shovelhd

3x5 over unders on the trainer. Pushed me to the limit and beyond. Really broke me down physically and mentally.

Esteban58

my (limited) experience so far has been that doing some kind of interval training on the trainer is a completely different experience than doing
the same workout on the road... perceived effort on the trainer is much higher. Discussion of why that might be the case would be appreciated.

Cleave

Esteban58, everything is harder on a trainer. It's just a fact. At least it is for me. Why? I don't and I gave up trying to understand why.

AzTallRider

Overheating probably plays a role, and you don't get the micro-rests on mosts trainers, because they don't carry the momentum... so I've heard, anyway.

We have our weather back! High 50's for today's ride, which was sprints (one set from 25 downhill, and one set from a slow crawl uphill) and an hour of tempo. Loved it. Now I'm hungry.

Esteban58

Well at least its not just me - thanks - and indeed, weather is turning much nicer - low 60's forecast for tomorrow - I'm going to do my workout at lunch instead of in the morning if I can swing it.

shovelhd

My power targets are adjusted down somewhat to compensate. This was just hard. It gets easier. Then it gets harder. The way it is supposed to be.

Racer Ex 

Without a lot of ventilation and fans there is both a heat element and a O2 depletion element in riding the trainer. The micro rests are also a factor though I think this depends more on the type of trainer and exercise performed.

Plus trainers suck and they are boring.

The folks know I have an adjusted indoor wattage programmed into the workouts. It's one of those "everyone is different" things that needs to be hashed out by using wattage plus PE and HR.

revchuck 

Apropos to the above, I just finished a trainer workout - 1:35, alternating steady state (FTP-level power) and muscle tension (for me, that's the 50-12 combination at ~57-59 rpm) intervals. Three of each, eight minutes with 6:00 RBI. I was about done at the end, but I hit my targets. The first post-workout beer just kinda evaporated. I just found a copy of "Kelly's Heroes", so the time didn't drag.

Hermes

2:54 tempo / endurance ride with climbing up San Bruno.

Esteban58

True, but music helps some. It's to early for me to be adjusting anything, I'll just hope for decent weather.

sarals 

On my day shift work mornings, it's too dark to be on the road (even with my Light in Motion light). I ride the trainer. It sucks, but Pandora helps.

Today was a Recovery Ride, and I rode the L'una. I was good - here it is, as proof. Weeeeelllll, there was that one little burst at about an hour in where some young fella on a single speed blew past me and I just couldn't resist. OMG, that's hard to do - that "resist" stuff! I need a battery in my HR strap. The HR numbers were just stupid at the beginning of the ride - and I was in the small ring, just spinning along. Maybe I should do that all the time, stay in the small ring and spin along. Flatted the front tire a block from my house. That was lucky, because my seat wedge was on my Look.

Esteban58

@Sara... my wife and I have talked about retiring to the coast... looking at a route like that makes it seem like an awesome idea.

Today was simply a perfect day to ride. 3 x 8 minutes SS, held the zones pretty well (except when I accidentally punched the lap button and aborted the first try, but I tacked another on the end). I was warm on a ride for the first time in about 6 weeks... this weekend is looking really good too.

sarals 

Come on down! In fact, come down some weekend and ride the SMR (Saturday Morning Ride) with the group. The weather was nice today, wasn't it? Just in time for me to go back to work!

Esteban58

I'll take you up on that once I have my bike situation sorted out... can you link a strava of the ride so I know what I'm getting myself into?

Allegheny Jet

Great night for high cadence sprint intervals. Assignment was 5 reps with the fixie that began 1/4 mile up a 4-5% hill. Rep would begin riding down hill and building cadence to 140-150 then once on the flats hold 130+ candence for 1' with the last 20" in the aero bar.

There was 0 wind and the 28 degree temps were very tolerable during the recovery and easy climb back up the hill between reps. The snow flurrys were like little twinkling stars in my head light. After Saturdays trainer class I'm on recovery week! This past training block was great, my coach pushed me hard but I always was ready for the next workout.

sarals 

Here's the route, or a variation of it...

https://app.strava.com/activities/37710834

It starts out flat, warm up pace, then it picks up after getting on to Pebble Beach. There are some pretty good short climbs on Pebble and some good descents. The scenery is the great! There is a fair bit of hammering off the front, but you don't need to be swept up into that if you don't want to. We gather at East Village Coffee in downtown Monterey afterwards and relax a bit. It's a good ride!

revchuck 

1:32 at endurance pace, with three sets of 3x45 second one-legged drills and one of five 60 second fast pedal drills - but not as fast as AJ's!

About 50 degrees with a 15-20 mph wind. Note to self: Don't intentionally place one-legged drills on the headwind part of an out-and-back...

chasm54

Great ride today. Was meant to be a steady 3 hours in z1 and z2, just base endurance stuff, but I felt so good I worked in a cruise interval session on the way home.

Lot of pros seem to be doing their winter training around here. On one of the popular climbs it isn't unknown for some of them to go past me, turn round at the top, come back down and pass me again on their second ascent before I've made it to the summit. A couple of guys wearing Russian national kit did that to me last week. In the words of Joe Parkin, I've seen aircraft that climb slower than that. Apparently Luis Leon Sanchez turned up for one of the local races a couple of weekends ago. Didn't win. On the other hand, nobody thinks he was trying too hard...

AzTallRider

Sanchez must like freaking people out. Before one of the US stage races, he lined up for a local race, but then didn't actually start.

chasm54

I think my favourite recent example of this was Francesco Moser lining up for some P1/2/3 event when visiting NYC last year. He hadn't been on a bike for months, and he's even older than us. They asked him if he'd be OK and he said something like "I can hold anybody's wheel for 40kms". Racing with Francesco Moser. I'd have liked that.

revchuck 

I remember that. I have to wonder if he did it out of a sense of noblesse oblige, or if he just wanted to race again, to feel that feeling.

sarals 

One hour ten minutes in the gym this morning doing the "new" strength training regimen. It went slowly, because I had to watch the video repeatedly to get the exercises right. I managed 1 minute 7 seconds on the plank, and 1 minute for the left and right planks. The weights I used for the weight drills were on the light side, but I'll up that. Exercises involving my lower back were done slowly, because my lower back is not great, and I tend to be careful not to pull the muscles there (which happens at least once a year, whether I want it to or not). All in all, a good workout! I need to ask Ex if I can this training more often than what he puts on the TRS - I think I just did!

shovelhd

Me too. I would like to continue this workout throughout the season, if only for the core work. Nice job on the planks.

VanceMac

I ran at 16t for the first time at last night's Roger's Session. It was interesting, and I think very productive/helpful. I look forward to incorporating more high cadence work into my track sessions.

sarals 

Thank you! Ex said "if you can do 1 minute..." on the video about the planks. I did NOT know I could go for more than 1 minute, and I probably won't be able to again.

I will definitely continue it, he did a great job combining the exercises, IMHO...