sarals 

Mid Season Form!

I hear Astana can use a good climber

sarals 

AJ, I was getting a little worried, too. I thought maybe you were on extended break. I'd heard nothing bad, so that was good.

Racer Ex 

Like I've got an itchy elbow

sarals 

IBOHUNT

28 min warm up
1x64 Sweet Spot
22 min limp home

IF 0.91
TSS 148

revchuck 

Didn't ride yesterday - the rain was such that I would've needed SCUBA gear. Today's workout was supposed to be 1:30 at endurance pace with 4x9' threshold intervals included; first interval to be done at 70-75 rpm, second at 75-80 rpm, third at 80-85 rpm and the fourth at 85-90 rpm. Yesterday's workout was to be 1:15 at endurance pace with an hour of that in Z3, so I did a half hour of Z3 leading into the intervals and about 35 minutes of Z3 right after them. No problem at all. Feeling pretty good about the progress! 2:23, TSS 170, IF .84, 1694 kj.

sarals 

It's fun feeling strong, isn't it?

sarals 

You guys tired of me, yet?

Adaption drills today. They didn't look as hard on paper as they really were. I gave them my best shot. It is difficult to maintain a 20 watt higher minute than the previous minute without the power jumping all over the place. I've learned to ramp up rather than jam, but I'm still not as smooth as I need or want to be. I'm trying, though!

revchuck 

Yup, but part of me is worrying about when the bottom's going to fall out. I'm having to work to accept this as the "new normal."

I do my best to keep my power smooth, but it still looks spastic when graphed. If the average power for the time period is within the required range, I call it close enough.

shovelhd

Endurance is Z2 so I don't get how it fits with most of it Z3 but maybe that's just me.

Adaptation on is fun stuff Sara. You will build base strength that will make it easier to build year after year. I guess your coach wants to keep you in this stupid sport.

sarals 

A twenty minute *** was on tap today. R*n it easy, 10:03 or so miles. I like ***ning, I miss it. I can control my HR pretty well when I'm doing it, something I can't do very well on the bike.

sarals 

Adaption is fun, Shovel. It's deceiving how hard it is to do properly, too.

I've got at least another season to see how I fit and how I do. I'm still hunting for my niche, but I've got some solid foundation building. What's cool is that the master's women have completely accepted me. That goes a long way towards making this silly sport rewarding. Once I figure out the mental game, how to keep from getting down and down on myself, I'll start to enjoy it a lot more. This season has been harder on me mentally than it has physically. Physically I've made gains. Mentally I've gone backwards. Listening to the post-race interviews on the Tour broadcast has told me that I'm not alone in trying to keep my chin up. It seems to be the BIG challenge in this sport.

IBOHUNT

5 1/2 hours on the bike with eight ~10 minute sweet spot efforts up a local-ish hill. Total was 80 miles and ~8,500' gain

IF 0.84
TSS 313

IBOHUNT

I suffer from the same syndrome. Power isn't there so I mash it and overshoot then back off and undershoot. Yesterday I had a difficult time trying to stay @90%. The stupid elevation changes kill me. I look at the lap analysis and it said 93%. For a 1x64 min sweet spot lap I called it good.

You are making me think, which I've been told by the spousal unit that I'm not very good at, to try your 20W increases. Thanks!

AzTallRider

14mi coffee ride with TallWife. New record: 49w

IBOHUNT

How do you not fall over?

AzTallRider

Cuz' I'm so remarkably aero (LOL) - that got me to something like 13mph. Got dropped by TallWife.

revchuck 

shovel - It's something that gets lost in translation. I'm training under Carmichael's system, and in that context "endurance" encompasses both Z2 and Z3. My coach has been telling me to train in the upper end of my endurance range for some workouts lately, so I just translate that to Z3 when I write about it here...and use 75-90% of my FTP for the range I train in.

Yesterday's ride was 3:56 at endurance pace...though using the resulting NP would put it just over the line into Z3. I felt pretty good on the bike, so I pushed a bit, resulting in my highest solo average speed for anything over about 20 miles - 19.2 mph. Found a hot spot under the balls of my left foot which was not there before, possibly due to not having pushed that hard for that long before. Also tried a new saddle, a 2013 Specialized Romin Expert. Gotta love getting discontinued stuff at cost! Took me three tries to get the tilt right, but I really like it.

Stats: 3:56, 75.4 miles, TSS 229, IF .76, 2565 kj.

shovelhd

Revchuck, got it. I forgot that you are a CTS client.

revchuck 

shovel - No problem.

Also, on yesterday's ride I took in a grand total of about 400 calories via three bottles of Gatorade, plus one of electrolyte drink and another of water. Looks like the fat burning is proceeding apace.

IBOHUNT

CdA of a stick

You sir, need to do more TTs.

sarals 

Yes. He looks like an F16 when he's in an aero tuck on his Cervelo.

sarals 

Chuck, by golly, I think you've got this pretty figured out!

I'm trying an SMP Dynamic saddle on my Look right now. So far, so good!

IBOHUNT

Hopefully the D model that's not the block 50/52 plus that has the ugly bulge on the side for JDAM. Took a great looking plane and ruint it.

I've got the CdA of an AN-225 and the power of a Sears push mower.

IBOHUNT

Quit burning fat. The world is built on an equilibrium and when you burn fat it means I gain.