LowCel 

The past couple of weeks I have been working on my climbing. I've been doing some repeats and just focusing on trying to keep my power somewhat consistant on them. Last night I went out and did the same hill repeats that I did twelve days ago. The climb is a little over a mile long and a little over 600 feet elevation gain. I had approximately 2:15 recovery between each repeat for the ride back down to the bottom.

3/6/08 wattages on the repeats. 314, 305, 295, 294, 287
3/18/08 wattages on the repeats. 322, 313, 312, 312, 320

I had about a ten percent gain on the final climb. I feel pretty good about the improvement, especially considering how early it is in the season.

garysol1 

Great job!! I am jealous. Seriously in the past couple of weeks we have had MAYBE 3 days of outside riding weather. It has taken a week for the snow to melt down to the point where the roads are not constantly wet and full of crap but now we have rain and wind with snow showers...........It just never seems to end.

Lithuania

were you concious of your power output during each interval both days?

LowCel 

Yes, I was trying to keep it around 300 - 315 for the intervals. I just couldn't hold it on the first day.

waterrockets 

Nice work! That's about a 5.6% improvement on your average for all the repeats (299 vs. 315). What's the duration at 315W?

Now you'll also probably start to notice that your SST pace is a little too easy to hold...

Lithuania

thats awesome

LowCel 

The time is right around 8:30 - 8:45. When doing the climb once I can do it in 7:35 pretty much all out. Also, seems like I'm having a brain fart, remind me what sst is.

ElJamoquio

Great job, Lowcel. You'll be kicking WV ass this year.

waterrockets 

Cool those are good, long intervals.

SST = Sweet Spot Training

Whenever I notice a big improvement in some workout, I start to notice that my SST target wattage is pretty easy. We all know from Lemond that it never hurts less, you just get faster -- so I bump the SST up until it hurts again

LowCel 

Thanks for the link. I'll read that one later when I'm not on the clock.

ElJamoquio

Exactly. Last few times I've been outside, I wasn't really breathing hard at my 'sweet-spot', which probably indicates it's too low. It doesn't (shouldn't) get any easier - you just get faster. I should raise my target up.

Buh I don't wanna.

cmh

Great job. Having a power meter to track improvements like this must be a great motivater.

waterrockets 

Yeah, it would be nice for our fitness to mean less suffering, wouldn't it? I guess it would if we were just doing coffee shop rides.

LT Intolerant

First off congrats! Big time! However, conventional wisdom (what I've read and coaches I've talked with) says that it takes roughly 6 weeks to see "real" adaptation when you introduce training stress. Maybe other variables are at play in your situation?

That is maybe your new found climbing ability was suppressed (latent) and you are now seeing the results of work you've done before? Or maybe you are starting from a relatively untrained state and seeing the gains that most see out of the gate?

My post is not meant to be a wet blanket on what you've done, because that kind of improvement is awesome, but there is probably more to the story than a few days of climbing focus over the past 12 days. OK, now that I feel like a jerk, I'd be curious to see what kinds of #s you post 3-4 weeks from now as you continue to focus on climbing. Seems to me that you have some huge upside.

cmh

It is true that some of the OPs gains are likely due to mental factors (increased focus, better pacing, familiarity with that particular climb) rather than physiological adaptation. But those are still real gains that will be an advantage in a race.

LT Intolerant

No doubt, and it's why, as I was writing my response, I felt like I was going to come across as dismissing the OP's gains. I think what I was trying to say, poorly, was that he is at the knee of the curve and can expect to see some real gains down the line if he maintains his focus and continues to add clmbing training stress.

asgelle

If that were true, the typical taper before a key event would also be about six weeks (no point adding extra stress if the adaptations won't occur until after the event). However that isn't the case. Tapers are on the order of two weeks.

wfrogge

You lose and recover (taper) faster than you gain......

LT Intolerant

OK, I'm not an exercise physiologist, I only play one on TV. I'm sure one sees "incremental" gains along the way as they add training stress, but seeing a 5-10% increase in 12 days seems extreme based on my experience, even if the OP were starting from an untrained state. It's why I wrote that there is "more to story".

LowCel 

This is more like recovering fitness than gaining fitness I guess. Not sure if that is real scientific but it sounds good to me.

So far this year (since 1/1/08) I have 1,190 miles and approximately 70 hours on the bike. I have been doing a lot of group rides and one race so far this season (2nd place cat 4). I am by no means in peak shape but I have been spending some time on the bike. This is the first that I have been concentrating on improving my climbing this season.

Also, I was actually more rested the first time, the conditions were actually pretty similar.

I'm sure that part of my gain is mental, part physical. Once race day gets here I don't think it really matters which it was though as long as I am stronger.

ldesfor1@ithaca

firstly, congrats!

secondly, to depend the discussion, I hope: Many of these "other factors" which could be effecting these results in such a short time would be: nutrition, rest/sleep, training schedule arrangement, mental strength/ability to suffer more, emotional stress, time of day, etc...

I'm sure, Lowcel, that you've taken this into account, though.

Keep kicking *****!


-L

ldesfor1@ithaca

whoops, I see you already addressed this point. My bad!

-L

LowCel 

Actually, thinking of it the sleeping factor, stress was actually a bit worse. I recently got a new rat terrier puppy which is making sure that I get no sleep. As of yesterday I had him for four days. The first night he allowed me to get about 4 hours sleep, the second night I got 3 hours sleep, the third night I had 2 hours sleep, the forth night, the night before the hill repeats I had four hours sleep. Last night was the first night I have had over five hours sleep since last Thursday night.

As for nutrition, yesterday I went to a Pizza Buffet for lunch, then afterwards I went to the chophouse for a $50 new york strip. Can't think of a better way to get some necessary protein.