Carbonfiberboy 

C'mon! Take a vow: never walk, never. Stopping is OK. I remember coming to Thompson Hill Road late in a 300k. One dreads roads with "Hill" in the name. This one is notorious. It looks like a wall. Probably only 200' of elevation gain. One just sits and grinds it out. This is when all those folks who say pedaling circles is BS can go take a flying ****.

In those days, I had a 30 X 25 granny. It's lower now. A good exercise is to do 10' hill repeats in whatever gear gives you ~50 cadence. No upper body movement: do it all with the legs, smooth, smooth.

Dudelsack 

Good points. On my DF I break but never walk. On the bent I can't get rolling safely up a steep incline, so it leaves me little choice.

My gearing is 30X26/29/32 I think, or something close to it, but I have trouble controlling the bike in my lowest and second lowest gear.

Anyway, these are hills I never walked on my DF a few years ago. But that was then.

Knees are aching just a bit from the mashing, so today I'll ride a flatish route when the temp hits 40.

I really need to get out. I was planning on traveling to Crimea, Simferopol to be exact, this winter with my daughter. That is just not likely to happen. I know folks over there, and I'm frightened for their safety. Hoping saner heads prevail and there is a peaceful resolution to it all.

john.b

Frame Saver. Or T-9.

Dudelsack 

There's piles of salt on the roads the size of Lot's wife. Between that and sweating like crazy on the trainer, I might need to get all the rustable parts of my bike replaced. Fortunately the frame of my bent is aluminum and my Lemonster is full carbon.

I had a nice ride today, probably because it was pretty flat

Heathpack 

Why are you starting with these super tough hills? It seems to me you should 100% master the 6% grade hill, then the 8%, then the 10%, then the 15%, etc. I'm ok with 6-8% for long times (10 miles) with a little 10% mixed in. But I'm not climbing a 15% hill just yet. Soon, but not yet. It's a process right, building the hill climbing? Well, at least you know what your next training priority should be, once the weather improves.

H

Dudelsack 

I guess it's the Androgel. But now that you put it that way...

It is funny how I go from a trainer to a steep pitch and get bummed out because I didn't fly up it

I suppose hill repeats are in my future.

OldsCOOL

I did similar yesterday. I live in hill country at one of the higher elevations. Anytime you want to ride up here it will involve nasty little hills, one of which is 1.5mi in length. The hills are always waiting for me and there is no mastering them, especially when coming home from a hot, sweaty 50 or 60mi ride. Trainers are for cardio, hills are for real and every spring they wait for me.

Zinger

Don't remember where I read it but remember reading that it's good to do a few hundred miles, when the riding season first starts, without so much climbing.....Just the cardio thing on the flats at first. But if you've been spinning on the trainer I suppose that's the same.

I've also known people who didn't follow any stinking rules and kicked butt anyway. It's good to be motivated so.

Dudelsack 

After action report, part 1.

The TCTP goes for 11 weeks, culminating in The Event at week 8 and three additional weeks of maintenance.

My century ride isn't until mid April, I'm heading out to Colorado in a couple of weeks at which time I'm not planning to ride, and I have little visitors coming and going in the meantime.

I also just got back from my physical therapist, having "knackered up" something yet again (my standing diagnosis at the PT office is "knackered up body part").

Plus I'm just tired, so I called it quits for now. I completed 9 entire weeks, missing very few sessions. In the course of the program, I put up close to 600 of combined road and trainer miles.

Had I not done this, I might not have ridden at all, given the awful winter.

I think the program was very helpful. Maybe the most helpful thing about it was learning my own limitations. If you're field test is 158W and you weigh north of 200#, it's not realistic to expect to hang with the A riders.

I was was able to see the effect of different cadences on power and endurance, and it actually allowed me to have an educated opinion on it, unlike, well, you know...

A slacker like me is capable of sticking to a well-defined and reasonable training program. I think an inveterate recreational rider is able to benefit from power training technology. Maybe.

