structure, I can rely on the last few years of training to not put me too far back.

aaronmcd

Aero testing today. Turns out Fudgy was right about the hair slowing me down!

I did 5 sets of 5 laps at the Polo Field bicycle track, a 1.08 km loop in Golden Gate Park. exactly 260 watts each. I figured 5 laps was enough to balance out any minor wind variations. I started at as close to 20 mph as possible each time.

Conditions according to the weather app:
- Humidity 44%
- Temperature 53 degrees fahrenheit
- Wind 9 mph East
I corrected the wind to 4.1 mph based on a weighted average of slowest and fastest speeds per lap equal to average speed, and known power. The track is somewhat sheltered by hills so the reduced wind is reasonable.

My spreadsheet calculates air density based on elevation, humidity, and temperature.

A 4.1 mph wind affects speed by 0.21 mph average, neglecting the turns. I probably should have included them, but I think the difference is minor. For ease of processing, I just added 0.21 mph to all my average speeds to determine CdA.

Testing and Results:
All CdA data was determined from my spreadsheet based on the conditions above, measured speed, Crr=0.004 for GP4000s ii, and an estimated 96% drivetrain efficiency.

The base test was in aero hoods position, head looking forward to comfortably see. Setup included 2 bottles, standard kit, an aero helmet, an old UN-aero front wheel, and a Flo 30 rear. Bike was my Cervelo S5.

Test 1 Results:
22.91 mph, CdA=0.335 m^2

Test 2, Same as base, but IAB:
23.41 mph, CdA=0.313 m^2

Test 3, Same as base, but with hair tucked up under helmet:
23.38 mph, CdA=0.315 m^2

Test 4, Same test 3 w/ hair tucked, but also no water bottles:
23.65 mph, CdA=0.304 m^2

Removing my wind vest made almost no difference (only 1 second)

Conclusion:
IAB saves 16 watts over aero hoods, adding 0.5 mph
Getting my hair out of the wind saves 15 watts, adding 0.47 mph
Removing bottles saves 8 watts, adding 0.27 mph

Ttoc6

@aaronmcd, check out the Chung method too. it's built into Golden Cheetah iirc.

Today I just did 90 minutes on the trainer. I'm "tapering" for VoS. It's more just the end of a cycle, but I'll call it tapering.

hubcyclist

90mins z2 today with 4x15sec sprints @ 180% thrown in by trainerroad

burnthesheep

3 sets of 12min under/overs today. The ones at 240/270 were too easy so last one I upped it to 260/290. The first two sets, were dare I say, comfortable and boring. Much better on the last set, took some focus. Next 3 sets of these I'll just start at the 260/290 instead.

I guess homemade taco night for dinner yesterday was some good fuel for today.

I'm looking forward to the 20min test at the end of the month. I don't think 280 is a tough enough goal now. 280 was just what I need to be at 4.0w/kg. We'll see.

I normally don't do the more intense workouts on back to back days, but got tired of having Tuesday be the first hard workout of the week. There's a few folks I want to meet for a Tuesday group ride, and would rather have not wrecked my body at lunch beforehand.

Ygduf

what a ****ing shocker