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.

90 minute rides Tuesday and Thursday this week. Tuesday: 30 min 60% 30 sec slow ramp up to 120% 2.5 min at 120% 3 min at 60% Decided at this point that I went too hard for the first interval. I also think I got my cadence too low for that high of sustained power output, definitely still felt a lot of burn as I was getting ready for the next interval. 30 sec slow ramp up to 115% 2.5 min at 115% This felt a lot more manageable. I dipped a bit below 115, average was probably between 110-115%. Cadence was higher, felt super tough, but I would just note to myself things like, half through, doesn't feel any worse now than it did 20 seconds ago. And as I got past the half way point, it was easier to keep sight of the finish time, so that I could recover, and just kept pushing till I made it there. 3 min at 60% 30 sec slow ramp up to 115% 2.5 min at 115% Did a better job of hitting my target power values. Still felt super tough, was thankful to have a few extra minutes between sets. 8 min at 60% 30 sec slow ramp up to 115% 2.5 min at 115% 3 min at 60% 30 sec slow ramp up to 115% 2.5 min at 115% 3 min at 60% 30 sec slow ramp up to 115% 2.5 min at 115% 60% for the remainder of the ride, till I hit the 90 min mark. Last interval specifically felt really really tough, but I made it through. There were several intervals throughout the ride where I had 30 seconds to go, and felt like i had to lower the power to sustain, I would take the lightest possible touch to the resistance, and then go, "okay good that feels better." and look at the power, and it would still be above my 115% target value. I'm not sure if it was mostly mental, or if just taking a couple watts off really made that much of a difference. I'm leaning towards mostly mental, but not really sure. Thursday: 30 min at 60% 2 min at 90% 1 min at 103% 2 min at 90% 1 min at 103% 2 min at 90% 1 min at 103% 6 min at 60% 2 min at 90% 1 min at 103% 2 min at 90% 1 min at 103% 2 min at 90% 1 min at 103% 6 min at 60% 2 min at 90% 1 min at 103% 2 min at 90% 1 min at 103% 2 min at 90% 1 min at 103% 60% for the remainder of the ride, till I hit 90 mins. These felt easier than Tuesdays ride. Not easy per se, but felt more sustainable. I brought the heart rate monitor back out again today, noted that I was getting some inconsistent readings at some points, which I found frustrating. Saw some times when it would skip around pretty wildly, although overall it seemed fine. Noted that the HR I was seeing at the 60% efforts was showing lower than the last time I had the HR monitor on, was getting down to the 135-140 or so during the recovery periods, which is quite a bit lower than the 155-160s I recall the last time I had it running. I'll probably give it a few more tries, and see how consistent it is over those sessions. I did get a new cycling computer for my bike, which I was hoping to tie into the HR monitor so that when I'm on the road I can use that rather than power, like when I'm at the gym.

2 hour ride again today. Also shot 18 holes of disc golf a couple hours later. Today was pretty similar to yesterday's ride, 2 hours at 60%, with 45 second 175% every 10 mins. After about the first hour, I started doing 30 seconds easy out of the saddle around 90-100%, just to get off my bum some more. I did these every 10 mins also, but alternated the timing with the 175% efforts, so that I was up about every 5 mins. I had brought some Gatorade with me again today, brought some extra water also, since I had finished mine yesterday and had to ration the last bit of it towards the end of the ride. Went through about 60 oz over the two hours. I had a small-ish breakfast, about an hour and a half before I started riding. Didn't want to eat too much since I wasn't planning on having a lot of time before I started. I got pretty hungry towards the end of the ride, stomach started growling with about 15 mins left to go. Ride felt pretty good. About the start of the second hour, I decided that I was just mashing down on the pedals too much to hit my power numbers, so I tried to focus a bit more on being smooth, since that'll be more realistic when on my regular bike. I noticed that it was easy for me to brace my weight on the bars, and get a good clean pedal stroke, though the time I did that was the only time all day I didn't make my 45 second goal. Definitely felt like I had to work harder to hit the same power, then when I was letting gravity assist each stroke. For the following, I dropped the cadence a little, and got a pretty smooth stroke while still supporting my weight pretty much just by my legs. I did that for the rest of the ride, seemed to work pretty well.

