Heathpack 

Through LA on Sunday morning is not bad at all. Going home would be less fun. We have this exact paradigm when I race Fiesta. We leave a little before 4am and the drive with zero traffic is slightly over 2 hours. Coming home, with traffic, it’s over 3 hours. I really like Fiesta though- the flat course, closed to cars, held start and the overall vibe of it. Same situation here- my husband is my soinguer so that’s a factor too, you realize that you’re eating up a big chunk of two people’s day. He claims to not mind until that 3am alarm goes off on a Sunday. Then he’s a little grumpy, lol.

Now I understand the FTP comment, you’re talking about on the TT bike. My FTP is always set on the TT bike so for me riding FTP for an hour in a TT is a given. We just assume my road bike FTP is a little higher but would never do anything with that number so I’ve never tested it.

A male friend of mine got the Merckx course record recently at Piru, which made me realize the women’s Merckx is ripe to be plucked. I beat that time in my first ever TT there, which was on my road bike, but I wasn’t registered in a Merckx class. So I’m thinking this summer, I’ll go race a Merckx TT there and try to get the course record.

Im thinking of doing Breathless Agony next year and if so, I’ll come do some training rides in your area. The drive is a pain but it’s really not that bad.

Flatballer

Training isn't the right word, but I did ride my bike for the first time in 2.5, almost 3 years. My excellent wife encouraged it. Trying to get me time to at least do one morning ride one weekend day and one afternoon ride. If I can start getting a couple hours a week, I don't be fast but at least I'll be exercising.

55 minutes, 110W average or so. 13 and change mph over rolling terrain.

Pretty atrocious, but I had fun and I at least got moving.

burnthesheep

Did 3 hours of gravel today, thanks wife!

Either way, I'm at 680 TSS over 8 days. -19 on TSB, lol. I'll take Monday off then do some 3x10 on Tuesday.

It was a pretty good avg speed for curvy hilly gravel and just doing 3 hrs tempo. About 1/2mph faster than I usually do with going harder. It was nice riding not messing with dropped chains. On the 1x installed a catcher. I could care less about aero on a gravel bike. It's simple, it works.

Heathpack 

BOO YAH.

Yesterday mock 5K TT and today mock 10K TT, both on the same flat-terrain course at 5100ft elevation up in the Lockwood Valley.

Landed like a feather both days on my exact-to-the-watt power target, totally on top of my game and in control of the efforts. They were miserable by the end, don't get me wrong. But I executed both of them exactly according to how I planned to execute them. Sweet.

Both efforts were only a 4-5% decrement from what I've already done in workouts at my normal training altitude (1200 ft), which for me is great, I am particularly bad at altitude. I knocked about 30 sec off my qualifying 5K time and about 1:30 off my qualifying 10K time, both of which were raced at sea level a year ago. This was with no aero anything- no disc, a shallow 30mm front wheel, no aero helmet, no visor, no shoe covers, my slow shoes, exposed skin on my arms, no skinsuit, a headlight, tail light, bottle cage, saddle bag, stuff in my jersey pockets. Actual races will be at higher altitude and likely warmer temps, and I'll be more rested, so its reasonable to expect even faster times on race day.

Who knows what it will take to podium these races, but at least I know going in that I am very well prepared and exactly where I would hope to be right now. #bringiton

PS Thanks coach!

hubcyclist

big weekend, saturday 75miles, 235 TSS. Today 85miles, 207 TSS. Felt a little wrecked yesterday but recovered all day eating and sitting around, feel good today. Both rides were the longest rides of the year so far (most of my rides are limited to 2hrs)

These were the end of my "recovery week" (did endurance all week), build for CX season starts this week. Not looking forward to the suffering but am looking forward to having a little more pop, sweet spot work has me a bit too flat.

Hermes

4 hours of endurance this weekend riding along the coast.

TMonk

An hour easy on the MTB this morning. Next week will be my fifth consecutive week of < 600 TSS, which is low for me. Typically 90-100 CTL pre-season and in-season. But I'm hitting power and time PR's probably due to the fact that my TSB is consistently positive and I put in the occasional hard training ride to make sure my legs don't completely atrophy. This is fun.

Next weekend is the state TTT, after which I have literally zero races on my radar for the remainder of the year. Might try some XC MTB, might not, will def. do more track (TNR - ATRA). Fun times.

revchuck 

Pretty big week for me, 14:30 on the bike plus working almost full time covering for our mechanic who was off.

