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

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2018 9:51 pm
by g-boaf
This week trying 4x10min in just under 1 hour sessions. I'm managing those okay - got a 10min power PR on one of them.

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

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2018 10:56 am
by andrewjcw
Well I've had a rough 2 months battling off winter viruses, and the 4 months this year before that were just riding to work so I figure it's about time to get a bit more keen.

I had originally planned to do a bit of an effort on Saturday but while the day was sunny enough the wind really wasn't helping and my ride quickly turned into a easy loop about the city. By Sunday morning the wind had fairly well died down so I headed out with more enthusiasm I'd seen in a long time.

Merewether velodrome is really just a sporting field with a wide smooth flat 400m bitumen track around the outside. It mightn't sound like much but it's actually a very useful place for a cyclist, perfect for any sort of efforts/testing. I did originally plan for a 20min best power test, and went out trying to keep the power around 300 -310. I made it to 10 minutes ok but then stopped to see if another cyclist needed help (he was stopped with his hand up on the track). I think given this being a first serious effort in a long time that only doing 10 minutes probably wasn't a bad idea.

Image

Anyway, the current plan is to just ride more and get the weight heading down and power heading up.

Weight: 95kg
20min Power: ~300w

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

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2018 6:57 pm
by g-boaf
andrewjcw wrote:Well I've had a rough 2 months battling off winter viruses, and the 4 months this year before that were just riding to work so I figure it's about time to get a bit more keen.

I had originally planned to do a bit of an effort on Saturday but while the day was sunny enough the wind really wasn't helping and my ride quickly turned into a easy loop about the city. By Sunday morning the wind had fairly well died down so I headed out with more enthusiasm I'd seen in a long time.

Merewether velodrome is really just a sporting field with a wide smooth flat 400m bitumen track around the outside. It mightn't sound like much but it's actually a very useful place for a cyclist, perfect for any sort of efforts/testing. I did originally plan for a 20min best power test, and went out trying to keep the power around 300 -310. I made it to 10 minutes ok but then stopped to see if another cyclist needed help (he was stopped with his hand up on the track). I think given this being a first serious effort in a long time that only doing 10 minutes probably wasn't a bad idea.

Image

Anyway, the current plan is to just ride more and get the weight heading down and power heading up.

Weight: 95kg
20min Power: ~300w
Looks like fun. :)

I'd like to get out more on the local track myself but I don't know if it is open or even used anymore. I'll leave that until I get back from Switzerland and France.

I've let the structured training slip a little bit. Mainly commute rides, one interval session last week and some 100km weekend rides. Not liking the cold weather much.

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

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 12:06 pm
by andrewjcw
Had a pretty good week of commuting and was looking forward to some weekend riding. In theory 80/100kms with a hill sounded good but wasn't to sure how I'd hold up. In the end I managed about 50 kms of flattish riding on Saturday. It felt pretty good and averaged about 32km/h. The tri bars definitely help with the speed a bit. I chucked them on just because I like having the extra position for longer solo rides but you definitely appreciate catching the wind a bit less solo.

Image

What I didn't expect was feeling flat and sore on Sunday, so that put to bed any ideas of any more riding. Figured it's best to rest up and get ready for another week of commuting. I did manage to do 20 mins of yoga off a youtube video last night which I'm pretty happy with. Haven't really done any stretching in years and I can feel bad things coming with more riding on the cards if I don't do anything so we'll see how this goes.

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

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 1:25 pm
by g-boaf
I also did some riding on the weekend. 32.3 average with 800m elevation (so pretty flat), chatting most of the time.

The other ride was just in lovely warm weather, but incredibly gusty conditions - spent most of the time trying to avoid being blown over.

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

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2018 12:38 am
by g-boaf
Had a blast today riding up the Galibier, Sarenne and a couple of others, also did a spectacular descent of Alpe D'Huez, same with the descent of Galibier, I was in a very fast bunch and we were flying.

107km and more than 4000m+. Incredible day.

Alpe D'Huez is insanely awesome to ride down - it is the most fun you can have riding a bicycle.

