Roflsocks

Started getting a cold last week, took a training break so that I'd have better luck fighting it off. I think I'm going to repeat my week 4 plan, since that got cut short last week. Workout 1/5 for the week. I stayed up about an hour later than I should've, and had a hard time getting out of bed this morning. I think I was up at about 5:30, and then ran around getting setup before I jumped on the bike. I think if i had everything set, I could've started right at 530, but realistically, I should've just gotten up 15 minutes earlier. I opted to cut off the last interval since I was running late. These were going pretty well though, the first few felt tough, and then around half through I seemed to hit my stride. I was actually feeling really good on the last interval I did, and would've been fine to continue. A bit bummed that I didn't finish, but oh well. Will be motivation for next time to get up earlier. I'm toying with the idea of adding a little extra TSS to tomorrow mornings workout, to make up for the missed interval. I'm thinking I'll probably go the route of just riding for another 15-30 minutes to make up for it. I think i have Pettit -1 tomorrow, which is pretty low intensity. I'm thinking i'll copy it into the workout creator and make it a bit longer. The pre-built +0 and +1 versions were both higher intensity, rather than higher duration, which wasn't exactly what I had in mind. 55 TSS (of 67 had I done the full duration) 498 kJ 0.80 IF

Week four of base training. This is workout 2/5 for the week. Did this workout last night instead of this morning. First time in a long time I've done 2 workouts in a day. Went fairly well, wasn't a difficult workout. I wasn't feeling very motivated, was half tempted to try to put this off till the next day after work. But I thought about it and figured I was pretty poor at getting evening workouts in, and that I should just get it done since I had then time then. So I did. Got up at 5am as usual this morning, but went straight to work, rather than getting on the bike. Feels good having this done though. 28 TSS 440 kJ 0.53 IF

Week four of base training. This is workout 1/5 for the week. Did this one this morning, after sticking to yesterday as a scheduled recovery day. I had considered trying to get some riding in, but figured I would be better off with another day of rest, plus that gets me back on track scheduling wise for my training plan. I didn't much want to get up this morning, alarm went off at 5:00, was up by about 5:10, and on the bike shortly thereafter. Went to bed early since I was getting up early, took a while to fall asleep, and my baby woke me up once at about 2am, but otherwise felt pretty restful. Warmup felt hard as usual. I'm getting used to that, just sort of shrugged and knew it would pass. It did. Work intervals were slightly progressive. Two at 5 min, two at 6, and two at 7. And they varied in intensity, between 88 and 94%, alternating low to high from one interval to the next. Two middle intervals had the highest power targets, but only slightly. These felt tough but sustainable all the way through. Some of the intervals had scheduled out of the saddle time, while trying to maintain power. I felt like these made the interval a lot easier. I didn't spend a lot of time out of the saddle, but a little bit each minute felt like it went a long way. I'm going to plan on doing tomorrows workout this evening, since I have a 6am appointment tomorrow, and I'd have to get up way too early to make that work. That workout is scheduled to be pretty low intensity zone 2 for an hour, should be fine to do in the evening before bed. 68 TSS 625 kJ 0.82 IF

Week three of base training. This is workout 4/5 for the week. Had a busy weekend, and lost a day of training. I did this workout a day late. I was hoping to finish the workout, and then ride for a bit longer, but instead this workout just destroyed me, and I couldn't make it through. Tried taking some extra rest so I could get back up to target, but wasn't very successful with that. You can see that even my first block of over unders I didn't make the last repeat at full power, and the 2nd set I had a much harder time with. I took a longer rest after the 2nd set, and tried to get through the third and just fell apart after the first few minutes. I sat on the bike for a while, and decided that I was plenty exhausted, and called it a day. I was thinking perhaps I'd get some zone 2 riding in later in the day to help make up for both missing a workout, and failing one, but ended up going to bed early instead. 67 TSS 601 kJ 0.84 IF

Week three of base training. This is workout 3/5 for the week. This felt difficult. Warmup interval felt pretty tough, and after the first work interval, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make it through. These were 6 minute intervals with 1 minute of rest between. These varied a bit throughout each interval, ranging from middle to higher end of sweet spot. I started off with some cadence drills, and that seemed to really help break up the efforts. I really felt like I wanted a gear split right between what I had, for that first interval I was spinning either in the upper 90s, or middle 80s. For the 2nd and 3rd intervals, I did similar cadence drills, though less so. It wasn't until that 4th interval that I really felt like I hit my stride. Held cadences in the upper half of 90s. I'd get up over 100 sometimes, and just try to bring it back down a touch, so that I didn't overcorrect. And for the last couple of minutes, I bumped the power up just slightly, mostly just so that I'd get a good strong finish. 72 TSS 659 kJ 0.85 IF

