I felt like crap in the afternoon today. Almost didn't ride.

Workout for the day:
3x10 tempo
4x8 LT

I could barely hold the tempo, and I almost ran myself into the curb a few times just because I was loopy. Shoulda turned home.

Got better as it went though. By the 2nd tempo interval, I was feeling okay, and I got them all done in the right zone.

I even got all the LT intervals done right. Well. Not all.

I skipped the last one. I like tomorrow's workout and I didn't want to feel like ass for it.

Oh well. I'm totally wiped out.

Man...

First ride/race since I crashed 7 days ago. Didnt get to warm up, felt like ****, the entire race I was pegged.

meh... It'll come back quick, road rash is finally scabbing up so i'll be riding consistently now.

he's a new dad, so the treat was one beer. fortunately it was a good one.

I have a problem:

Even though I just got back from vacation and had very little ride time I feel like I'm over-reached. Don't know how. Don't know why. Every little effort hurts and I cannot hold anything for a long period of time. I have been on the bike less than 6 hours this week - including a race Sunday.

I have a major race this Saturday that I should (if I was in good form) do real well in. It's suited for me. Two major climbs. One 8 miles long and one 5 miles to the finish.

Last night I went out with a group and we held a pretty high tempo but it took everything for me to stay with it. It almost felt like I was having those fricken heart issues again like late last year. I swear, I don't want to go through that again. Extremely high heart rate, headache, backache.

I feel like I need serious recovery before Saturday. Serious recovery.

let me guess.

you didn't ride much on vacation, but now that you're back on the bike, you're drilling it like you did before vacation, instead of taking a mellow days on the bike to get yourself back into the swing of things.

Sorry, but you're wrong.

Since I've been back I had one day where I really tried to drill it. Most of the time it was low-end SST, tempo, and easy spins. Other than that, I had a race (drilling it was necessary), and a 2x20 with a 95% effort on the first. Then I couldn't reach it again. Last night was a bit hard. That's about it.

avoid drilling it for the next 7-10 days.

(Seriously, not going against your advice here. I do believe I need to recover.)
But that's gonna suck trying to race Saturday. This is why I took time off when I did too. So, I could revitalize, come back fresh, race a bit to get back up to snuff, and have great legs for Asheville . This race is perfect for my style of racing too.

But ... nothing I can do now. It's just gonna bite my tail.

And I really hope I'm not getting ill again like last year. That whole heart thing put me under for a long, long time.

Thanks.

8 hill climb repeats (rest was coasting down the hill) although yesterday's workout would not necessarily call for it...some tradeoffs, so, I opted for the hill climbing...output was ok (was not feeling too fresh this morning)...I did like having to gut it out on the last rep on the steepest part, helped me improve my mashing technique and feel more drive to the pedals while standing...

(not sure what this means yet -- did not start pushing at same point each time):
rep 1 - 1'13" 416w avg
rep 2 - 1'26" 322w avg
rep 3 - 1'33" 297w avg
rep 4 - 1'39" 283w avg
rep 5 - 1'29" 318w avg
rep 6 - 1'11" 363w avg
rep 7 - 1'24" 327w avg
rep 8 - 1'10" 346w avg

I added a decent number of watts over the past training block.

Granted I'm far from an expert, but it sounds like your CTL plummeted for a week and now you're having trouble generating the workload you were beforehand. Not much you can do by Saturday.

Hope Ranch is awesome I had a friend from lab take me through there on Sunday after my crit.

There are some awesome AWC length hills there and it is gorgeous riding of course. (although nothing seems gorgeous when you're doing AWC )

12% grade for 1/2 mile**********? I don't think I saw that one....



Looking forward to checking out the thursday right tonite

It's Sea Ranch Dr, technically right outside of Hope Ranch. It starts out at about 5%, ramps up and finishes around 16%, averaging 12%.

This is the graph from yesterday.

Haven't gone out to ride yet, they're blacktopping all of the roads in my neighborhood!

Nothin' beats the smell of tar in the morning.

No riding today, only ice bath to let my body heal up a bit from hard training earlier in the week. First ice bath this session so should be a shock ha.

Legs have been feeling like crud for the last few weeks. I get my workouts done right but I still feel exhausted. I think based on what I've read and what leo has written, I think I'm 'de-peaking'.

I'm supposed to go do some tough intervals today, but I'm thinking about either just going out for an easy 3 hr ride, or just not riding and sleeping instead. Going to decide in the next few mins...

"easy 3-hour ride".... sounds like an oxymoron.

rest young one, rest.

-L

Well, your coach is bumping up your FTP interval targets without testing...

Listen to your body and trust your judgment...don't worry, I'm not seeing this as foreshadowing an excuse for someone else on BF who might trek down to New Britain and show you how it's done...

Upper end of range has increased, but I'm still supposed to do them between 240-265. Was 240-255 earlier.

I've done 3x20's at 270W in April, so this shouldn't be that big of a deal because I only do these intervals for 10 mins tops.

Anywho, valid point.

I do think my body does better with a long ride following the training crit on tues night, vs the intervals. Also, this tuesday was though and my NP for the 40 min race was 292 W.

The AP and NP from the training crit was much higher than the 3/4 race's I did at bethel. It was 20 mins shorter, but for the same duration the wattage was 15ish W higher.

Easy 2.5-3 hour ride for me today, followed by an email to the coach. Dobedobedo.

New britain was last weekend. You did wells instead

Naugatuck is this sunday. 4/5 and 3/4 race if you wanna come play.

Yeah, maybe the coach will back you off for a few days then.

Yeah, so I hope. Next weekend's a big road race...

Didn't you recently write in another thread that you were up at wee hours of the morning making brownies and drinking beer?

I know you're a whippersnapper, but you sometimes need to catch some sleep, especially if you're training hard. 8 hours a night is a bare minimum.

+1

I average close to 9 hours a night.

I think the sleep has been my problem lately. I have trouble getting more than 6 or 7 during the week. I drag through the day, and then have trouble training in the evening.