procrit

Where you do you live/ride? Dallas used to have a couple of pretty good crit series', but it looks like that may have stopped recently. There's a road race in Crockett, in between Dallas and Houston, on May 4 & 5. Might be worth the drive if you can swing it. I'd also suggest the "The South Ride a.k.a. Ray Hubbard Loop" on the weekends while in town if you want to do a race simulation / fast group ride. Search for the facebook page, it's not letting me link it. Bring a mountain bike too, there's a lot of good trail systems in the area.

TMonk

15 min warmup with the A-bot, then this race on Glasgow Rev. Lordy that was hard! Basically we would smash the hilly part of the course and then coast in between. Effective power for the race was 287w - huge intensity factor!

bampilot06

I live in Va, driving down to Dallas on the 6th for training and will be there for a month. Will look that group up thanks. I found two local crits, one on Tuesdays and one on Thursdays. I may be able to swing the Tuesday, looking at my schedule I’ll still be in the “box” thursday nights.


5x5 didn’t happened today. Really need to learn to listen to my body. Legs still felt sore from Wed, but me being me, said go for it. I have limited time home so, I try to cram all my workouts and rides in those 3-4 days that I am home.

Anyways, it was super windy this morning, first set was into the wind. The new power numbers, and how I was feeling I knew I would only be able to hold on to the bottom of the zone. In this case 286. I was doing okay the first 3 mins, however the wind was gusting bad and causing me to surge which I knew I wouldn’t be able to maintain for 5 sets. After about 4 mins I threw in the towel. Did AR for the rest of the ride.

I leave for work Sunday, plan was for 5x5 today, LaJ trifecta tomorrow and 3x20 Sunday. Not sure what I should do now. Leaning towards just sticking with my plan.
Tomorrow 4x 10 40/20, 3x10/50s followed by tempo. This workout takes about 3 hours and If my legs are still not feeling it I can cut something out.

TMonk

In general, I think this is my approach to intervals. With a reasonably accurate FTP, you should still get some adaptation at the lower end of zone targets, and it's easier on the head. If you some juice once you get into the workout - go ahead and push it up from there.

TMonk

Looks like a ton of my SDBC teammates registered for the 40k ITT tomorrow, and I'm stuck in the 35+ 20k, dang. I've never actually raced a full 40k ITT... sounds miserable. But, I think it would be fun to see how I stacked up against all the other guys! Maybe next time.

procrit

Testing a new hydration formula, and what better way to do that than a three hour ride this afternoon in the heat, followed by a sprint workout! Should be fun haha.

bampilot06

Right, so my old FTP, well what I was using was 250. I was able to not only complete each workout with relative ease I was also usually going over the range, especially the last set and was not terribly hard.

So 5x5 for instance the old range was 262-300. First set was always just keep it in the range, get my legs woken up, (I do a warm up, but I still treat the first set with kid gloves. Second set would be 270, third set 280, 290 and then last set I would keep it above 300. All of which I did, not easy but not too hard either.

New FTP 272.

Range now for 5x5 is 286-330.

I know I can do it, and I think I can hold 290 for all 5 sets, however today was not the day.

TMonk

How long have you been riding again? A 22 bump in FTP is freaking massive. I will probably never see 22+ watts on my current FTP, ever. And that's including being ~7-10 watts down on where I was last year with no baby and more volume.

But I'm also highly trained with 15+ years of being a racer.

bampilot06

5 years.

It was 260 before Simon was born. Then my riding and fitness went way down. I use intervals.icu so that’s where I get my FTP from. I suspected 250 was too low, I put that in there for my training plan, after this past month of training pretty regular with LAJ and my garmin plans, I kind of had an idea that my FTP was closer to 270.

I don’t have a road to do a good FTP test, and my trainer issue you are aware of, I’ll have to buy the dogle or whatever and that’s not a priority right now.

270 came from my effort on weds night ride.

bampilot06

So re did the 5x5 today and added an extra set. After receiving some input, about the new FTP number, I dropped it down to 260 in my garmin. I was able to complete 6x5 target was 290 for 4 sets, 300 the last.






