Cycling Workouts: Discussion/Encouragement/Sharing/Banter

[Legs]

A bit of a grind fest on during tonight’s workout until I got the ‘almost finished motivation’. I’m maybe needing to do something to make it cooler so I feel comfortable pushing into that zone sooner

For your average cadence to be 74, those long periods at below-average cadence must be murder on your knees!
I do most of my workouts in erg mode so I feel that I need a high cadence to do the high-power intervals - I'm often spinning at 90-100rpm to do 330W-350W VO2 intervals.

This morning's fun was Sydney Harbour Bridge on Zwift...

 

[HLaB]

For your average cadence to be 74, those long periods at below-average cadence must be murder on your knees!
I do most of my workouts in erg mode so I feel that I need a high cadence to do the high-power intervals - I'm often spinning at 90-100rpm to do 330W-350W VO2 intervals.

This morning's fun was Sydney Harbour Bridge on Zwift...
View attachment 720570

I'm not sure what's happened to my cadence it used to be a steady high cadence circa 100rpm on the turbore, 88-92rpm on a TT but since I've used ERG its become very variable. I've stopped using ERG as I kept on injuring my calf with it.

PS is depends the length of VOmax stuff with me, stuff about a minute or less I'm averaging 105rpm, 30s stuff is around 105-120rpm, but with 2-3 min stuff after the first interval at circa 95rpm the subsequent sessions fall to around 70-80rpm

 

[HLaB]

As usual I done my recovery workout on my commute this morning (I strayed out of HR zone 1 a few times on steep hills when drivers were too patient and peaked at 78% but 96% of the time it was Z1) .



Lol, I probably undid any recovery benefit tonight though. With train strike on they're less frequent, so I put a spurt on to catch the one which was running and averaged a maxHR of 73% (83% max) into a stiff headwind.

 

[Legs]

Did a nice easy workout yesterday afternoon - very low power but 45 minutes of spinning the legs freely, at an average of 102rpm. Did some very high cadence bursts at the end, managing a peak of 188rpm.

 

[HLaB]

Haeckel -4 was in my calendar tonight, a low cadence threshold workout. I’m not sure I kneeded more low cadence work though

I probably didn’t need my commute either especially tonight when I went a wee bit harder to catch the earlier train as the next one was cancelled by the strikes and it was to bucket

The forecast was right but I saved the rain/ drenching for 18mins in flat Peterborough UK.

 

[HLaB]

When I set up the trainer and overlaid TR on top of the Discovery + web player (Tour du Provence prologue) I forgot to click back on TR to let me control the trainer resistance. So for the first two warm up intervals power could only be increased by up the gears and cadence. On hindsight I should have left it that way; the second I flipped on the TR controller I killed my cadence

 

[HLaB]

Frissell -3 (3x9@95%) was in my calendar tonight. Whilst it was low level and ranked achievable, I’m quite happy with how it went cadence wise. I tried to resist the urge to chase power and up the resistance on the trainer. I did add an extra fan to mitigate the front door only being open as far as security chain would allow, but I don’t think it made the difference, but rather the brief pause in the 2nd recover (after the 1st 9) when I took a brief pause to move my vacmaster. After I moved the vacmaster I never felt the other fan.

 

[HLaB]

I tried to resist the urge to up the resistance and used my gears maintaining cadence instead for todays workout. It worked for the first two sub threshold blocks but not the threshold block

It was a little warm in the pain hall tonight:

It got me up to 97% max HR without me feeling like I was there.


image1606×943 118 KB

 

[IrishAl]

I’ve still not got round to setting any firm targets for the year ahead although whilst on my Tenerife training camp (holiday) I’ve possibly maybe been tempted / talked into taking out a race licence again. If I do then I’d be aiming for one race for my club in a 3 day event in June. It’s a cat2 / cat 3 event. Realistically I’d be aiming to be a super domestique for one of the young lads in the team.