Week three of base training. This is workout 2/5 for the week. Active recovery ride toady, 45 minutes, mostly all zone 2. Was out of bed at 5:10am, and on the bike shortly thereafter. Stayed up about an hour later than I probably should have last night, but felt pretty rested in the morning. I'll note that during the warmup, even at very low watts, felt like my legs were really dragging. I think everything past about 15-20 minutes felt easy, and everything before that felt like my legs were a bit sluggish. 35 TSS 429 kJ 0.69 IF

Week three of base training. This is workout 1/5 for the week. This workout went pretty well. First work interval felt fairly tough, but they seemed to get easier as I went on. I think each work interval was fairly short, so it was pretty easy to stay on target for the most part. I definitely lost some focus on the last interval, missed the cue to adjust cadence like I did for the others. And on that note, these were basically designed to raise cadence but drop power, and then invert. I think I started at too high a cadence on the first interval, but hit it pretty spot on for the others. Cadence started around 78, and peaked in the middle of the interval at 110ish. Its hard to see with the power overlay, but these were small power steps, so it was consistent for a short bit, then it'd adjust again. you can see the steps more clearly by looking at cadence for the middle intervals. 67 TSS 624 kJ 0.82 IF

Week two of base training. This is workout 5/5 for the week. I had an extra day of rest from moving the prior workout up a day. Still hit this workout on its scheduled day though. I did pretty good holding steady throughout this one. The "intervals" were 10 minutes long, although the power difference between them was fairly minor. It did break it up a bit, which I always find helpful. Not really any rest intervals, closest thing was after about halfway, power drops a little, and just builds back up same as before. I was pretty happy to make it through this one without much of a struggle. Set new power PRs for 20, 30, and 60 minutes this workout. All of which were very close to eachother. Not sure how useful that is, I wasn't trying to do anything other than stick to the specified power. But its still nice to see progress. I'll note that I had the same IF for this and my last workouts, but this felt a TON easier. Really seems to make a difference not going above threshold. 93 TSS 920 kJ 0.83 IF

Week two of base training. This is workout 4/5 for the week. This was scheduled as a Saturday ride, but I did it on Friday since I was going to be out of town over the weekend. I really think having the rest day as scheduled would have befitted me, I couldn't quite make it through the 2nd and 3rd over-unders without backing off a bit. The 2nd set I finished two, and started the last under, and just felt completely spent. Stepped off the bike, took in a few fast digesting calories, and got back on, and at least finished the last over at target power. The last set I again got to that last under section of the interval, and dropped power again. I didn't drop off completely though, and ramped power back up over the last minute of it, before hitting power for the last over. This was also the longest workout I've done so far this training block. In hindsight, I shouldn't have rushed it a day early, since that meant that I'd been riding 4 days in a row without a break, which I'm not particularly accustomed to yet. Although one of those days was lower intensity, so I was thinking it'd be fine. I think I have a similar ride scheduled next weekend, hoping to hit that one better. 103 TSS 945 kJ 0.83 IF

Week two of base training. This is workout 3/5 for the week. Had a hard time getting up for this one. I hit snooze a few times which set me back about 15 minutes from when I wanted to start. I was on the bike at about 5:45am, goal was to be on by about 5:30. Warmup interval felt pretty difficult, but the actual work intervals went really well. Warmup was 212 watts, and the first work interval started at 208, and while longer, felt a lot easier. Each interval varied slightly in its target power, highest was interval 4 at 222 watts, for 6 minutes. Set a 20 minute power PR at 198 watts, despite having pretty easy rest intervals in there. Actually also tied my 30 min PR at 196 watts. Wasn't trying to go hard or set a PR, just tried to stick to the scheduled power goals. Still nice to see that its pushing me a bit to get there though. 69 TSS 646 kJ 0.83 IF

Week two of base training. This is workout 2/5 for the week. Up at about 5:30am. Slept in a few minutes later than yesterday since this workout was 15 minutes shorter. I however was up late, had about 6 hours of sleep. Workout itself felt super easy, which it should, since this was a lower intensity ride. Whole ride was pretty much an endurance pace, with the highest interval barely getting into the lowest end of tempo.

Using TrainerRoad, working through Sweet Spot Base, Mid-volume 1. They do the plan, and generate the graphs from my data. Power is coming from their "virtual power" calculation, with Garmin speed/cadence sensors feeding the data. Virtual power ended about 16 watts higher than the stationary bikes at my gym. Did a FTP test twice last week to set an offset between the two. Started using TrainerRoad about a month before my season ended, jumped into the end of one of their specialty plans, and used that through the end of the season. This will be my first pass through using their plans start to finish though.