Memorial Day was a long ride, 82 miles/4:22 at endurance pace. Tuesday was off the bike. Wednesday was 2:20 right at L3. Thursday was 4x8' "Climbing Repeats", Carmichael-speak for just over threshold to VO2 max power. I did them at 104% of FTP and they felt harder than I thought they should have. Friday was 1:30 at endurance pace.

For Saturday, coach wanted 45-60 minutes at threshold in intervals of at least eight minutes; I ended up doing 2x30' with 6' RBI and could've done another one. IF/EF for the first was .98/1.79; for the second they were .99/1.80. Don't know where that came from, but I'll take it. Today was 2:42 at borderline L3. TSS for the week is 840, CTL is 95, ATL is 111.

furiousferret

First group ride this year (outside of worlds). I really didn't want to break a collar bone pre vacation... Picked the Team Redlands (which I haven't done in 3 years) ride because its not too challenging and predictable; figure I'll probably go OTF on the mountains to get a workout.

I show up, and I'm the slowest guy there. The 60 year olds have been replaced by a college track team, who where nice enough to pull me up the mountains just below heart attack pace as they drank Yoohoos and talked about killing NoobSlaYeR69 in Fortnite. It really wasn't too bad, 190 TSS, 50 miles w/ 4500 ft in 3 hours. Definitely need to do more of it, maybe next week a bit more breakneck pace.

TheKillerPenguin

I'm not aero on my TT bike so naturally I'm going to do the nationals ITT in 2 weeks. Dumb idea is dumb, but I'll be down there feeding my teammates for the road race anyway.

Setup in front of a mirror and tweaked position until it looked correct. Then altered to uci compliance. I'm like right on that 190cm cutoff for the 80/85cm morphological exemption but I opted to play within the 80cm rules just in case. It's annoying that it's measured to the tips of the shifters, gives di2 bros an advantage. Went from a 120 -6 to 140 -17 and removed 1.5cm of spacers.

Allen key ride later this week. Feels comfy though, and helmet tail sits right between my shoulder blades and follows the exact line of my back (which is now flat)

Besides this poor decision, doing 30 sec work. 6x30 all out followed by 1x20 sweet spot and 2x10ish FTP and then another 2x30 all out. Fatigue resistance is pretty rad, and broke my previous PB 30 second effort by 60ish watts. Also 5min things alternating between 30sec sweet spot and 30sec all out. These things make me hate bikes.

caloso

4x8's yesterday. Pyramid workout today. Going to be hot. Usually I'm pretty heat acclimated by June, but it's been such a wet and cold spring that I'm prolly gonna die!

Hermes

Hanging in NorCal for a couple of days and rode the Canada TT course and the route to the fire station on Portola. It was windy and hotter than Hades. Doing it again tomorrow.

Ttoc6

Birthday Ride! Took the day off work for a dr.'s appointment (convenient.. hmmm) and got 115 miles of mixed terrain on the gravel bike. Almost 7 hours and I got to see some beautiful, isolated parts of the state. No power goals, or targets. Just wanted to get out and enjoy my time. Probably poached some private roads to get there, but no one out there to protest! Once the road turned to pavement I may have found some of the best TT practice roads. Filing that one away for future reference! For the first 4 hours of this ride, I saw MAYBE 3 cars and they were all headed to the Golden Spike Historical area. Incredible day out.

revchuck 

@Ttoc6 - I love that emptiness too. Great pics!

Monday was off the bike, Tuesday was 2:16 at high endurance pace. Today's scheduled ride is 3-4 hours at my climbing route with ~40' total at "climbing repeat" intensity (~105-110%). Naturally, the weather forecast for that area is thunderstorms from before sunrise to after sunset. I'm okay with getting wet and dirty, but I don't like to ride among those flashy things in the sky. Forecast for home is just rain for part of the afternoon, so I'll do low cadence CR intervals on the flats to simulate climbing as much as possible.

Coach is making noises about bumping my levels up.

burnthesheep

I've no reason to abide perfectly to that rule, but on mine I pulled the extensions back and have tried riding gripping with my two smallest fingers instead of using all 4 fingers. That gains you back 1.5". If you see a bump coming, slide back the other fingers for the bump. Then move back.

Sure, if you're already doing that then there's not that 1.5" to gain. But, if you're not.......there's something.

