The training thread: How was yours? (today/yesterday/etc)

[Xplora]

LOL yeah I needed to plan that better. Slice of pizza would have been perfect at RHTC. It is seriously the best ride food ever. Perfect fat to oil to lipid balance. I mean protein carb balance

I am weighing up Saturdays options. Masters race at 9pm or trek at 9am. Hmmmmmmmmm

[Xplora]

Ended up doing a slightly longer short ride, and fell on my bum at 5kmh trying to ride through the Parramatta Park gravel path. It's extra "good" with all the rain and it was going OK until I tried to bail onto the dirt next to it. Probably a bad idea with a race bike with race wheels and race tyres. Sneh.

Trying to work out the best option for improving sprint power right now. Better to do them on a slight downhill to get the derny effect? Seems hard to get faster than 46kmh from a 30kmh start pace on a slight uphill?

[g-boaf]

Wouldn't you be doing gym work for that? Eg, jump squats and the like (and eventually jump squats with weights)?

I'm not the most experienced with that stuff, but I know it's one thing I should be doing, and I don't.

[Xplora]

Gyms cost money. Even weights cost money. At my level, and my current goals, I need to get my nongym assisted sprint up to par before adding something. "You've got to run, before you can run faster"???? Just throwing it into the big ring half a dozen times and ripping it a few times a week seems to be helping... got PBs on normalised power right down up to 5 minutes today!

[dalai47]

Trying to work out the best option for improving sprint power right now.

Race on the track...

[Xplora]

Need a track bike...

Got the word from the Auditor-General at Ministry of War and Finance that a used Garmin would be considered excessive expenditure right now... track bike is WAY outside that boundary

[toolonglegs]

I do sprint work outs about twice a week if I can... they aren't very taxing so you can easily do 8 to 10 in a 2 hour ride. I like to do them after a downhill so speed is right up with little effort, just spring up and hit it as hard and fast as you can till you feel the initial burst of power taper, usually around the 10-15 sec mark. My aim is to hit my maximum zone and work the kick. Going longer than that and pushing them out to 30 sec etc is very taxing and not actually working your peak power any more than the shorter efforts.
It is all genetic so the gains are never that big unless you have a functional problem... it's not how hard you can push, it's how hard and fast.
Track training might be great if you have a track nearby, but sprinting over and over isn't going to allow you to hit your max numbers for long, once your power drops you aren't really training that zone anymore.
A lot of people here say do standing starts etc... but for those of us who don't race track, whats the point?. My legs are bloody strong... 2nd row rugby player for many years showed me that, strength is not my weak point, my problem is getting the kick right and holding it at a high cadence so that's what I train.

Did a 20 minute effort today in the short amount of time I had, 349 av... less than 5% down on where I want to be consistently ( about 360 ), wasn't that fresh in the legs ... still 15% down of best ever efforts but I think those days might be past .

[g-boaf]

Need a track bike...

Got the word from the Auditor-General at Ministry of War and Finance that a used Garmin would be considered excessive expenditure right now... track bike is WAY outside that boundary

You've got a power meter already, don't think you need anything more. I don't even have one and I'm managing to train okay.

Your road bike can do the same thing as a track bike, just start in an equivalent big gear and way you go , starting from a low speed.

I think i agree with TLL on standing starts too, with respect to your riding.

And just on a track bike, remember, it's a big jump from road racing and it isn't for everyone. And racing on long, outdoor velodromes with gusting wind is not really enjoyable at any time once you've discovered fast indoor racing.

[Xplora]

LOL Wyatt Park not your fave, boaf?
I mention the track bike purchase simply to say "hey race track, it will be awesome" ignores the reason I don't use Campy Super Record either. Cash is limited, and I had to sell a LOT of toys to get that Quarq
The garmin is more related to racing and monitoring the TSS of a ride, would really like an Edge that can take laps, and give data on the laps, based on GPS position. I am NOT pressing the lap button 15 times around any course over 2 hours. Yes, I'm a princess. Your 510 had so much info on it, it was mind boggling I love it! Can't have too much info if you're a breaker...

Great job on the 20 minute power TLL

[Ignoto]

Does bonking have an effect on you a few days after it occurs?

I bonked on Saturday after my race and ride home (only 110km in total) which obviously was silly of me not to have grabbed a coke after the race as I was sitting on 90km and barely anything eaten. Anyway, I took it easy for the weekend and did some VO2 work on Monday's ride and the legs were pretty shattered which was expected. But even taking it easy since then (20km on the bike through 3 days worth of commutes and a couple of walks) I still don't feel refreshed or energized.