2 hour ride today. That's the longest I've ridden so far this year. Wasn't a particularly intense ride, was scheduled for 2 hours at ~60%. In the theme of getting off my butt and getting blood flowing every so often, I did 45 seconds out of the saddle every 10 minutes. I did the first two at about 200+%, I decided as I was nearing my 3rd and my glutes were still burning from the previous burst, that perhaps increasing both the intensity and duration of my out of the saddle time all at once, was a bad plan. So I lowered my target to about 175+%, and I did that for the remainder. I've been running with my target power values as minimums, trying not to drop below them. I tend to have some variance in my output, I was mostly within about a 10-15 watt range at 60%, and about a 15-30 watt range at 175%. So I sort of know that I'm averaging slightly above my targets, but I don't have any detailed post ride data to really break it down to see specifics. Just what I see that I'm doing at any given moment. Today was also the first ride with my heart rate monitor on. My wife had found one on sale, and surprised me with it. Heart rate was right around 160bpm while maintaining 60%. It'd vary about +/- 5 or so, but seemed mostly to settle around that once I was warmed up. The out of the saddle efforts got to the upper 190s, and then would settle back down as I went right back to my baseline pace. I tried to make a point not to let myself lower the power while recovering. I'd toss the gearing right to where I knew I would hit my target power levels, and ramp the cadence right up. Cadence wise, most of the out of the saddle stuff was around 70ish. Some a little higher, some a little lower, mostly depending on exactly how much I ramped up the resistance. There's no clicks or obvious way to get it exactly the same. The head unit tells you what "gear" it thinks your in, but you can micro adjust within the same gear, so it's just a general estimate. I varied between mid 80s, and mid 90s for the 60% effort bit. I haven't done a proper max HR test, though I assume that the upper 190s I saw should be pretty close. I would think though, that given a higher cadence and lower power, I'd be able to sustain a proper difficult effort long enough to really get a good gauge. As it was today, I would see my heart rate climbing right up till my 45 seconds were up, and my legs were spent. Was definitely my legs, more so than my lungs that were maxed out at that pace.

90 minute ride today, bumped up my threshold power 20 watts from what I had been doing. Definitely felt tough, but I made it through pretty well. I had a big grin on my face a couple times when I finished an interval still going strong. 30 mins at 60% 10 mins at 90% 6 mins at 60% 10 mins at 90% 6 mins at 60% 10 mins at 90% 18 mins at 60% short cooldown easy spinning. about 2 mins before each interval, I did 15 seconds out of the saddle at 150-200%, and at the 5 min mark I did 30 seconds, and again at the end of the interval for another 30. I also did a 1 minute out of the saddle around 200% effort about 10 mins before I finished. This wasn't really planned, I just got up to do a 30 second stint like normal, and decided to keep going. I found myself looking forward to the out of the saddle time, I did these at a lower cadence, felt like it gave me a moment to reset, even though power was a lot higher, and then kept going strong after. I did start to cramp up a little bit in my side around 70 minutes, but it never got more than a bit mild. I don't recall ever cramping before when on the bike, although I used to all the time if I were running.

I used the workouts in the Time-Crunched Cyclist as a foundation. I'm mostly keeping to that, though I've rescheduled some, or adjusted workouts here and there. The biggest complaint I have with the stock workouts, is they feel a lot more applicable to road riding. I've always been an XC guy, so I do find myself wanting for some more shorter duration, higher intensity intervals mixed in. I'll probably add some in, though I haven't decided exactly when/how yet. I think also, the stock plan has you run for 12 weeks before re-testing yourself, and adjusting your threshold numbers. I felt like that was perhaps either a bit conservative, or more targeted towards people who had a higher starting fitness than I did. I feel like I'm still very much in the "noob gains" phase, so I like the idea of trying to increase intensity at a quicker pace.