Kind of like stacked hands. You wouldn't ride stacked hands over railroad tracks either, you'd move to a safer grip for that 10 seconds then move back.

I'm not sure my fingers are strong enough, but I've considered doing some mods to a cheap used bar-end shifter for grins and giggles to see if you could gain an inch back.

Flatballer

That's beautiful and sounds like an amazing ride. I'm jealous for sure.

furiousferret

Outside of the Fondo / Race...first effort in about a month. Lots o volume, not much content. 8-12 watts under what I should do at Worlds, although my legs felt solid. I'm sure I'll get there.


Just got my new high tech panniers which was supposed to be for the vacation, but they arrived late. Typical kickstarter company, great product, terrible customer service. Anyway, I might do a car free week or month; easily the best way to lose weight. I probably have about 10 lbs to go.

TheKillerPenguin

Yep I've already got it setup this way, the main issue is my wingspan is pretty large for my height and I'm also right on the 190cm morphological height limit, so an official could prob go either way depending on how nice he/she is feeling that day. Playing it safe means I am already kinda shifting with the palm of my hand or pinkies.

burnthesheep

I "get" the idea of adaptation and fatigue. I just don't know when to question numbers.

I haven't used my beet powder outside of really hard stuff or racing for a while in training.

I can't decide if it's adaptation, fatigue, beet powder....or all 3.

Last Weds vs. this Weds:

Last:
Made it 2x10min at 290w, couldn't do the 3rd. Max HR on 1st set was 171, and 179 on the 2nd set. TSB on this day was -6.

This time:
Made it all 3x10 at 290w. Max HR way lower on all the sets. 165, 169, 173. TSB today is -8.

I didn't feel fatigued. Felt pretty good. If not for over using my work's good graces for lunch hour I would have tried a fourth.

Maybe gains are being had. Just seems like a lot of something from just one week of training to both nail all 3 sets and have a lower HR even in the last set than the 2nd set was last week. I trust the meter too.

TMonk

I have the KOM for Fiesta Island... Until my teammate Kevin uploads his ride. Then I will be second . 31.1 MPH for 4.1 miles, three-man effort. Fiesta is very windy, exposed and "slow" for a flat course.

Our third rider (Cody) dropped off and finished 3 seconds behind me, but that was enough to fall to third. So close!

We were starting with four and planning on doing a full 40 k mock TTT.... Ouch. But a teammate (@wktmeow) flatted a tubular about 1/2 lap in. So we rode back to the car to pick him up, then decided to go for the KOM. Nothing like a little (successful) Strava hunting/cat 6 racing to start the day!

Oh, and it was hard.

Hermes

@burnthesheep I do not overthink my performance metrics. Sometimes up and sometimes down. The research I have read on beet juice et al is that the better condition one gets, the less the effect. To say it another way, beet juice will not take you past your genetic potential. YMMV.

As I recall, you are a golfer. I am from a golfing family and starting playing as a kid. When I lived in LA and belonged to a CC, the pro I was using for lessons, said that the course lags the range by about 30 days. I found this to be true. I could be executing on the range but not scoring. As I put more time on the range, the course started to catch up.

So on top of weekly / daily cycling performance variations while training, there is performance variation when racing. I was great in training but sucked racing. I think that is sort of normal and over time the more one trains and races, the racing catches up with the training.

I am rambling a bit but I think you are doing great. Keep it up.

Hermes

Congrats on the KOM on Fiesta - not easy. Who was your real third rider today? Tony Martin code named Cody?

TMonk

Kevin Festini (FITT 40k record holder) and Cody Jung (team USA para athlete) were the other two riders

Hermes

@mattm @Ygduf. I rode on Canada, Moutain Home and Portola yesterday. Since moving to SoCal, this is the first time I have ridden on those roads in 3 years. I was amazed how rough some parts of the roads were - especially the bike lane. It looks like a bad / not very smooth chip seal or equal repave. Maybe it was like that before and I do not remember.

When I moved to NorCal in 2006, I was inline skating on Canada. Today, it seems too rough.

Flatballer

I know nothing about beet juice or powder, except that my dad was drinking a lot of beet juice for a while, ended up passing out and falling into the water, passed out a few more times after, nobody could figure it out. Stopped drinking the beet juice and his blood pressure is back to normal levels and he isn't passing out anymore.