Week two of base training. This is workout 1/5 for the week. Woke up at 5:20am for an early workout, was on the bike just after 5:30. Legs felt super tired after my first warmup intervals, but was just hoping I wasn't quite warmed up yet. Did some one legged drills, then got into the work intervals. 8 minute work intervals, with slightly dropping power, while ramping up cadence. 4 minute rest intervals. The work intervals felt tough, but didn't really feel progressively difficult throughout, so it was sustainable, but difficult. 66 TSS 602 kJ .81 IF

I re-started cycling about a year ago, after taking a nearly 20 year break. I was pretty out of shape, and I've been working on getting back into competitive form. About a year ago I did a FTP test and ended at about 140 watts. Set a goal to get up to 200. Sort of an arbitrary amount, but it seemed like something to reach for. I just did another FTP test as I'm starting a new training block, and clocked in at about 220 watts! I did the 2x8min FTP tests, and took 90% of that to get my FTP. My previous test came in a little under 200, and I was pretty bummed I didn't get it at the time. Super excited to have made it this time though! New goal is to get at least another 30 watts by the end of the offseason. I think that should be achievable, and perhaps (hopefully?) a little conservative. I spent a lot of time over the last year trying to figure out how best to train and get more fit, and I started using TrainerRoad's workout app towards the end of the season, and really seemed to respond well to it. So I planned out my training schedule using that, and i'm pretty excited to see how it goes.

Been a while since I posted a log on here. Thought I would post where I'm at as I work towards my last mountain bike race of the season. I've gone back and forth on how well I've been sticking to my training. I had a pretty disappointing race in August. I felt like I was in pretty decent shape, but raced the course blind, and broke a pedal (again) on a pedal strike after about 20 minutes. I rode through it, but took a little bit before I noticed that if I flipped it around I could still clip in. I did however go down probably the most technical descent before I figured that out, foot slipped off the pedal right at the bottom, which could've been a lot worse. I think I finished in just under 50 minutes, about 8 minutes behind 1st in my division. I also would've benefited from knowing the course, there were a LOT of tight blind corners, which I probably slowed down too much for. I felt like I was faster fitness wise than i have been all year. That being said, its pretty late in the season, and I definitely did less consistent training than I was aiming for, and it showed. When I would get passed, I'd try to hang onto the wheel of the guys infront, and I just couldn't. Definitely something to improve on for the next. So that brings me to today. Here's the performance management chart I pulled from Golden Cheetah since that race, through today, and projecting to my next race at Pando. Last race was on the 27th, which I had tapered for, and you can see the my stress balance (yellow chart) blip positive. In hind sight, I probably would've been better off to simply plan to build through that race, not taper at all, and then continue to build for the last races of the year. I had two races I was tentatively going to attend, and decided that I would rather train through those and just focus on the one end of season instead. So that's what I did. Been focusing on bringing up my training volume week over week, while working on not going too much into the red, since I really don't want to overtrain and get sick (again). My fitness was at about 25 LTS for my last race, its at 45 today. I've noticed since increasing my weekly training volume, I'm carrying a lot more fatigue in my legs. I was using the charts at Training Peaks, which are similar, but recently migrated my data to Golden Cheetah, since its free. The numbers aren't exactly comparable between the two, but the graphs are pretty much the same. Golden Cheetah shows my LTS and stress balance a little higher. So I didn't include a legend in my screenshot. Purple: Short term stress. Weighted average of the past 7 days. This is roughly your current acute fatigue. Blue: Long term stress. Weighted average over the past 42 days. This is roughly your current fitness. Yellow: Stress balance. Difference between LTS and STS. This is basically a fatigue-o-meter. When increasing volume you want to keep it negavitve, but not too negative or you start over training. Somewhere around -10 to -30 is good for progression. Also useful for race readyness, as you don't want to be carrying a lot of fatigue into an important race. Should be a bit positive after an ideal taper. And not shown in the screenshot used to derive all the data points: Training Stress Score: Numerical representation of how intense a given workout was. 100 points == threshold heart rate for an hour. More or less points will be assigned based on the intensity and duration of the workout. Most of my workouts are between 50 - 150 TSS. Last week was one of the higher TSS weeks I've done in a long while, totaled 457 TSS at 6.6 hours riding time. Today is a rest day. TSB is showing -36 and quite frankly, my legs are still tired. I had good rides in the last two days though. I should be set to ride again tomorrow though. Goal for this week is to get in about 6ish hours again, while keeping my TSB somewhere around the -20 to -30 range. I don't think I have enough time left to increase volume much more before my race, so I'm thinking I can probably keep my LTS around 45ish while working on bringing down my fatigue a little. Hopefully that'll be enough to notice a bit of a difference for the race at Pando. /end-background-story BATTLE LOG 9/11/17 Over under intervals 3x 2min1min w/ 3 min rest FTP: 190 watts Over: 230 under: 180 Rest: ~120 Time: 40 mins TSS: 52 These were hard, I was short on time, so I figured I could get in a quick workout before picking up the baby from daycare. Cut down recovery time between interval sets to save time. Definately put out a good hard effort, started strong, but these got hard pretty fast. First few weren't too bad, but the 2nd and 3rd sets were tough! I finished strong though, was able to push through for the last interval to slowly raise the effort above 230. I was increasing my cadence by 1 every 15 seconds for that last interval, and then after I hit time on my interval, continued to ramp up power until about ~300 over the next 30 seconds, and then held 300 for 30 seconds until I pretty much blew up. Short warm down and that was it.