More Ride Comparisons...

This off-season, more than last one, has had me concerned that I am not training properly. I have really been going it alone this time. Last year, I made it to a lot more of the Peach Peloton rides... rode the attack zones... long hours in the saddle. The hours have been the same this year, but the attack zones have not. I think things will work out, but it does not stop me from constantly comparing rides from last year versus this year during the same time period.

I was searching for a good comparison with the ride from yesterday. I knew that I had felt tired after this ride and therefore wondered if I had a similar effort last year at this time. I came across this ride (see table) from the middle of February last off season. It really didn't have anything to do with what I was looking for, but I couldn't help but to smile... what a difference a month makes. Less junk miles (I said this for you, Robert) this season... I have been focused on that this year... I only want to be in Active Recovery (AR) on Mondays (my off day). Endurance zone minutes are almost identical. Almost double the time in the Tempo zone and am higher in the Threshold zone also. That is where things go the other way... big time. A whopping 22 minutes anaerobic... and 19 minutes in the VO2 Max Zone.

Over the next month, my program will shift with a much heavier concentration on VO2 max and Anaerobic Zones. Months of holding back will finally be released and my NP will start to swing upward in a big way. I just hope it is not too late...

Saturday Tempofest...

I was not able to schedule a block of 5 hours to ride on Saturday this week, so I decided to split a total ride goal of 7 hours over the weekend into two equally times rides (3.5 hours each).

I had very, very good legs at the start of Saturday. My general goal thus far during the winter is to get in my key workouts each week (FTP, 5 min intervals, sprints, etc) and get in a long ride each week. The long ride distance is determined by how much work I have done during the week and is set at a distance (actually distance and intensity) that will slightly raise CTL (3-4 points) each week. If I am tired... I go a little shorter or take a day off during the week to rest and stay energized for the next workout. All other rides between the aforementioned are done at tempo pace... or as close as my legs will let me get to that pace. Most people agree that the most aerobic bang for the buck for the recovery cost is achieved at high L3... the sweet spot I mentioned earlier. On good days, I have done intervals where I ride at this power output for 10 minutes or so with a short break between... on really good days, I just ride at the sweet spot for as long as I can.

On Saturday, I had good legs and decided that I would ride sweet spot for my entire 3 hour ride. Did I think I could pull it off? No, but it sounded fun to try. After an hour and a half, I was dead where I wanted to be... NP was at sweet spot and AP was only off by 4 watts (lower, of course). I continued to do this and my legs continued to die a slow, long death. At two hours in, I could not really keep the wattage up without rest and by the end of the ride, I felt like I had been whipped. I was very tired after this ride and was shocked to see that my IF was only 0.83. That is not a shabby effort, but the way I felt, I was surprised to see it that low. Then I checked the AP... it was only 17 watts lower than my normalized. For that type of a ride, I could not find another ride on record with that high of an average power... so, I guess it was pretty good. Today, the legs were fried until I put out a 4 min all out effort and then they opened up and I was able to muster a 0.75 IF ride... pretty please with that I guess.

CTL is at 94.5... highest ever on record...

Good week... Build Phase Continues...

Workouts have been great this week. I am trying to push my CTL above 100 for the first time ever and I really only need 3-4 solid weeks to do it. Ironically, this 3-4 week session will culminate in our team's training camp in North Georgia.

Sunday- recovered from several hard rides over the new year and rode the TT bike for an hour... took it easy and played with my position when I got back. More on that later...

Monday- Off... thanks to work...

Tuesday- I did 5x5s again and really slugged out 5 tough ones... felt weak, but survived with my goal wattage of 110% FTP. I doubled up workouts today and went out to the Tuesday edition of the Bass Pro Shops ride. Some guys from the team and a few others do a 5 minute loop with one hill and go round and round for an hour or so. I have found these workouts to be a little too aggressive on the hill for my program this time of year, but perfect for a quick TSS boost- maybe I will do one every other week for the next 4 and then open it up out there when my anaerobic phase kicks into gear. If I have ever ridden a NP buster, this ride is it... I rode with them for 45 minutes and realized that my NP was 15 Watts above threshold but I still felt fine. That told me that it must be a NP buster for sure...

Wednesday- Sweet Spot workout... I did that same workout I have done before. It is not a recovery workout, but it is also not overly tough... you are glad the intervals are over, but sad that the ride is over. I don't know how else to explain the ride better than that. 14 minutes warmup- 6 min at 90% FTP (or SS or Sweet Spot)- 3 minutes L2- 7 minutes SS- 2 minutes L2- 8 minutes SS- 1 minute L2- 9 minutes SS- L2 till you finish your hour... nice ride and a good way to get a little TSS when you are not motivated...

