Roflsocks' Cycling Log

[Roflsocks]

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.

[Roflsocks]

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. 

 

[Sloth the Enduring]

Are you following your own program or someone else's?

[Roflsocks]

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. 

[Roflsocks]

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. 

[Roflsocks]

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. 

[Roflsocks]

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. 

 

 

[Roflsocks]

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.