Training is going fairly good and my FTP is on a par with my peak last summer so I’m starting off with a good base. I’ve started up a new Garmin training plan with it programmed with June in mind. I’ve set it for the higher hours per week (10-12hrs) which is more than last year but I’m determined to make the effort and get the hours in.

Having said all that today was going to be 3 hours Z2 but in the end I did 90 minutes - I’ll do more tomorrow to make up for it. I think I’m forgiven as yesterday was my daughter’s wedding so a big day emotionally and a late night to boot 😊

It was warm enough to get the legs out too (I notice Norry got the same today too).

 

[HLaB]

The first workout of my Masters Plan recovery week was today, Lazy Mountain - 2. I took it outside (recovery rides are extra boring on the turbore). I had to be very patient on the way out against a SW wind which the local weather station (Met Office) recorded at 23mph prevalent with 36mph gusts.

Video Footage ;-)



I’m surprised it was as much climbing as 297ft but relative to the flat Fens what bumps there was look like mountains on the TrainerRoad chart

 

[IrishAl]

Busy few days…
3h30min Z2 power on Sunday. Nice weather out too which was nice exploring some rural roads
2x1hour commuting journeys on Monday in a comfortable z2/lowZ3
Workout yesterday evening with 2 x 20min high z4 intervals. My 20 min power wasn’t far off my PB for the last 3 years so happy with progress.

For some reason the w’bal decay in the post ride intervals plot wasn’t anywhere near as significant as the estimated w’bal for the scheduled workout. Power output was pretty much on the money as it was in ERG and it felt more like how it was meant to. Go figure. 🤔 The only thing I can think of was that I did up the w’bal from 19700 to 22000 based on a recalc but that should just have meant the starting point was higher (I think)

 

[HLaB]

The 2nd workout of my recovery week was tonight, I was going to take it outdoors, but since I took the first one outdoors on Tuesday its rained ever since and going recovery pace wet wasn’t appealing the relive of the O Gran Camiño TT was. I decided to set up the omnium rollers in the lounge and watch it.


https://global.discourse-cdn.com/tr.../36d2b44ea99affaacfafd36e7336f831108dfa59.png
20deg C would have been too warm for most workouts but for a recovery ride it was very comfortable

 

[HLaB]

Hopefully sleep tonight, I’m shattered after that

I had Darwin -4 in my calendar tonight and I tried to work on a better cadence. I think I held it in the first block, it was OK’ish in the 2nd block with a high cadence, and in the 3rd block it was a little low, but again I had a high cadence finish

 

[IrishAl]

Hopefully sleep tonight, I’m shattered after that

View attachment 722844
I had Darwin -4 in my calendar tonight and I tried to work on a better cadence. I think I held it in the first block, it was OK’ish in the 2nd block with a high cadence, and in the 3rd block it was a little low, but again I had a high cadence finish View attachment 722845

View attachment 722846

Cadence is coming on!

My week includes 2 power tests and lots of base/endurance mixed in between. Last night was the first test which had blocks at 3 and 10 minutes. I knew my power PB’s from last year so had target power for each of the 3 and 10 min durations. 3 minutes was up first and boy did the first 90 seconds feel like it was going on forever. Thankfully the second half went quicker once I knew I could dig in and hold in there. PB last year was 412w so I was aiming for 420+ and paced accordingly and hit it. I might have had a watt or two more to give but happy with that. Modest target improvement I know but gains are gains.
20 minute Z2 followed before the 10 minute block. The legs were feeling the previous effort so I had some trepidation as the clock ticked down but I told myself it couldn’t be any harder than the 420w i just put out. Last years PB was 341, target was 350. I set out slightly higher but backed off, put on some tunes and watched the time slowly tick down. feeling half ok i upped the resistance in the final minutes and hit the 350w average I targeted. Not much left in the tank so a good nights work.
Intervals gave me an FTP of 314w based on that. 20 minute test on Thursday evening to look forward to now 🤢 so I’ll do an hour easy this evening.

 

[Legs]

Those are really good numbers, Alan, especially the 10-min effort!

I'm going to try to motivate myself to do The Gorby tomorrow morning. There's a very real chance of failure...