Thursday- Bass Pro ride... I needed to do sprints, so I would ride the hill easy and let the group get away, and then try to sprint back into the group. Sometimes I judged it right... sometimes I didn't. I tried to make a good 15 second sprint and catch them right at the top of the hill. If I missed them, I would not chase but rather sit up and wait at the next break in the median for them to come by... then I would sprint to catch on the back as they went by (at 30 mph with a 15 mph tailwind). I liked this workout better than my other sprint workout... it is better to have people to sprint after...

That gets me up to speed... I would like to have a 120 TSS workout tomorrow and log around 7 hours in the saddle between Saturday and Sunday. If I can muster 70 TSS per hour (could be tough), I will hit 95 CTL by Sunday...

This Weeks Rundown...

Started the week still feeling the lingering effects of the virus I had late last week. I wanted to be cautious this week, but knew that I needed to push the training as much as possible. With a holiday week, I knew I would have the time to do it if I could find the energy.

Hit a good hour and a quarter ride on Monday to start things off. I had a decent training weekend last week considering the state of things, but not enough that I really needed an off day on Monday. I have realized that I need to train when I have the chance, because life and weather seem to make things difficult much of the winter and the last thing I need is more off days. I took Tuesday off... still trying to be cautious and thinking that it would allow me to open up for the next couple of workouts.

Wednesday was my first day of 5x5s... five minute intervals and I do five of them... each one is done on a hill that takes five minutes to climb exactly and I do them at 110% FTP. My legs felt a little rough during warmup and I had a very hard time working through these intervals. I only did 4 and then decided to head for home... there was a terrible wind and it was getting late on New Years Eve and I thought I would not push my luck riding in traffic on that night. The intervals were really miserable and I remember thinking that 110% was not enough last year to make things really hurt. For some reason, they are hurting this year for sure. Maybe it will take a couple of weeks to get on top of them...

Thursday I did a 40 minute FTP. This is my first one in a while... missed last week due to sickness and the week before, I did a TT position FTP in the Cave of Pain. I got up to 325 in the first 5 minutes and opened it up from there. The legs felt great and it was obvious that my stomach was better and my energy was back. I was thinking as I hit 330 average around 12 minutes in that this would easily be a record setting day. I was right and wrong. I was right in that I ended up at 331 Watts. I was wrong because I had to work as hard as I can imagine to hold on to that until the bloody end. It was a true sufferfest that you block out shortly after it is over. I added an hour ride on the back end of it to top off the day...

Friday- I went out with Tom and Dave on a very energetic ride. We did 50 and my legs were really great... did some very hard efforts and had fun on the bike until the rain hit. Rode the last 45 minutes in the rain and was not dressed warmly enough. It was really miserable for one reason or another... it was the end of a long ride... I was tired... I don't know... it just hurt... 200 TSS ride... really nice overall...

Saturday- went out for a 5 hour ride at 7:00... it was way to foggy so we waited until 8:00 to start. It was wet and a little cold and a little rainy. Legs were tired, but we kept the pace at a good medium/low L3 and worked for a few hours. The rain started again and again I was underdressed. We called it quits at around 3.5 hours and 170 TSS. It was plenty for the day... my legs were tired and I felt like I should be careful not to do too much in the cold rain for fear of getting sick...

A few things...

I pissed myself for the first time while riding today (Saturday). I was terribly cold and tired... and it was pouring rain. Four thoughts entered my head...

1. My bladder is about to explode...
2. If I stop, my legs will not want to get back moving...
3. I am on a major highway and it will be difficult to find a good spot...
4. Pee is warm and will drizzle down my legs and hopefully warm me up...

Item 4 really sealed it and let me tell you, it did not disappoint. I let 'er rip without even slowing down... it was a little weird... there were cars all around and I kept thinking that they could see what I was doing. Anyway, I don't plan to make it a habit, but, in the future, if you are behind me and it is cold and raining, I would recommend you attack...

Overall... a really great week... I will probably do an hour on my TT bike tomorrow to seal the week... CTL is up over 90... I hope to hit 100 by the time I get out of the build phase of my program...

Right when I start to get disappointed...

I looked back over some other data from this season versus last season. For those that dont know, I have no faith that my power meter is measuring wattage precisely, but I am certain that it does measure accurately... I think that is right... I mean that it measures correctly high around 15 Watts everytime... it is repeatably high the same amount. Therefore, all of my graphs show data as a percentage of FTP (threshold power), thereby canceling out this problem and allowing me to view this offseason and last offseason in the same light...

Last Season

This Season

Here is a table with the exact numbers. I plotted my time in each of the training zones from October to the end of the year for 2007 and 2008. I thought the numbers were very promising. I know that my threshold has increased this offseason... and I have spent a lot more time training overall (16 hours) and have spent much more time in the areas that I wanted to... I nearly doubled my time in TE/L3, TH/L4, and VM/L5 (a little surprised at this... may be due to the change in threshold from week to week) while holding anaerobic work constant and going down on active recovery time. Surprisingly, I actually added a true recovery ride into my training this season each week instead of taking it completely off. Still, with my focus on constantly working when training, it has resulted it decreasing this number overall.

