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What ashes? The ashes of an off season of less intense riding. The ashes of a long and colder than usual winter. The ashes of multiple colds where training time was missed. I felt like the Phoenix today. 65 degrees at lunch time. No knee warmers. No tights. No base layer. Short sleeved jersey and the sun warming my backside. Ahhhhh it felt awesome. The drill for today was a nice tempo – steady state ride. SST (sweet spot training) to some of you and a mix of tempo and sub-threshold to you Frielites. Mission accomplished. I felt REALLY good today out on the bike. Legs seemed strong and efficient. In fact I actually backed myself off a few times during the ride because I really felt I could keep pushing harder. But I needed to stick with the program. Tomorrow morning is some scheduled intensity so I didn’t want to burn myself out today. Even so I finished this 19 mile course 1.5 minutes faster than I did on Friday with the same avg heart rate and higher power (duh).
So, are Phoenix’s fast? I hope so and I hope I am one!
Oh. I almost forgot – Saturday. Trainer. Yuck.
30.22 miles, 1:48:54, 2103 ft ascent, 208 watts avg power, 154 bpm avg hr, 1373 calories
Today’s schaweet lunch ride:
18.86 miles, 58:20, 692 ft ascent, 229 watts avg power, 156 bpm avg hr, 867 calories. CTL is now 71 with TSB -26. Hopefully this will be the last time my CTL sees 70 (or under) until after the racing season.
Yes, I’m singing old classic songs to to my bike. Hopefully Nancy won’t be jealous  . Seeing as I haven’t ridden my Giant since 1/18 (been on the trainer with my old flat bar road bike) and I actually got to take her for a lunch spin today, I figured a little singing was in order! I started out this ride just trying to get to know my bike again a little. I was looking to do a nice tempo – steady state ride. When I first started out headed North and East mostly things just felt a little off. It seemed like I was just grinding along. There was a wind in my face, but after a couple of months of not being outside I was having trouble judging how much of it might be headwind and how much was just caused by my own speed.
About 7.5 miles into the 19 mile route I turned to the head mostly South and West. Good and warmed up at that point, I guess there must have been a pretty good wind because now I was just flying. It felt good even it it was tailwind assisted . At about 15 miles I turned back into the wind for the homestretch. My legs were firing off more efficiently at this point and the headwind didn’t seem to drag me down quite as much the last 4 miles. While I wasn’t really trying to kill this route I ended up finishing it faster than I ever have with my hr staying where I wanted it. Things felt pretty good and I got a good workout in. The footlong Subway REALLY tasted good when I got back to my desk.
18.9 miles, 59:54, 837 ft ascent, 228 watts avg power, 156 bpm avg hr, 887 calories. CTL is up to 67 TSB -19.
While tomorrow will be nice weather, we have some family things to take care of so I’ll probably have to put a couple of hours on the trainer earlier in the morning (before the temps warm up). Oh well. That’s life!
Firstly, I slept marvelously last night! It sure feels good waking up and actually feeling rested. Today was my “hard” workout for the week. So I figured I’d go to the standard 30 minute(ish) course with some climbing that I use as a good hard threshold interval. Mission accomplished. While I didn’t set any personal records today, it was a good solid session and about a top 5 finish with avg power on this course. What I am finding in the more intense workouts is that I seem to be stronger than I was last year at this time (seems like about a 10% increase in raw power) but what is lacking right now is when I push myself much over my LTHR (Lactate Threshold Heart Rate) it really takes a lot out of me an I’m not recovering as quickly as I seemed to mid season last year. That’s understandable though since I’ve been mostly working threshold and not really doing much above that. That will change soon as the shorter more intense intervals start up.
The interval session:
9.01 miles, 28:53, 896 ft ascent, 243 watts avg power, 163 bpm avg hr.
Total workout:
17.01 miles, 53:23, 896 ft ascent, 204 watts avg power, 155 bpm avg hr, 905 calories. CTL is hanging at 65 and TSB -12
The weather is starting to turn nicer. Maybe there is an outside ride in my near future?
I intended to get up this morning and hit the trainer. However, I suffer from what I call SORISID (Significant Other Restlessness Induced Sleep Interruption Disorder). I barely get enough sleep the way it is so if I lose another hour plus at night it really hurts. So I slept in this morning to make up for the sleep time lost. The plan is to swap today’s workout for tomorrows rest day. Should be fine. Just need to get a good night’s sleep tonight.
I sure am glad I hauled my butt out of bed this morning. Fired up a 19 mile course on the trainer with the intention of keeping things in the the tempo – steady state zones. For you Frielites that would be tempo – sub threshold or SST work. Mission accomplished. But what made this morning so good is that, well, I felt good. I am seemingly starting to put out better power numbers keeping the heart rate in check. Me likey! Might have to do a 10 mile time trial on the trainer again one of these days just to see how things stack up to a year a go or so. So the workout:
19 miles, 55:00, 0 ascent, 176 watts avg power, 151 bpm avg hr, 732 calories. CTL is at 65 and TSB -14.