90 min ride today, went really well. I felt invigorated rather than exhausted when I finished. Felt like I could have easily kept going. Was scheduled for 75-90 mins, 60% threshold. With 3 85-90% 10min efforts, 6 mins between each. I did the first 30 mins at 60% and then started my 10min intervals. I was keeping around 95-100 RPM, dipping down as low as about 90. These felt surprisingly easy, I was expecting to have a harder time maintaining the whole time. I did each interval with a 30 sec out of the saddle ~200% effort. These were mostly to give me a chance to stand and get some blood flowing before I sat back down. Wasn't too worried about hitting any specific power, just threw the resistance high enough that I could step on it without spinning out too fast. I'd drop back down to 90% and finish the interval as planned. So after the 3rd interval, I started thinking that I should add something to the last ~20 mins of the ride, since I was still feeling pretty fresh at the 70min mark. So I decided to do about 110% for 8 mins, which if I could do, would let me up my threshold numbers going forward. Turns out I was a bit conserative. I did the first 4 mins at the upper 160s, the next 4 in the upper 170s, and then did two minutes at 200+, finishing the last 30 seconds ramping up to about 250watts. There were also 30 seconds out of the saddle at upper 200 watts also around the middle of that interval. So I'm calling that about 173, and I'll use that for my next session and see how it feels. I finished up at 60%, which felt like a nice cooldown/recovery ride. And then a few mins of easy spinning after I finished the session. Definitely felt like I had my nutrition more dialed for this ride, it made a huge difference in how much energy I had available to use. I had a good sized pasta/shrimp bowl the night before, and then a bowl of fruit about 2 hours out, and a bit more fruit just before leaving to head to the gym.

I started riding again late last fall, after having mostly neglected to do so for years. I've been trying to keep up with it over the winter, but found that I wasn't doing a great job of hitting my 2-3 times a week minimum that I set for myself. I started setting a schedule for myself though, heading to the gym straight after work, which seems to help. Here's my log from last week. Tuesday: 60 mins, warm up, and two 8 min max efforts, 10mins between. The bikes at the gym had power levels, though they didn't have an option for average power over a duration, which was disappointing. I kept an eye on my power, and estimated my average as best as I could. Noted that both efforts, power would creep up throughout, even though I was completely spent after the 8 min sessions. Ended at ~153 watts FTP. The goal was to benchmark my threshold power, to use for calibrating the rest of my efforts. Wednesday: 60 mins, endurance pace (varied between ~60-75% FTP, did 3 mins 60, 2 at 75. Also varied cadence every 10 mins, just to break up the ride some). Thursday: 1 hour racquet ball, and some weight lifting before, since we got to the gym earlier. Weights weren't well planned, did bench, squats, deadlifts, and tricep pulldowns. Friday: 90 mins, endurance pace (~60% FTP). Felt pretty drained by about the 30 min mark. Kept setting small goals, and pushing till I hit 90m. Saturday: Recovery day. Sunday: 75 mins, endurance pace (~60% FTP). Felt good until about 40 mins, then started running low on energy. Was going to ride 90 mins, felt too spent, so I called it early. Noted that I'll need to spend some time reading up on proper nutrition to make sure I stay fueled properly. I'm a lot more used to how to eat for weightlifting, less so on proper nutrition for longer rides. I have today off, next ride is set for Tuesday.