I had a hard time “locking” in the power today. I wonder if it’s a me issue to my garmin rally pedals. I would start a set, slowly dial it up to 290 and be maintaining that +\- 5 and then out of no where the power would drop to 260. My perception of my effort was unchanged, but thinking it was my I would dial it up more and then my power would over shoot significantly.

In the past this would happen usually just on the first set, but today it was all of them. By set 3 I tried to just ignore it and focus on the effort and make slow adjustments.

Status says the garmin rally pedals batteries are good.

TMonk

Sounds like it might be the pedals. Did you see anything weird with you HR?

TMonk

Do you make your own? If so, mind sharing your recipe? I've been considering doing this to save some $$$

Hermes

Welcome bampilot06. Here are a couple of ideas / observations for you...not criticisms.

We have two sets of Garmin Ralley duels. My wife uses her on her track bike and mine swap between track and gravel bike - no issues. The earlier versions of Garmin vector pedals had battery compartment problems that lead to power spikes. Garmin provided a hardware fix.

Not that I have to but I do not understand the relationship between the target power and actual power in the chart. It seems like you are putting in power when it should be zero. Also, there are power spikes on the recovery part of the workout. What is that all about? Terrain?

Your heart rate drops and then ramps up 1/2 way through the interval. Maybe that is normal for you. My wife and I doing a similar our HR ramps and then holds or slightly builds over the intervals. Of course that is with 17 years of continuous training and racing.

When I do a hill climb race, my power will be constant as along as the terrain is steady. If the terrain changes to a flatter terrain, then I gear up and apply more force to keep the power up. If I just hold level of effort and let the cadence increase, the power will drop. That is independent of the power meter being used.

Years back, I did some similar 5x5 and I found it difficult to find terrain that worked. I used a couple of hills to that provided a relatively constant grade for the 5' on portion and the coasted back for the off portion. Today, the coach and group with whom I train, we do not do this type of interval. Not saying it is wrong, we do other intervals.

We have a guy on our racing team that is constantly looking for the perfect interval. It does not exist. There are three energy producing systems to train and a number of ways to do it. What I have found is that consistency is key and I do not focus on performance. I focus on level of effort (power as a guide) and completion of the workout against a plan and goal. I am a power junky but I do not let it be a limiter.

You can blame TMonk and me for this response. I was also in on the idea of inviting members such as yourself into the racing forum. Now, I bet you are really glad you posted something.

bampilot06

Nope, HR is where is usually is.

bampilot06

Hermes! Thank you so much for the feedback!

I honestly only have a vague idea about what I am doing. I also have a tendency to my own worst enemy, over think, push myself too hard, as well as occasionally borderline over train.

I have been riding for about 5 years. When I started I was obese and had a fitness of zero. First 3 years was me riding on my days off, typically 4 on 3 off, slowly racking up miles. I kind of got addicted to my mile count, fed my ego. Started doing group rides, got faster, and about 3 years ago when I thought I was fast I decided I could win races. Boy was I wrong. What I thought was fast was not fast at all. So I started training loosely with an official coach, he introduced me to 30/30s and 5 min threshold intervals. That was about the extent of my training up until this past year.

This past year I really wanted to get serious with the racing. My team has a lot of good guys on it, and I wanted to actually contribute. I started using garmin training plans to kind of get some work out ideas, some structure. That was good in the beginning but the workouts were kind of easy and some were just silly. LAJ has been kind enough to help me, and has guided me, I was posting in Addiction, but TMONK recommended that I come here.


Okay, so the 5x5 well 6x5 for today.

I use a 2.5 mile stretch of road in a neighborhood. It’s the main drive so no stops signs, traffic is light, road is wide and all the cyclist use this section. It is fairly flat, but does have some small dips in the road. I usually can anticipate these and keep the power fairley consistent, today I could not. I like your response about the “perfect” interval because I have been beating myself up doing these trying to maintain that “290” or whatever I decided to hold. I feel like a failure when I deviate below that.


So in between sets, where the power should be “zero”, that was me building this workout and I just left it in the default recovery. Usually I would have put zone 2 or 1 there. When the set is over I just pedal lightly and recover for a set time. The spikes you see, are actually me standing up and turning around in the road. Crazy that they are that prominent in the chart.