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

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2018 7:20 am
by you cannot be sirrus
Sounds awesome.

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

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2018 2:17 pm
by RobertL
g-boaf wrote:Had a blast today riding up the Galibier, Sarenne and a couple of others, also did a spectacular descent of Alpe D'Huez, same with the descent of Galibier, I was in a very fast bunch and we were flying.

107km and more than 4000m+. Incredible day.

Alpe D'Huez is insanely awesome to ride down - it is the most fun you can have riding a bicycle.
I'm not jealous. Not at all. Not in the slightest :( :( :( :(

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

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2018 2:54 pm
by biker jk
g-boaf wrote:Had a blast today riding up the Galibier, Sarenne and a couple of others, also did a spectacular descent of Alpe D'Huez, same with the descent of Galibier, I was in a very fast bunch and we were flying.

107km and more than 4000m+. Incredible day.

Alpe D'Huez is insanely awesome to ride down - it is the most fun you can have riding a bicycle.
Sounds harder than Stage 2. :shock: Did you enjoy the Madeleine? I did it some years ago now.

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

Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2018 10:33 pm
by g-boaf
Missed that day with some bike trouble and injury, but I'm back firing today. Pretty fun ride today - the record from Contador (I think it was him) on the same stage was destroyed. Nibali's time is still safe though, that's 33 minutes. A whole stack of times on the top of the Strava leaderboard were set today - which is pretty insane in itself. There are some very fast riders here this year, certainly ex-pro riders, continental pro riders, among them.

I had a pretty decent ride today.

I'm out of the running overall so I'm just having fun now.

So from what started as a disaster with a damaged bike and then a niggling injury from pushing big gearing on a Mavic neutral support bike has turned out okay.

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

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2018 12:02 am
by g-boaf
Top tip: don't ride Col de la Bonette and Vars back to back. Brutal!

Bonette is the highest I've ever ridden - everything up there is totally barren. The descent off there is enormous as well.

That would be the longest descent I've done- and that's even with the high speeds.

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

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2018 12:13 am
by g-boaf
Rode Auron to Nice today - via St Martin and Eze. 141km and 2649m today. Very nice ride with some gigantic high speed descents.

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

Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 9:07 pm
by nemo57
g-boaf wrote:Rode Auron to Nice today - via St Martin and Eze. 141km and 2649m today. Very nice ride with some gigantic high speed descents.
Unbelievable! I guess Sunday was easier than some of the previous week, but whew ...

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

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 5:50 pm
by g-boaf
nemo57 wrote:
g-boaf wrote:Rode Auron to Nice today - via St Martin and Eze. 141km and 2649m today. Very nice ride with some gigantic high speed descents.
Unbelievable! I guess Sunday was easier than some of the previous week, but whew ...
It feels a long time ago already! It's all beautiful riding, absolutely sublime part of the world.

I'm super busy at work now. Getting over a nasty cold, but back on the bike again. Even with that, today put out a 5 minute power best, so that's good. Feels like I'm finally getting over it properly.

Was noticing the Haute Route Dolomites (3 days) is on now, they've just done Stage 1, I recognised so many places on that video:



At 2:51, I've been there - that's Sella. Lavaze in the video is another place I've been. They had a pretty nasty stage one, 124km and 4400m+ - that's massive. Canazei too, been there as well.

I'll use the trainer a bit in the coming weeks for some longer intervals that are too difficult to do on the bike outside.

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

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 9:30 pm
by g-boaf
I said I was going to be using the trainer a bit more - but I had not intended to be virtually using it all the time. The weather outside is very poor at the moment.

I'm doing 60 and 90 minute over/under intervals. They are working well.

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

Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2018 9:10 pm
by g-boaf
No trainer rides at all, just commutes and after work 60km rides.

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

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2019 11:14 am
by g-boaf
50km of doing repeats of the hilly parts of the local area. Only about 500m elevation though and a bit of flat riding to get there. :oops:

Nice riding. Might try to get up to 800m or 1000m today if time allows.