Just finished my workout for tonight. Had a hard time of it, weights felt super heavy, and I kept wanting to let myself call it good enough for the day. I think I was halfway through my 2nd set of squats, the weight started to feel really heavy, and I had serious doubts about my ability to finish the rest of my sets. I had music on today, which is unusual for me lately. Was streaming on Pandora. And I was sitting there catching my breath trying to talk myself into doing another set, and then The Distance by Cake came on, and I figured I could make that my theme song for the day, and I got up and did another set. I felt like I had a hard time getting comfortable with the bar on my shoulders today, I don't normally have that problem. I had several sets I'd start where I'd pick up the bar, set it back down, adjust the grip, readjust the bar, and try again. I can normally just set my hands at the proper width, duck under and go. Not sure why I couldn't find my rhythm today. I wanted to give up after my 3rd set. Just felt exhausted, last couple reps were pretty tough. Did my fourth set, which felt easier than the past two. I could feel the muscles in my back tensing up, didn't like that much. It felt fine during the whole lift, but just sitting around catching my breath between sets it was kind of uncomfortable. I almost stopped again there, wasn't sure what that was about, and I didn't want to strain anything. Not sure why I got under the bar for the last set, was pretty sure I was going to call it and blame my back for being tense. But once I found myself under the bar I just sort of shrugged, and did my set, felt fine while I was doing it. Last two reps were definitely tough. I'm not exactly sure how deep I went on them, I have a hunch I may have stopped just shy of my target depth. But I didn't have anyone to spot, and I was pretty exhausted, so I called it a win. I'm getting close to being able to squat my weight, at least on my 5x5 working weight, I suppose I'd be able to one rep max about my weight probably a little over. Haven't tried though, and I'm more interested in moving the working weight up anyway. I went and laid down on my bench, just let my arms sprawl out to my sides for a minute or two while I caught my breath. Was pretty happy I made it through without missing any reps. I did bench press next, these were a lot easier than my squats were today. Felt heavy but doable. Been working on form on these a bit, I think I had done the bench press for years on and off without really looking too much into the proper way to do it. I think I sort of assumed "take the bar and press it" was a thorough enough description of what to do. Breathing seems a lot better now, more consistent rep to rep, was a bit haphazard from one rep to the next before. Bent over rows went pretty well, been getting more accustomed to the posture. I found that I was able to set myself up, and just slowly settle down, which lets my hamstrings stretch out a bit, I can keep my back nice and level now, while keeping good posture and support. I read a bit earlier about thinking the pull as lifting the weight up by your elbows, rather than by your hands, it felt quite a bit different to do so. Weight on these wasn't terribly high. Form seems much improved, hopefully I can get some muscle memory in place so it's easier to hold proper form once weight gets up there. I also did a set of deadlifts. Weight was still pretty low, focused on driving my feet into the ground on the lift. Felt much different than what I had been doing, really seemed like a good improvement. I think that, combined with increased flexibility from getting used to the posture is starting to show some definite improvement. These weren't on the schedule for today, but I figured more practice on improving form was a good idea. I'd like to continue to add a set after each workout, at least while the weights are light-ish, and the focus is on form while slowly increasing weight. That's the idea at least. Seems like a good idea to me. TLDR: Squats tough, wanted to give up early. Didn't. Go me.

Week 4: Checking your starting credits Well done, you've made it to the end of week 3, so now you get to level up to Level 1 and you get to allocate 10 stat points to your challenge. We use 6 attributes in NF Real Life Roleplaying: Strength (STR) - physical strength Dexterity (DEX) - agility and speed Stamina (STA) - Endurance and Energy Constitution (CON) - ability to resist damage and disease (also related to diet) Wisdom (WIS) - intuition and sense of things around himself (any learning that you've done is also included) Charisma (CHA) - force of personality and physical attractiveness (sociable aspects of your challenge are also included) So your quest these week will be as follows: 1. Allocate 10 points to your quests 2. Do a mid challenge summary and rate yourself on a percentage scale 3. Using your rating, allocate points to your challenge so far. You can round up/down if you don't like fractions (like i do). 4. Update your signature with your points 5. Let us know how you've allocated I'm going to combine the soda/booze goals into one, and use "workout 3x per week" as my 3rd goal. Because I think that's more representative of what I was trying to do this challenge. I think when I had written my goals, I had thought that not missing workouts would be assumed. Looking through now, I like having it more explicitly spelled out. Goal 1) Eat Better = 2 STA Goal 2) Drink less soda/booze = 2 Con Goal 3) Lift weights 3x per week = 2 STR, 2 DEX Life Quest) Follow through on fun projects = 2 WIS Mid Challenge Summary: Goal 1) 60% Goal 2) 80% Goal 3) 50% Life Quest) 100% Challenge Allocation: Goal 1) 1.2 STA Goal 2) 1.6 CON Goal 3) 1 STR, 1 DEX Life Quest) 2 WIS Total: 1 STR, 1DEX, 1.2 STA, 1.6 CON, 2 WIS, 0 CHA

Still struggling to keep up with the workout schedule I've set for myself. Even days when I'm at home and not doing anything particuarly important it's been hard for me to keep up at it as much as I want to. I had been keeping track of my workouts in a log, so I can track progress. So I wrote out target goals for the next two weeks. Most everything except deadlift is probably a bit ambitious. But I like to think I do best when I aim high. I know that there is absolutely no way I can hit my goal if I keep skipping workouts. But I think I can hit some of the target weights by the end of the two weeks, and perhaps by the end of the challenge I'll have completed all of them. Going to go figure out how to setup those fancy progress bars, and use that to help keep myself honest. [edit] Added progress bars for the bits I expect to be most challenging. I have goals set for every lift I do, seems simpler to just track a few through the progress bars though.