BTinNYC 

Working my way back, today was supposed to be 4 hr @ Z2. Got to 1:45 and felt that was enough for the day.

Hermes

2 hour endurance ride up the coast from PB to Swamis and back. Nice day but cool starting out.

BTinNYC 

Easy aerobic intervals, perfect for the post-flu re-entry.

TMonk

Won a TT yesterday, M35+ category, fourth fastest time overall. I'll start a thread for 2023 race results in a bit.

Coach wants me to ride for 18-20 hours this week. Shooting for 20. Gonna take a half day W and full day off Th to make that happen. Then, rest/taper into the Valley of the Sun Stage Race 2/15-2/17, minus some crit racing on 2/12. Looking forward to it!

BTinNYC 

Threshold intervals today, felt strong and HR was normal. My endurance rides haven't returned to pre-covid level but hoping this weekend is better. Fitness curve is tilting upward again.

Hermes

Returned from skiing on Friday and this AM did 20km at Fiesta - higher cadence / endurance effort.

Ski conditions were perfect with sunny skies and groomed slopes. We got 4 days of skiing in a row with some gym work. Back to the mines.

caloso

First group ride since before Thanksgiving. I got dropped towards the end, but I am pleasantly surprised that I was able to hang as long as I did.

BTinNYC 

2 x 4hr Z2 rides this weekend. Saturday's hurt a bit with the 2 x 20 min threshold efforts mid ride. Covid, get thee behind me!

Hermes

20km TTT at endurance pace on Fiesta. Legs feel pretty good. I think I am back from skiing.

TMonk

Starting to feel human again after my peak volume last week. Took two days off, today just a light 45 min on the trainer with a 25' high z2 effort in TT position. Some more light riding ahead, and then come crit racing on Sunday!

Hermes

TMonk Are you racing VOS?

TMonk

Hermes I am. We will have a group of four (including me) in the 35+. Two of the riders (including myself) should put up decent times in the TT. The other rider (who is actually 45+ but choosing to race 35+) is an excellent time trialist and should be in competition for the top time. If I have a good ride, we should have two riders in contention and some cards to play in the road race, along with two supporting riders.

Looking forward to it! I booked a sweet vacation home as well with pool, hot tub, putting green, pool table etc. So we will be nice and rested/relaxed between stages.

Hermes

Sounds like a great place to stay. i want to tag along and just hang out. Good luck racing

Hermes

Tuesday and Thursday, Fiesta, TT bike, Intervals R Us. 3 laps of Fiesta 4X 20" max efforts per lap z2 the balance of the time and rest between laps. Great weather and very little wind.

Fast legs are back. One always wonders where they were. On vacation? Chainless day.

Hermes

Track week at Velo Sports Center. This was pursuit training with harder shorter intervals on Tuesday and longer slower efforts last night. After a 40 lap warmup, we did 2x40 laps (10Km) at 23.5 mph spaced out on the track and the 20 lap at 24.3 mph and then 10 laps at 25.3 mph. Goal was being totally smooth, perfect aero position / posture and black line control.

BTinNYC 

Pretty good week of training; 4 hrs of intervals and 7 hours of endurance rides (though a "Z2 ride" with 4 x 20 min hard pulls is NOT a Z2 ride 😀 ).

Trying to get my food intake more disciplined during the days of awesome hunger, but ate half a blueberry pie last night...along with a gigantic amount of healthier food.

GhostRider62

Please ignore my rant but I need somewhere to vent. I had dreams of a sub 1 hour 40k this year and doing TT in general every few weeks, cush a time isn't very fast but for 65 is decent. CP was really good at 309W (I push a lot of air) last year before getting wacked by Covid at Thanksgiving weekend with CP wilting to 231W and now back to 247W. Awful. I cannot assimilate a workout nearly 3 months later. I suck. Almost think I need to hire a coach to whine to. Apologies.

TMonk

Maybe look to a Dr. to see if you have long-haul Covid. I know of a couple guys that were taken out of racing fitness for nearly a year.

When you do get back - have you done any aero optimization? 309 is a lot of power, and I'd think that you should be able to go well under an hour at that wattage.

BTinNYC 

Damn this bug.
Your coach idea is probably a good one. A 309 CP seems like a pretty elite number to me, and we know Covid affects people's CV systems...in very different ways. I think the training to get back that 25% loss might be different from the training that got you there originally.
Damn this bug.

TMonk

Coach wanted me to do a 5 min power test today (puke). Going into the next block, I'm supposed to do 3x VO2 max workouts per week and solo z2 endurance, and nothing between. So, the idea was to set a baseline for myself to see if this training will have a meaningful impact.

I am coming off of two weeks with some racing, including Valley of the Sun stage race over F/S/Su, but not much overall TSS. So my head and legs are kinda in a weird spot where the overall TSS hasn't been high, but there's been some racing in there. Report on VoS to come soon.

Anyway, just didn't feel like I had good power today and finished the effort at around 5.4 w/kg, or 350 w. Had to coast for a couple seconds towards the end too when someone cut me off on Fiesta Island. It was kinda weird, like my HR or even RPE didn't get sky high, like I just didn't have the power. I wasn't sure what to shoot for since I haven't done a test-level effort in this duration in like, ever? I feel like on a better day, with the same fitness, I'd have another 10 watts on my performance from today

At any rate, not too worried about it. If I get through this block, rest up and then test 20-25 w higher after for 5 minutes, I'll consider it a win. Doing a 20 min test tomorrow (also puke), and then otherwise decrompressing this week outside of a long ride on Saturday. Training more formally for my mid-season goals starts next week.

TMonk

20 min test also didn't go well this morning. Bailed at 10 min in. I wasn't into it mentally.

Really, resting a day or two and having an easy ride in my legs would have been better before going out for some test level efforts after a stage race. But, the weather forecast didn't agree with my plans (stormy all week) so I tried to take advantage of the dry window that we had forecasted early in the week. Didn't want to test indoors either since I want my efforts to be specific to how I plan on doing my VO2 intervals next month - outside.

Not too worried about it though, Looking fwd to decompressing with some easy days, going long on Saturday and then training again next week with some renewed energy.

topflightpro

While true that being rested would better prepare you for the 20 min test, there is also a benefit to testing while mid training to see how you are able to hold and push things.

TMonk

Ya I hear ya. I think it was mostly mental, like I didn't really want to and was lacking motivation. A day or two of taking it easy would have had be rearing (raring?) to go.

EDIT: I'm also just kind of in this weird place with race level intensity (two back to back weekends) but not a ton of TSS. It may take me a week or more before I get back into the groove of routine training and adaptation.

topflightpro

Yeah, I hear the mental part. There are workouts I generally don't like and don't want to do, and I find it's somewhat inevitable that my performance in those cases is poor.

Hermes

Road bike on the smart trainer for some 30on/30off. It was brutal. And I have another set tomorrow.