Need to revisit my training schedule to see when I officially start the Time Crunched program. I pushed it back a bit since I won’t be able to make my first planned race on 3/20. Next race that I can make is 5/1 so it’s getting close to time to ramp it up a little. But I need to redo the schedule. Grrrr…
Hit just under 2 hours this morning on the trainer. I did two “climbing” courses, so a lot of leg strength tested today. In fact I felt the best today after this workout than I have for quite a while. Feels like I’m actually close to 100% feeling good again. I’d almost forgotten what that feels like! In fact, I did one of the same courses I did yesterday AFTER I had just put a good hard 45 minutes on my legs and scored my second best power and time on that course ever. So here is today’s workout:
27.16 miles, 1:51:43, 3425 ft ascent, 226 watts avg power, 153 bpm avg hr, 1212 calories. CTL is up to 67 and TSB – 35.
That gives me 5 hours at about 200 watts this week. A little light on the time but pretty good intensity.
Rest day tomorrow.
I’m really ready to get outside. I’d at least gotten 4 outside rides in by the end of February last year. None this year. Got a bit over an hour of tempo in this morning. Felt pretty good. My heart rate seemed to stay down in zone quite well today so that’s a plus. Here’s today’s ho hum…
21.38 miles, 1:19:23,1450 ft ascent, 207 watts avg power, 149 bpm avg hr, 880 calories. CTL 63 TSB -17
Looks like 2 hours on the trainer again tomorrow morning.
Ho Hum…
Ok…to make it a little less ho hum I checked back to one year ago. last year I did this same course (2/28/2009). Avg power 172 watts and heart rate 154 bpm. So at least it appears I’m well ahead of where I was last year at this time. CTL is a little higher but so is TSB so that means I’ve got some good training opportunities ahead of me the next few weeks! So that makes me feel a little less ho hum .
Sunday was off as usual. Monday was off as well. Not sure why. Probably just too lazy to get up in the morning! Hit about an hour on Tuesday night. Unfortunately I had my music on a little too loud and my daughter couldn’t get to sleep and she was a bit upset as they have their standardized testing at school and she wants to be well rested. So while I was able to turn down the music and finish my workout, I was banished from the bonus room Wednesday morning. Dang loud parents! Things normalized Wednesday night and Leah got a good night’s sleep and I was able to hit it hard this morning. So, I’m a little behind for the week, but not too bad.
Tuesday night – tempo pace
18 miles, 54:58, 0 ascent, 158 watts avg power, 152 bpm avg hr, 645 calories.
This morning was a 4 mile warm up and cool down with a 29 minute sub to super theshold for you Friel fans and climbing repeat (with a little power interval) zone for CTS’ers out there. Last night I felt like I might be able to rip the cranks off my bike. The actual workout was somewhat less impressive than that but still a very good workout with a couple of dry heaves at the end just to assure I wasn’t slacking.
Hard interval:
9.01 miles. 29:09, 896 ft ascent, 240 watts avg power, 164 bpm avg hr
Total workout:
17.01 miles, 54:21, 896 ft ascent, 198 watts avg power, 155 bpm avg hr, 910 calories. CTL is at 62 with TSB -9.
Trying to get 90 minutes in tomorrow and 2 hours on Saturday. Looks like all on the trainer.
Though I’ve had workouts longer than an hour over the last few weeks today was the first time I actually finished one up an actually felt pretty good when I was done. Finally! I had to fight through a little muscle soreness from shooting hoops yesterday but it wasn’t bad. Though my legs are a bit on the sore side right now. It’s a good sore and hopefully with some stretching I’ll be all ready to hit it again Monday morning (tomorrow is an off day). Today was about 2 hours on the trainer, most of which was at tempo pace with some good virtual climbing (good for leg strength) on 4 different courses.
Here are the numbers:
30.33 miles, 2:02:02, 3566 ft ascent, 209 watts avg power, 149 bpm avg hr, 1488 calories.
Here is how the week looked:
105.10 miles, 6:21:14, 7362 ft ascent, 199 watts avg power, 143 bpm avg hr, 4715 calories. CTL ended up at 63 with TSB dropping to -24.
Looking forward to another good week next week.
I had the rare opportunity to sleep in a bit (5:45) and still get a workout over an hour in today. Nice! Wish I could do that every day! The goal today was to do 75-90 minutes in the tempo – steady state zones on the CTS scale or SST (tempo – sub threshhold) on the Freil scale. It was kind of a weird morning. I felt awake and pretty good this morning but my heart rate seemed too high for my perceived exertion level. Yet power ended up being the second highest ever on this course. Since it is a climbing course (on long 6 mile virtual climb) the only thing I can think if is that my legs have gotten stronger but my aerobic system is straining to keep up. At least today. So my heart rate zones ended up about one zone high compared to the power I was putting out. One of those head scratchers today. At any rate I got a good, fairly intense, workout in today that should be helpful in raising my FTP.
Here are the numbers:
Climbing course:
17.38 miles, 1:06:32, 1450 ft ascent, 219 watts avg power, 164 bpm avg hr, 753 calories
Total including warm up:
21.38 miles, 1:18:55, 1450 ft ascent, 209 watts avg power, 161 bpm avg hr, 925 calories. CTL up to 60, TSB down to -9.
Aiming for around 2 hours tomorrow. It’s going to be nice tomorrow, but because of Leah’s basketball game (not minding at all…love the bball games) I’ll probably need to stay inside on the trainer and get the workout in relatively early.
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