shovelhd

Nice work, RacerEx.

AzTallRider

I tried calculating how long it would take me to do that ride, but ran out of fingers and toes.

Racer Ex 

I forgot to mention my feeding strategy for this ride:

2 cups of coffee.

1 hour in: Gel

1:30 in: Start drinking bottle with two scoops of HEED

2:30 in: Start drinking 18oz Gatorade I bought at market.

That's it.

Scale said 153.5 after food, drinks, and a nap. I gotta shed the weight now, now 2 weeks from now.

sarals 

I just tried to keep HR in the Z2 - Z3 range today, AzT. The PT isn't here yet. So, those are Stava's numbers (and that means low).

When I was doing the PW2, I kept thinking that it was easier than I expected. The grade varied between 2 and 6%, and I stayed in the big ring and shifted a lot to keep the cadence between 40 and 60 RPM (you know that drill!). I was not having any issues. Until I came back after the Pace. And now. My legs feel like jello, especially my hips!

Tomorrow I have spin and then a session of PW1. If I can walk!

sarals 

Ex, it seems we all suffered together today!

Nice work!!!

chasm54

The target's 150, right? At the current rate of progress you'll be within an ace of that.

The ride sounds terrific. I'm envious. The local college gym - to which I am still more-or-less confined if I want to do anything remotely strenuous - doesn't have Lake Tahoe's advantages.

chasm54

I was going to post this in the "check your weight" thread but it would derail it, and anyway I think the training implications are more interesting.

On Monday the BBC's flagship science programme, Horizon, screened "Eat, Fast, and Live Longer". You can find it on YouTube, chopped into four fifteen-minute sections. Essentially it looks at the health benefits of, first, calorie restriction. Most of you will know that there is a lot of evidence that a low-calorie diet increases life expectancy and cuts the risk of various degenerative diseases. No surprises there. It then goes on to look at alternate day fasting (ADF). This involves eating less than 600 kcal every second day, but eating whatever you like on the alternate days. This produced dramatic results in terms of lower weight, lower LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, lower blood pressure and, crucially, lower IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor) which is key to cell division and is implicated in various cancers, including breast and prostate. Apparently if one fasts intermittently, IGF-1 levels drop and the body goes into cell repair mode, rather than cell division mode. And one starts growing new neurons, which is even more interesting. Plus, the subjects didn't overeat on the alternate days. Left to their own devices, they ate only about 10% more than usual on those days, not nearly enough to offset the previous day's reductions.

It then went on to a modified version of ADF, namely eating whatever on five days per week but restricting the calories to < 600 on the other two days. This too worked like a charm. After five weeks the presenter had lost 14 lbs, halved his IGF-1 levels and seen significant improvements in his other blood measurements.

This struck me as interesting, because unlike a simple calorie-restricted approach it seemed compatible with intensive training. Clearly I'm not going to be able to work hard on the bike twelve hours a week and manage on a <2000 kcal diet indefinitely. But I can easily see myself being able to go for severe calorie restriction a couple of days per week, probably on non-workout days, and then fuel normally the rest of the time. Weight control is what initially interested me, but the health benefits look, potentially at least, profound. And for the older athlete, staying healthier for longer must have performance benefits as we climb through the age groups. I think I'll give it a try. I shall report back every few weeks.

I'd encourage you to watch the programme, anyway, even with a sceptical eye. It's enjoyable and, I thought, impressive. Most of the research was done in the States, inevitably.

shovelhd

An hour of over-unders followed by sprints. I need to get out of this chair to get some work done. I don't want to.

Sarals, when I do the PWx workouts, I stick it in the 53/11 at 40rpom and go. You may be getting a different regimen.

Racer Ex 

Same, with a bit of a rewrite on the PW2 for clarity. The 53/11 is fine as long as she can turn it over, the PW2 might need a bit smaller gear.

Recovery ride today. Bone tired...even with a diligent recovery regimen altitude slows the bounce back down. That was the biggest TSS ride I had done since December. 155 this morning. Progress.

shovelhd

I was mainly commenting about the shifting. No worries.

Down 1kg.

AzTallRider

After a day off yesterday, to recover from Monday's recovery ride, it was 'welcome back to reality' this morning. Q & A time:

Q: When does a 2% grade seem steep?
A: When you climb it on the aerobars in your tallest gear.

Q: When do you really not want to hit a red light?
A. When you are staying in your tallest gear... and going up a hill.

Q: When do you want to make sure you stay below the max of the assigned power range?
A: When you are doing 30' in your tallest gear as part of a 1 hour pace effort.

And for extra bonus points:

Q: When does your HR refuse to drop more than 15-20bpm at a stoplight?
A: When you're doing pace work, and it's 103 effing degrees at 8:00AM!!

shovelhd

Kudos, AZT.

Hermes

Track workout yesterday. I did practice team pursuit exchanges with my wife for her upcoming team pursuit this weekend. We did 40 laps exchanging half laps.

sarals 

Next time I will have it in the 50/12 (that's what I have) and give it my all. I have to save a little bit, because I have to be able to ride home from the bottom of that bowl!

Today I do PW1. 3 efforts with 5 minutes off in between. I'll have to ride just a short distance to do that series. There's a perfect stretch of the MUP nearby for that test! It's slightly uphill all the way. The thing is I don't ride in top gear often. It's going to be a challenge!

sarals 

AzT, strong work!!!!

Allegheny Jet

Wicked fast Tue Worlds 34 miles last night. Suffer factor was very high with a 27.5 mph ave. Had to drop out with a few laps to due to cramps in both calves that kept getting worse any time soft peddling.

sarals 

AJ, that's really flying! How are your legs today?

sarals 

I just got home from the PW1 Test. That followed an hour of spin this morning (lots of nasty little intervals - Kadria was P/Oed today!). The results of the PW1 are here. I was really surprised that I could produce like that after an hour of spinning, and then the speeds I saw were just wicked! I can go faster in a lower gear, but OMG. I could go about a minute before my legs were just screaming at me. But I was going really hard and rather fast in that minute - uphill, too! I felt good when the trial was over, so I left a stop light with traffic and sprinted up to 28MPH from a dead stop.

Allegheny Jet

I was never on the front. Just closing gaps was putting me in the red zone. I really would not want anyone to push a thumb into my quad today. Zone 4 hills tonight should be interesting.

sarals 

Who were those people??

Allegheny Jet

It is the weekly NE Ohio All Star race. There is an A and a B race on a 2.1 mile flat course in a light industrial park. I did the A race along with 35-40 others. Usually a break will form and the teams will control the pace but, probably due to the Olympics, no breaks formed until 3 laps to go when 3 guys got off the front.

AzTallRider

I bet I know someone you'd let test your quads.

Allegheny Jet

Under threat of T Storms I decided to ride Z4 intervals on the MTB instead of the 2 mile hill repeats. Met up with an young team mate who races Expert. When Jake is riding tempo I'm chasing at Z4. During one of the fast bouts I was riding over my skill level and had a hard crash when I missed a open sided planked 2' wide foot bridge. I don't remember everything about the crash but do remember the bike missing the bridge and the crank arm hitting the side. I'm not hurt bad but have a really sore shoulder and some scrapes and bruises on the left arm and leg. The bike only suffered a bent brake lever. I have rode over the same foot bridge in rain, snow and darkness as well as nice days with out incident. Today's crash is a head scratcher.

Got home and cleaned up, took three Advils, and after three beers I believe I'm on the road to recovery.

AzTallRider

Jet, you really do need to stop crashing. You know that, don't you?

Hermes

Heal uf fast Jet.