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

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2019 12:08 pm
by RobertL
My schedule is something like:
* One weekend group ride - typically 60+km, with somewhere between 400 and 900m climbing, at a pace that is pretty tough for me.
* One midweek hill ride - about 40km with 700+m climbing. Really, though, it's all about 2 ascents of Mt Coot-tha; so 2 x 10-15min at threshold-ish.
* One midweek paceline - 20min at threshold + 5min hard at the end.
* A crit race once overy 3 or 4 weeks. Sometimes instead of the weekend group ride, sometimes in addition to it.
* Commuting 4 or 5 days a week.

The midweek hill and paceline ride involve commuting, so on those days I just ride to get to home/to work.

I try to throw in some intervals on one other commute day - several one or two minute intervals usually on the hills near my house. I could do longer intervals, but that would mean going a bit further out of my way, and I really think that the shorter intervals are probably better for me.

I'm averaging 200km per week this year so far, with a minimum of 180km and a max of 260km.

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

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 4:40 pm
by g-boaf
I seem to have increased power and dropped weight - not simply the weight loss from a ride, but keeping the weight off as well. Feeling like those kms I'm riding are paying off. Fingers crossed that keeps going.

I've been doing hill repeats of what little hills there are around my area - seems to be doing the trick. No trainer intervals for a long while, the weather is beautiful at the moment so I'm doing real rides (more enjoyable).

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

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2019 2:24 am
by RichWard
I'm interested in improving my overall power output and FTP. I think I'm looking for a power meter, can anybody suggest any cheap but reliable power meters?

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

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2019 12:20 pm
by g-boaf
RichWard wrote:I'm interested in improving my overall power output and FTP. I think I'm looking for a power meter, can anybody suggest any cheap but reliable power meters?
What cranks do you have already? If you have Shimano Ultegra, perhaps consider a single-side Pioneer setup. That will get you going and should be reliable enough.

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

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2019 9:10 pm
by RichWard
g-boaf wrote:
RichWard wrote:I'm interested in improving my overall power output and FTP. I think I'm looking for a power meter, can anybody suggest any cheap but reliable power meters?
What cranks do you have already? If you have Shimano Ultegra, perhaps consider a single-side Pioneer setup. That will get you going and should be reliable enough.
I do run a Shimano Ultegra, how on earth did you know? I've been looking into a British company called Avio Sports. They've just posted a comparison video on their Facebook page running their power meter against SRM and Powertap, looks spot on to me. And for just a fraction of the price. £199 works out about 366AUD. Looks good to me.

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

Posted: Tue May 21, 2019 9:01 pm
by g-boaf
Trying some trainer rides to get rid of the stiffness in my left leg. Heart rate is way too high - up at 190+bpm. These 2.5 weeks after the crash have wrecked my fitness. I’m not enjoying those trainer rides I must admit.

Knee still has some swelling, but it isn’t infected and isn’t painful. The remaining wound is healing up, slowly.

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

Posted: Tue May 21, 2019 9:04 pm
by jasonc
g-boaf wrote:Trying some trainer rides to get rid of the stiffness in my left leg. Heart rate is way too high - up at 190+bpm. These 2.5 weeks after the crash have wrecked my fitness. I’m not enjoying those trainer rides I must admit.
Try this:
Do a ride (20-30 minutes)
Wait 2-3 hours and try again. See if the heart rate is lower. Will tell you if something is wrong or is it just "freshness"

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

Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 3:53 pm
by g-boaf
jasonc wrote:
g-boaf wrote:Trying some trainer rides to get rid of the stiffness in my left leg. Heart rate is way too high - up at 190+bpm. These 2.5 weeks after the crash have wrecked my fitness. I’m not enjoying those trainer rides I must admit.
Try this:
Do a ride (20-30 minutes)
Wait 2-3 hours and try again. See if the heart rate is lower. Will tell you if something is wrong or is it just "freshness"

I think it might just be "freshness"- power is coming back a bit, heart rate is still high and I did manage to hit 197bpm today, though I was pushing it a bit.

One good thing is that trainer rides are getting rid of the swelling in the knee - that makes a lot of difference with being able to bend the knee and move my leg properly.