branman1986

man, that's gotta be the worst

just in time for the season to start...I swear this weather is causing a lot of problems. It's hot then cold then hot then cold, I usually catch cold right after some unseasonably warm winter weather, followed by extreme cold.

NomadVW 

Accumulated TSS, Monday to Sunday
12/4/2006 12/10/2006 702.61
12/11/2006 12/17/2006 1120.03
12/18/2006 12/24/2006 916.34
12/25/2006 12/31/2006 838.27
1/1/2007 1/7/2007 1008.25
1/8/2007 1/14/2007 981.46
1/15/2007 1/21/2007 1028.51
1/22/2007 1/28/2007 784.93 (taper)
1/29/2007 2/4/2007 704.05 (test)
2/5/2007 2/11/2007 990.76

Last week's 990 was the hardest 990 I've had so far, while the 1120 wasn't so bad, two 5 1/2 hour days that week. My rolling 7-day TSS average is 901 since the 4th of December.

Having adjusted my training zones two weeks ago, the TSS is coming a lot harder. For example, a 3 hour endurance ride was getting me 180-200 TSS, now it's 140ish. 5 hours on the bike would be over 300, but now it's only 250 at most.

TheKillerPenguin

Sweeeeeet, Intervals last night! WOOT! Gotta love the sinking feeling you get after the first one, when you realize that in another minute you're going to be at max hr again

On my Cycleops Fluid2...first efforts
1min- 28.6mph
5min- 23.6mph

For comparison, IIRC at this time last year my max 1min speed was attained in my 53-17, not my 53-14. My 5 min speed is the same as my 1 min was around this time last year

grebletie

What was the average power for those intervals? I'm trying to figure out how off my Fluid2 is compared to others.

After gathering 2 weeks worth of data in the Performance Manager, I have a feeling that my FTP is higher than recorded in WKO+. Basically, I'm sustaining IF and TSS that ought to be leaving me more fatigued, from what I have gathered in the Wattage forum.

Only one week until the first race of the season. The suspense is killing me. It's been about 5 months of consistent training since my last race, and I'm anxious to see if the work pays off.

TheKillerPenguin

Errr...I'm not quite sure. I'm using someone elses power data in conjunction with the powercurve up on Cycleops' page to estimate power. The powercurve really doesn't seem to match up with the person's power data, but I tend to believe the guy's power data over the pretty looking chart cycleops has up.

GuitarWizard

I have a Fluid 2 as well, and did a 2 hour session last night, in which I started to progressively ride faster after about an hour. After the first hour, I was hovering around the 18 mph mark for awhile....then at around the 1 hour 40 minute mark, was in the 19 mph range, and then at 1 hour 50 minutes ramped it up to 20-21 mph, which I held for 4 minutes, and then 22-23 mph for the next minute (with 26-27 mph for the last 10 seconds of that). It was a good effort....I like doing progressively harder "steady state" efforts, particularly at the end of a session if it's a "moderate" intensity day.

Can't wait to start the pegging-of-the-heartrate intervals in a month or two.

recneps

Worst training night of the season, I go out for the local fast group ride not many people show it was cold, pace was around 22 warming up, I decided after 30 minutes I want to pick up the pace, so I move to the front and set a pace of 25, after a couple of minutes i decide i want someone else to pull so i drop off and the just fresh team starts pulling and I get dropped, No clue what happened i just couldnt put out any power. Then later in the night I tried to see what my legs still had in them, so i really starting pushing the pedals on the flat working hard, I look down at my speedo and im seeing 23 hahahaha, for the work I was doing I felt like I should have been doing 27.

maybe tonight will be better, what causes such a horrible ride?

GuitarWizard

Sunspots

branman1986

plate tectonics?

GuitarWizard

Shifting of the jet stream

timmhaan

rare alignment of the planets.

TheKillerPenguin

I just found some data from last february. For a 10mi flat TT:
Feb14- 20.75mph avg @28:55
Mar06- 20.51mph avg @29:15

So my tempo speed is where my all out speed was this time last year.

HA!