I want to repeat the field test soon, probably this weekend. I'm going to ride my Lemonster over to my therapist on Friday and see what he thinks about the position. Maybe that will help deknacker things. That's the nice thing about having a therapist who's an avid cyclist.

Ill be sure to post the results.

Heathpack 

Thanks for posting the follow-up. As you recall, I did a modified TTCC program for 8 weeks back in Dec/Jan ("modified" in that I did the intervals during the weekdays and much longer rides on the weekends). I think the biggest things I got out of TTCC program were:
1. Increased level of fitness and willingness to push my own boundaries
2. A sense of structure to my training that as a newby that I would not have been able to come up with on my own
3. Very good understanding of my heart rate and how it relates to effort (I don't have power)

I actually feel pretty comfortable now in organizing my own training plan, having read TTCC plus Friels Training Bible. Not 100% knowledgable but good enough that I can try various things and rationally assess how it's going, when to back off, etc. I also am now able to use my various Garmin data points on a ride- HR, cadence, & speed to achieve my goals for any given ride.

If you are tired & injured, you should definately take a little break from training, but maybe you can get a few more intervals or hill climbs in before your event. A month is a long time, you would hate to lose any of gains you worked so hard to achieve.

Good luck on your ride!

H

qcpmsame 

Nice "blog" Dudel, now lets hope the event is a good one for you, as well.

Bill

CrankyFranky

Amen.

Dudelsack 

After action #2 : set a PR going up Goatman Gulch (actual Strava segment) today and could have pushed harder.

The PT visit was for intrascapular pain, not the nagging LBP. Given that it's supposed to spit freezing rain or snow tomorrow, I might set the Lemonster on the trainer and try the field test.

Dudelsack 

It is what it is.

This has been uttered from everyone from the ancient zen masters to Rush Limbaugh. It can mean "deal with it" or "stay calm and keep riding". In my case it means "well that just flat sucks".

This painting is entitled "Room of Broken Dreams". It would have been cooler if the Pepsi and Diet Dr. Pepper cans were beer cans instead, but I've had nary a drop of alkeehol since Xmas.



I just finished the Carmichael field test. My results went from 157/158 at the first of the year to 161/170 just now. If you fudge everything up, that gives me an FTP(60 min) of 150, up from 141 at the end of the year.

As opposed to last time, I feel fine now, plenty of sleep, not working too hard, and on the identical equipment as last time. I calibrated the power meter once. Who knows if I calibrated it a second time maybe my figures would have been better.

Anyway, the numbers are better and I suppose I shouldn't complain, but I really was hoping for a 10-15% improvement.

Oh well.

cccorlew

Nice painting. I usually don't like bicycle "art" as it's so often cheesey, but this works for me!

Congrats on getting your power up. Any gain is hard to come by, as we all know.

My recent tale of suffering:
Climbed Mt Diablo on a Saturday, then got a text inviting me to do a century up Del Puerto Canyon the next day, so I did.
But my big deal was the Solvang Double Century on Saturday. That meant that I rode almost 400 miles in a week.

Suffering double blog post:
Curtis Corlew in Bicycle Land: Solvang Double Century 2014

Heathpack 

That is an awesome painting, love it.

Not being familiar with using a power meter, what was it that made you hope for 10-15% improvement of your numbers? Is that typical after completing an interval phase of training?

I never know what is realistic numerically, being so new to cycling. So I purposely never set numerical goals unless I'm pretty sure I know how realistic it is for me to attain the number. That's pure psychology for me. For example, I overall would like to become a faster cyclist but I really have no idea how quickly I could achieve a specific ave speed per in say a month's worth of rides, so I won't set that goal at all. I just keep it to "get faster" so I dont disappoint myself. I'm more likely to set a goal to do a particular ride, complete it, and feel like I rode it well. Vagueness can be a benefit sometimes.



H

Dudelsack 

The triumph of hope over experience