Cycling Workouts: Discussion/Encouragement/Sharing/Banter

[HLaB]

Recovery week, having ridden 378 miles at the weekend. That event ride took 13,839 calories according to Garmin.

I think I only rode 330miles in the whole of last week

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I think I only rode 330miles in the whole of last week

Yeah 200 - 240 miles a week is more my typical averages in the summer. Just event weeks go crazy.

 

[Norry1]

I've dropped my mileage this year - down to around 150 miles per week from 200 last year.

 

[HLaB]

I took advantage of the Holme Road road closure for a nice quiet workout. TrainerRoad's Pettit +1, a Z1/2 ride with two sprints. The road had been closed for the Holme Fen fire but that's out now and I think the closure is for Harvest.

 

[HLaB]

Took me a half dozen starts and discards of the warm up for me to remember things before my threshold workout tonight, Devils Crag. Well the first two 12mins intervals were threshold, the last one was a bit Z3 until I switched on ERG with 2 mins to go. There was a bit too much standing up at low cadence too (nearly 15minutes of it according to the pedals) In slight mitigation it was a bit warm/ close before thunderstorms.

 

[Norry1]

First time on the turbo for ages yesterday, with heavy rain outside. It reminded me how much harder I find it than cycling outside. Failed to complete a Sweet Spot workout that would have been a doddle outside.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

First time on the turbo for ages yesterday, with heavy rain outside. It reminded me how much harder I find it than cycling outside. Failed to complete a Sweet Spot workout that would have been a doddle outside.

You should not underestimate the cooling effect of moving outside, but it is also so much more engaging. You are not clock watching

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Four more weeks of build to my last event (that matters) this year. Then I can have a break and mental refresh away from training.

 

[HLaB]

An active recovery workout for me tonight, Lazy Mountain. I was going to set up MyWhoosh to run in the background but decided just to keep it simple. 5-10 minutes later I wished I had set up MyWhoosh 😐

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I've dropped my mileage this year - down to around 150 miles per week from 200 last year.

That is not a year round mileage. Mostly around my peak summer events. I will drop it when I transition into Base building for next year. But I do what would be classed as ultra events so a certain volume always helps.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Recovery ride today. Let the body absorb the harder efforts earlier in the week.

 

[ivegotabike]

One of my favourites on the plan for today.

Using the TrainerDay HR+ function, the work is 3x 25' at 81% HR max.

Depending on all sorts of things, that broadly translates to power somewhere close to 85% FTP.

Slightly lower (say -5 rpm) cadence than normal.

 

[Norry1]

Interesting. Do you do all your workouts based on HR?

 

[ivegotabike]

Interesting. Do you do all your workouts based on HR?

Not all of them.

I think HR works well for me for anything up to sweetspot levels. For threshold and above, I still prefer power.

I don't do workouts outdoors, they are always on the turbo.

I do recommend the HR+ function on TrainerDay - it is the reason I subscribed and it works really well.

Essentially you set a HR target and it adjusts the power on the trainer to keep your HR close to the target.

Here is how this morning's turned out

The blue bars are 85% FTP, so having the blue line (actual power) above that is - at this stage of my training cycle - encouraging.

You can see that the HR+ function works pretty well (red line is HR), but it can't hold my HR perfectly flat at that level of work. In this workout, the maximum exceedance of the target was +4

On lower intensity workouts, the deviation from the target is usually a bit smaller.

 

[Legs]

With hillclimb season well upon us, I decided that, although I'm over(racing)weight and underfit, I'm going to put a little bit of effort into a few events. I did Anaerobic Blasts on Zwift on Saturday night, which looks straightforward enough - just 6no 30s efforts, seemingly well-spaced, at 'only' 650W.

https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/le-col-training-with-legends/fabian-cancellara-anaerobic-blasts

They're not short and sharp enough to warrant sim mode so I went erg and the first two felt okay... on the third and fourth, I got a bit of a cadence-dropping death spiral going on, and I dropped the target power on the last two down to 600W, which was just-about manageable.

I'm defending my club HC title on Thursday night - I set a course record of 2:16 last year (540W), but that's going to be tough to match!