Even with my setbacks as of late, I should expect to be in better overall condition this season than last... no reason to be overly dramatic just yet... sometimes I have got to remind myself...

THE Woman! (As opposed to "The Other Woman")

So, in my last post, I detailed the demise of my Christmas Cycling Dream... huge fitness gains over the holidays is a must for a hard working, father of two... I had 5 days off in a row... big cycling holiday... big cycling disappointment. What salvaged if from complete disaster? My incredible wife....

No serious cyclist who lacks a wife and kids can ever understand the commitment that the "race team" must make to get daddy to the start line in the spring. I saw a pro quoted one time who said it is analogous to having another child for the wife of a cyclist... he (the cyclist) is constantly needing to eat and always needing to sleep... doesn't want to walk anywhere... is crabby if he gets hungry or sleepy... whines all the time... is incredibly scheduled...in general, is a complete pain in the ass.

We have been doing this for a while... my wife understands the commitment I am making and has adjusted to think it is actually normal. I had a colleague say to me the other day, "dude, are so engrossed in cycling culture that you don't realize how gay your outfit looks?" He has no idea... I actually thought he was joking... I think I am so engrossed that I think he is the fool to think I look gay... I actually think he should consider wearing Lycra to work. That is how my wife is now... she cannot conceive of anything else...

Here is the story...

I am in bed the third day... trust me, I am not feeling sorry for myself... I am hurting and she knows it- not throwing-up still, but not feeling right by a long shot... BUT... instead of bothering me with motherly BS and telling me that there is no way I need to think about riding today (she knows that I have now been off the bike for two days), she comes in and asks me what time I am riding. I loved her more in that moment then I did the day we got married. It said so much... she understands...

Then the very next day, she is sick... I mean really sick. Mine was mostly coming from the backend... she threw up all night and morning. I had been up with the kids since 5:30 AM and had been up a lot of the night listening to her retch. I was not moping around, either... I had realized that my chances of riding this day were long gone and had excepted it. I walk in the bedroom to see if I could bring her anything and she is on the phone...

She had called her mom and asked her to babysit the kids so that I could get in my ride. I am tearing up as I write this... I don't know what else to say really. She understands... and supports... and loves... and is the absolute best wife and mother I could have ever dreamed of...

BONK?????

I had planned a major cycling holiday, but the fitness gods did not cooperate with me. There is precious little that will keep me from achieving my goal rides... a tornado watch, major lightning, any natural disaster, I guess... to name the first ones that come to mind. Sickness? Usually not.

I have ridden through many a cold without so much as a thought and looking back at last winters ride notes, I only had one cold last season and I didn't miss a watt of one workout... I cannot say the same for this off season. Already I have had a horrible cold/upper respiratory thing that lasted a month. I trained through it until I had to take a break... I slept for two solid days and woke up the second day as if I had never been sick.

This time was a little different. I entered this very important week of training with a CTL of 80.3 and had planned to make a major jump this week... maybe as much as 7 points based on the way the week was working out. I went out relatively easy on Tuesday... still got over 100 TSS points since I went for almost two hours... I had rides planned for Wednesday through Sunday. Instead a got the stomach flu and only got out of bed on Wednesday to run to the toilet and felt bad all day Thursday with horrible stomach cramps. I finally crawled out of my hole on Friday and cranked out an eye-popping 60 TSS ride. This was all I could muster...

Saturday and Sunday is where it gets interesting. Leslie ends up getting the virus on Friday night... even though I am finally feeling better, I see any chance of riding go out the window... I will be babysitting. I end up working out a time slot to ride (through a miracle- see later blog)... a 3-4 hour time slot if need be. I decide to do my typical TSS fest... I try to go at 90% FTP all day long... I end up see-sawing quite a bit but can always get 70-75 TSS points per hour doing this type of workout. Leslie gets better and I get a 3-4 hour time slot on Sunday, too... here is how the rides workout...

I cramped on both rides and after throughout the night (have not done that ever)... I bonked on both rides (have not done that in 3-4 years)... I could not put out FTP wattage on either ride for more than a minute or so... I ended both rides (and Fridays for that matter) at 0.75 intensity factor which basically means that I sucked. I have been working for 4-5 hours on long rides for the past two months and have been at an average intensity factor of 0.82 without bonking or getting dehydrated at all. I brought more food and more water with me on these past two rides than I ever have on those others. Obviously, my system has taken a hit from the virus, but when will I recover? What is actually going on from a biophysical standpoint?

Guess what else? I also skipped my FTP and sprint work last week... could it get worse? Yes, because of my 158 TSS effort on Saturday and 202 TSS effort Sunday, I salvaged a CTL of 80.3... I stayed right where I was coming in... and the Build Phase of my training plan kick in this coming week...

I will push ahead and try to hit 100 CTL by the end of the build phase (5 weeks)... that will require a steady diet of 4 CTL points per week from here on. I don't think I can do it without blowing up or getting a divorce, but we will see...