Cycling Workouts: Discussion/Encouragement/Sharing/Banter

[Norry1]

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.

Them's some good numbers Al. Nice one 💪

 

[Norry1]

My Feb has mainly been endurance volume, with a ZRL on Tuesdays and one Low Cadence interval session per week. I try to do the low cadence outside. It is 5 x 5 mins at 50-55 rpm with 20 mins Z2 recoveries. My average power on the intervals has been climbing over the month from 272W to 292W and I'll be targetting 300W this week.

March will see me start my VO2 Max building work and racing start (non-important ones). Gonna hurt.

 

[Legs]

My Feb has typically consisted mostly of a gentle Zwift spin on Tuesday mornings alongside my wife running on the treadmill, ZRL on Tuesday nights, a short workout on Thursday morning alongside Jo, and a 1-hour climbing race at the weekends. I think it's doing me some good - I felt strong towards the end of last night's TTT - but I think I might have lost some of the top end of my sprint.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

My training continues to follow the usual mix with the load progressively increasing. Last year I averaged 12.5 hours a week, this month I’m up to averaging 10 to 10.5 hours a week. I expect the average will begin to climb next month as I start to return to my longer distance brevets. Training looks a bit boring from the outside, no dramas, no injuries, no sickness. It’s the way I like it, steady as she goes.

 

[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...

Gah, the biggest failure was a failure to get out of bed! Jo wasn't feeling up for it so we turned the alarm off and rolled over.
I'm compiling an important Expert Witness report at work at the moment, which is quite stressful, so I don't want to run myself into the ground...

 

[IrishAl]

Gah, the biggest failure was a failure to get out of bed! Jo wasn't feeling up for it so we turned the alarm off and rolled over.
I'm compiling an important Expert Witness report at work at the moment, which is quite stressful, so I don't want to run myself into the ground...

Sometimes the body tells you when to get some rest. Do you get time in the evenings?

 

[HLaB]

I had Carter +3 in my plan tonight (an escalating to Threshold workout). I had been expecting it to adapt out of my Triner Road plan as it was labelled what they class a ‘stretch’. Then I realised it was the only 45 min workout in this area, so I used TR's alternates function to change it to a 60min ‘Productive’ workout. That gave me Ragged -5 which probably pre described my performance well! It was a wee bit warm in the pain cave tonight +19.2deg C ave compared to 16deg C on Tuesday but that’s no excuse for my cadence being just under 85rpm (TR's recommended cadence) in the Tempo block, falling to 65rpm in the SS block and just 53rpm in the threshold block.

 

[IrishAl]

Thursday evening was my scheduled 20 minute fitness test. The prior 3 & 10 min test gave me an estimated FTP of 314w so I knew the number i needed to hit to at least equal that in a 20 minute test although the thought of 20 mins pain wasn’t appealing. I didn’t particularly feel good (making the usual mistake of sitting down to a cuppa after dinner) but I dragged myself into the turbo and set off up Alpe du Zwift. Sparing all the gory details I hit the numbers, just, fading a little at the halfway point and averaged 332w. I’m happy with that and I think it’s up there with my all time best - just need to do some research on my past FTP tests. 😊

 

[Norry1]

Thursday evening was my scheduled 20 minute fitness test. The prior 3 & 10 min test gave me an estimated FTP of 314w so I knew the number i needed to hit to at least equal that in a 20 minute test although the thought of 20 mins pain wasn’t appealing. I didn’t particularly feel good (making the usual mistake of sitting down to a cuppa after dinner) but I dragged myself into the turbo and set off up Alpe du Zwift. Sparing all the gory details I hit the numbers, just, fading a little at the halfway point and averaged 332w. I’m happy with that and I think it’s up there with my all time best - just need to do some research on my past FTP tests. 😊

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Brilliant 💪

 

[HLaB]

I’m not sure if Trainer Roads new adaptive feature (RLGL) was at work or if its a coincidence after my commute that tonight’s work out adapted down to Haeckel -4. If it was that was a good choice.

 

[Legs]

Thursday evening was my scheduled 20 minute fitness test. The prior 3 & 10 min test gave me an estimated FTP of 314w so I knew the number i needed to hit to at least equal that in a 20 minute test although the thought of 20 mins pain wasn’t appealing. I didn’t particularly feel good (making the usual mistake of sitting down to a cuppa after dinner) but I dragged myself into the turbo and set off up Alpe du Zwift. Sparing all the gory details I hit the numbers, just, fading a little at the halfway point and averaged 332w. I’m happy with that and I think it’s up there with my all time best - just need to do some research on my past FTP tests. 😊

View attachment 723250

That's some impressive W'bal deficit there.

It's made me think, though. I can understand the notion of how quickly the W'bal depletes (energy expenditure above threshold power), and how that can be calculated from your actual ongoing power and what Intervals knows about your thresholds. But surely different people will have different recovery rates? How does Intervals know how quickly my curve should rebound in between efforts?

 

[Legs]

This morning I did a 40-minute workout that I hadn't done since April 2021 - Step by Step. My comment on Strava then was 'Some seriously tough intervals at the end...', but I did it today with the intervals 20W higher than then. It wasn't easy... time seems to pass very quickly during those recovery periods!

 

[Norry1]

This morning I did a 40-minute workout that I hadn't done since April 2021 - Step by Step. My comment on Strava then was 'Some seriously tough intervals at the end...', but I did it today with the intervals 20W higher than then. It wasn't easy... time seems to pass very quickly during those recovery periods!

View attachment 723555

That's a big coincidence - I do a Group workout each Wednesday evening run by my coach - and tonight we are doing Step by Step!

 

[Legs]

Haha - enjoy!

 

[Norry1]

Haha - enjoy!

Well we did that workout and yes it was tough. Just about got through it though.

View: https://youtu.be/tzIGo4O9I7Q