I am not understanding the HR. When I start the interval set I slowly but steadily bring the power in until I see the number I want and I then focus on keeping the effort that is required for the power . My HR takes a second to catch up, I assumed that was normal. My fitness is extremely high, could that be the cause of the delay in HR I think you are talking about.


Depending on my days off I typically average 12-15 hours in the saddle a week. Typically I am only home 4 days a week.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

TMonk

bampilot06, following up on what Hermes said, I took a look at the HR and agree, if it is dropping half way through, you might actually be dropping your power too. Maybe the pedals are correct.

Hermes

I did a meetup / banded ride with my former racing team from NorCal this AM on Zwift with a voice channel. 1.5 hours at endurance effort and got a chance to catch up on NorCal racing. It was raining in NorCal.

bampilot06

You are prolly right, but the power differential was a little absurd. I didn’t feel like I was giving any less effort that dip in the power was quite significant. Will watching it in the future.

bampilot06

5x5s last week.

Looks like these went better. I was running late so ending up having to push it to get home, that’s why the power spikes at the end.

TMonk

Light TT adaptation ride today, 1 hr of z2/3. Weather is nice, and it's a weekend (low traffic), so I thought this time that I'd venture out to a local frontage road near my place, instead of doing it on the trainer. There are a couple overpasses that I could use to stitch together a ~1 mile segment of road. TBH, the thought of riding up and down the same road a bunch of times sounded about as much fun as riding the trainer, but to my surprise, it was actually a ton of fun!

One of the offramps has a really tight bend in it, and feeling some G's going around it in aero was fun. There is also a big dip in the road about halfway through each straight stretch, so that kept the pace and power a bit dynamic as well. On the southern end, the left at the top of the offramp as a bit sharp, so that would serve as the end of each lap, as I needed to leave the aerobars and grab some brake.

Riding on the trainer (or Fiesta Island) is a bit of a slog, with nothing really to break up the pace, it's just you and your power. I excel at technical time trial riding and look for opportunities to do it (like the new VoS course). Next time I am looking to do one of these rides on the weekend, I think I will head back out here!

bampilot06

was planning on doing 3x20 threshold intervals today, but the flight I wanted to take to work was full so I had to leave even earlier. Cut my riding time, would not have time to get to the road where I can do those.

I opted for tempo with burst of zone 6 30 secs, every 3 mins. Started off okay but by the fifth one I was struggling to maintain tempo let alone the burst. My legs were done. Had 10 miles to get back home and by that time I didn’t even want to be on the bike anymore.
Def. Fatigued. Rode a lot of miles this week, and got more training in then usual.

Tomorrow I will be in Minnie and will ride with whyfi. Free ride prolly mostly zone 2.

Hermes

2 hour endurance ride from my house to Torrey Pines beach and back through LJ with a quick stop for a shot of espresso. I tested my healed shoulder, collarbone, ribs and other body parts on the rough roads of LJ and Pacific Beach that have not improved since I rode them in 1979 - not a problem.

TMonk

Lovely morning on the MTB, unstructured, mostly EZ. Felt lazy at first and just enjoyed being outside in the cool morning. I rode the techy bits in the middle quite nicely and even cleaned a tough technical climb that I have a ~50% success rate on, sweet. Last time I put my foot down like 4 times, lol. Felt a little spunky on my mostly-downhill ~2.5 mile road transfer back home afterward, so I gave it some gas.

Tomorrow, using some PTO to get a long ride in, aiming for 5 hrs of mostly z2. Long rides are a rarity these days. Gonna try to start nice and early, so I can be home to care for baby and give Liz a break for most of the day.

Hermes

San Diego Velodrome on pursuit bike. 2 sets of 8 reps of one lap on and 1 1/2 off. Beautiful day at the track in SD.

TMonk

Got some miles in this morning. Stayed mostly coastal, so not much climbing. Sat in on the Tuesday morning Fiesta hammer ride for a few laps till it was more than what I wanted (I can't not pull through...), then just did my own thing for a bit. A racing teammate and buddy kept me company up and down the coast for a while after.

I am tying to eat more on the bike, so I had two bottles with mix, a cliff bar, two large chocolate chunk cookies, a nature valley wafer bar, a bobo PB&J bar, and a costco nut bar. Felt pretty good through and through.