Should I just give it the rest of the week and enjoy being warm instead of out there in the wet? Or should I have recovered from Saturdays bonk already?

[Xplora]

My first thought was HTFU SISSYBOY but then I thought about my ride with boaf on Saturday. I was truly cooked after 110kms and got home with 120 under the belt. I've bonked worse, but it was bad.
I felt like I was sweaty the whole afternoon and evening, even after an ice cold shower, and I was pretty bad on Sunday too. Smashed a couple short sessions starting Monday. I think it's realistic to say that you might be hurting worse than expected after 90kms. 300-400TSS is expected to take 2 days to recover from. Minimum.

[Ignoto]

Righto - I might just have an easy week then (first one this year) and do a couple of coffee rides if this rain stops. I'm hoping to have a big on in April after getting my full race licence and basically 7 days off work on account of the public holidays!

[Xplora]

First easy week? No wonder. working too hard! Cruise with the girlfriend, or both of you take the dog for the walk... you will really benefit from a quiet week.

[g-boaf]

My first thought was HTFU SISSYBOY but then I thought about my ride with boaf on Saturday. I was truly cooked after 110kms and got home with 120 under the belt. I've bonked worse, but it was bad.
I felt like I was sweaty the whole afternoon and evening, even after an ice cold shower, and I was pretty bad on Sunday too. Smashed a couple short sessions starting Monday. I think it's realistic to say that you might be hurting worse than expected after 90kms. 300-400TSS is expected to take 2 days to recover from. Minimum.

I don't have the big speed - but I'm doing the steady diet of big kilometres, weather permitting. But I'm lucky to have the time to do that. That makes the longer rides a bit easier to handle.

I reckon you just didn't eat enough, perhaps hydration too, while i had plenty that morning. We will have to try that again.

I died on Sunday instead. Nothing major, just dead legs, that seems to be the indicator with me that it has been a long week on the bike.

[g-boaf]

I did 5x5 this morning. One of the others with me wanted to do 7x5. No thanks. 50 minutes was quite enough for me.

[Xplora]

I reckon there is more value to doing a hour session at 100% effort than adding an extra 15 minutes at 80... particularly hard efforts. I've been thinking back at my improvements over the last few months and it's been short and sharp, not long and lazy, that has made the difference.

5km run today, cadence spinups on the trainer tonight. Will be interesting to test out the new calibration as well. Alex set me straight... most of my PBs recently are the result of Q rings combined with poor calibration and ideal power error situations....

[Cul]

I reckon there is more value to doing a hour session at 100% effort than adding an extra 15 minutes at 80....

This is the truth for sure, when doing short stuff HARD and precise are the way they need to be done. Increased reps or additional farting around, generally detract from the quality of the training / interval(s) being preformed. Typically 3 or 5 vomit inducing intervals will offer more gains than say 7 intervals that don't quite hit the mark (using 5min Vo2Max intervals as an example).



I hit the trainer today, very short session and the first time doing "Tabata" style intervals... I don't think I have ever felt so fingered after half an hour of riding! I was impressed I made it to the 7th repeat, just!

[Xplora]

I'm impressed that you considered continuing whilst experiencing a fingering sensation

[Cul]

I'm impressed that you considered continuing whilst experiencing a fingering sensation

Foot, meet mouth! Left myself open on that one...

[PlantPowered]

My first week of starting to push myself hard, good couple of hard rides this week, feels good

[Ross]

My first thought was HTFU SISSYBOY but then I thought about my ride with boaf on Saturday. I was truly cooked after 110kms and got home with 120 under the belt. I've bonked worse, but it was bad.
I felt like I was sweaty the whole afternoon and evening, even after an ice cold shower, and I was pretty bad on Sunday too. Smashed a couple short sessions starting Monday. I think it's realistic to say that you might be hurting worse than expected after 90kms. 300-400TSS is expected to take 2 days to recover from. Minimum.

Looks like your TSS scores are still fantasy. No way will you get anywhere near 300 for 120km of riding, even if you ride up a cliff in 53-11. Half that score or just above is more realistic.

[Cul]

My first thought was HTFU SISSYBOY but then I thought about my ride with boaf on Saturday. I was truly cooked after 110kms and got home with 120 under the belt. I've bonked worse, but it was bad.
I felt like I was sweaty the whole afternoon and evening, even after an ice cold shower, and I was pretty bad on Sunday too. Smashed a couple short sessions starting Monday. I think it's realistic to say that you might be hurting worse than expected after 90kms. 300-400TSS is expected to take 2 days to recover from. Minimum.