Duke of Kent

I did some all-out (well, as hard as they could be) 1min repeats after my main workout last night. And man, I've forgotten what pain really feels like. L2, L3, L4 and L5 till the end of time, yeah, cool, it burns, but those L6 intervals kick you in the @ss, and keep on kicking.

Hit some good wattage given the workout previous and the fact that I haven't done anything of that intensity in a long, long time, but I know I need to improve in that area specifically. Right now my power profile is doing a big ol' V. Kind of embarrassing.

DrPete 

Well, the weather gave me a reprieve this weekend. My cough is going away, but it's cost me 4 days of training now. Fortunately, the race I was scheduled to do this Sunday has been cancelled, so I can ramp back up a little more normally and be (relatively speaking) race-ready by next weekend.

Snuffleupagus

I got back on the bike Wednesday. 6 days after surgery - the PT said I was good to get some easy trainer time in. The main problem I'm dealing with right now is a massively inflamed IT band that prohibits me from full extension/flexion. It's not like I or the PT speculate the IT band is inflamed - it's visually obvious that it's quite, quite swollen. So that sucks...lotsa rest, ice, compression and elevation to try to get the swelling down. I shelled out 140 bucks to get a home cryotherapy knee compression system to help with the swelling - that I'm STILL WAITING ON despite paying for express shipping

Wednesday: 15 minutes on the trainer 36w avg, 44 norm
Thursday: 20 minutes 83w avg, 99 norm
Friday: 30 minutes 119w avg, 128 norm

I'll keep slowly ramping up the time and intensity as the swelling goes away. At this rate, I don't expect to lose any substantial aerobic strength, as 6 days off isn't enough to detrain. Provided the swelling goes away like it did last time and my IT band plays nice I should be able to get in an hour of quality L2-L3 work in once or twice a day within 2 weeks at most. I've also lost 3lbs - which is probably a mixture of my intentional dieting and muscle atrophy in the operative leg.

grebletie

Same for me, though my power profile is much more embarrassing at the moment. Basically, I shrugged off the super high intensity stuff over winter, such that my FTP and 5 minute numbers are weak Cat 2 on the chart, and my 5 sec and 1 min numbers are Cat 5 / Untrained territory.

Very weak. I'm going to concentrate for a couple of weeks on L5 and L6, with some L7 stuff. It might compromise FTP development, but that doesn't appear to be my limiter right now.

GuitarWizard

So, are you like a Cat 1?

grebletie

Not even close, but that's a long term goal of sorts. I plan to get dropped in some Collegiate A races this year, though.

Anyways, the chart means nothing, except that it tells me what weaknesses I need to train. Only problem is that I have read that 5 sec and 1 min numbers are difficult to train, and mostly a product of muscle fiber type. So we'll see if I made any progress there.

GuitarWizard

Maybe someday I'll get an SRM

branman1986

got my max wattage to 1490 on my ride today, pretty sure I can top 1500 if I give it a solid go...also got my 20 second wattage up to 1072.

bdcheung

Did my pyramid interval today, 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1. All my power numbers look good, but my 1-minute power is still low relative to everything else in my Power Profile. Maybe I'm just not a Minute Man. Here's what my power profile looks like:

Will that 1-min power bar go up? What do y'all think about my PProfile and what kind of rider I should shoot to be? Help the power n00b!

GuitarWizard

Remind me never to sprint against you.

DrPete 

Remind Erik Zabel never to sprint against him.

Snuffleupagus

Keep training. From what you've posted thus far you don't seem to have trained for a long enough period of time to worry about specializing in any one part of riding. Work all your systems, and your strengths will become evident as time goes on.

As for me...this completes my first full week back on the trainer since surgery on the 8th. I'm recovering nicely I think. Hopefully FTP will be up to 4 w/kg by April. According to the all powerful power chart, I'm already as strong as a packfill CAT-5 in the 20 minute area

Duke of Kent

Not gonna lie. If your one minute power is that low, you might have a hard time finishing races with the main field, let alone being a break away rider or sprinter. Keep training as hard and as long as your body, time, school and family will allow, and you'll see improvements.