Looks like your TSS scores are still fantasy. No way will you get anywhere near 300 for 120km of riding, even if you ride up a cliff in 53-11. Half that score or just above is more realistic.

Very much agree, those TSS scores are akin to something I would expect to see after a 6hr MTB race (usually 400-450hrTSS**), a 3hr race would see 250hrTSS** give or take. For instance my 3hr solid but hard ride on Saturday got a score of 185hrTSS**. Recovery time is pretty spot on, after a ride / race of this magnatude no hard work for atleast 2 days.

You'd need to be doing 3hrs solid at or above threshold to get 300TSS on a 3hr ride; I'd suggest your FTP is either set to low, or there are some calibration issues with the power meter recording high.


** Note I have used Training Peaks hrTSS as I currently do not have a powermeter, historicly I have found this to be within approx 10% of actually TSS when used with powermeter YMMV.

[Xplora]

Cul - All respect, but try to bear in mind the nature of most of my riding... I'm USELESS at keeping steady state pace. Jump on the front, attack, hope body doesn't cease presence in the space time continuum, continue attacking. My normalised power vs average is enormously different. Might get 200W av but 290w when normalised. I often have a lot of 500-800 watt spikes from sprints or climbs which muck around with the normalised power a lot.
And TSS is calculated off normalised power, not average power.... my heart rate doesn't reflect efforts at Z7 at all... in fact, my HR is normally quite low when I go for the Z7 effort. So I can pad out my TSS substantially with lots of efforts throughout an otherwise low challenge ride. (This is considered a big weakness from the view of Hunter/Coggan/WKO's critics, who came up with xPower, BikeScore and a few other measurements... it inflates the endurance rider's ego no end)
Either way... I didn't mention what my TSS for the ride with boaf was, if you read the post. Just saying that the standard guidelines for recovery, and to say that it's not unreasonable to expect a 5-6 hour ride to take a couple days to feel "spritely" (a 5 hour cruise should be at least 250TSS if you are training otherwise you just aren't trying hard enough).

[Cul]

Cul - All respect, but try to bear in mind the nature of most of my riding... I'm USELESS at keeping steady state pace. Jump on the front, attack, hope body doesn't cease presence in the space time continuum, continue attacking. My normalised power vs average is enormously different. Might get 200W av but 290w when normalised. I often have a lot of 500-800 watt spikes from sprints or climbs which muck around with the normalised power a lot.

No doubt the type of riding would make a difference, if you live in a hilly area with loads of punchy type stuff I can see how the numbers would be more reflective to that of the mountain bike race example I gave which would push the TSS up to that 250-300 range. Around these parts the only way you are getting your TSS to 100p/hr is lots of TT / threshold work as it's flat as a tack in Geelong!

And TSS is calculated off normalised power, not average power.... my heart rate doesn't reflect efforts at Z7 at all... in fact, my HR is normally quite low when I go for the Z7 effort. So I can pad out my TSS substantially with lots of efforts throughout an otherwise low challenge ride. (This is considered a big weakness from the view of Hunter/Coggan/WKO's critics, who came up with xPower, BikeScore and a few other measurements... it inflates the endurance rider's ego no end).

Either way... I didn't mention what my TSS for the ride with boaf was, if you read the post. Just saying that the standard guidelines for recovery, and to say that it's not unreasonable to expect a 5-6 hour ride to take a couple days to feel "spritely" (a 5 hour cruise should be at least 250TSS if you are training otherwise you just aren't trying hard enough)

TSS is a gauge, I must admit even with a powermeter I didn't find it particularly usefull other than gauging the stress of a ride which I can tell by how I felt at the time anyways. Your body compisition is obviously slightly different from the norm, like myself I can be hammering out Z5/Z6/Z7 efforts and not see a dramatic spike in heartrate above my LTHR. Unless I am really working for a period of time. Ultimatly, you should know your body and when to recover / take it easy and when to hammer, that said the recovery guidelines based of TSS here arepretty accurate IMO.

[Xplora]

Just finished 3 hours down the M7, avg 194W, normalised 247. Came up with 283TSS. This seems pretty reasonable to me? It's a long 35km stretch with rolling hills, and a number of slow points that you have to punch away from to maintain your average speed. I won't do the corners fast either, plenty of guys hold a stronger pace through the corners... up the hills... down the hills... on the flats...

Anyways, if I have 2 70 minute intervals at around 83% FTP and 96% FTP normalised, with a burger and some water in between at Maccas, and I don't feel like I could have done much better, does that sound reasonable to you? Sounds reasonable to me?