mollusk

Make sure to eat enough and drink enough water tonight. The last hour will be tough if you actually do what you say you are going to do.

echappist

thanks guys. I was pretty sure that when i woke up late this AM, i'd be SOL for any hard-ish riding.

I actually tried that ride on Saturday, and i think only the adrenaline of not wanting to get dropped by a teammate gave me the oomph to put out power in the last hour.

kensuf

Do you even have a plan for your training, or do you make it up as you go along? Just curious, but I see you make comments like "wow, I guess you need to have a ctl of 100 before you could try that, I'd never be able to do it" then a week or two later I see you post questions like "I'm going to go bury myself tomorrow, how should I bury myself today?"..

At the very least, get yourself a copy of this:



And this:



And use something like this to plan your training:

https://www.google.com/calendar/render?pli=1

kensuf

Or maybe hire a coach. I know a guy locally that's pretty cheap, he's got a great tactical mind though, and I'd be happy to turn you on to him.

echappist

Kensuf, thanks for the suggestions.

i have both books and read both. I usually plan out ~8 week in advance, but the thing is my actual training, other than one key weekend rides and the first ride of the week, often don't go according to plan as an experiment here or a long night at the lab there throw it off.

for example, the original goal yesterday was 1.5-2.0 hour z2/z3. Instead the time for a few errands went overboard and i "commuted" a bunch instead.

To misappropriate something intended for more serious matters, i was in the "denial"/bargain phase of dealing with the lost training opportunity when I posted that and am in the acceptance stage now.

While a coach will be able to help with planning, the underlying problem of experiment taking too long and subsequently forcing me to scrap/significantly change the day's workout won't change.

kensuf

Hmm.. Do you have to be on-site during the experiment, or is it something that can run unattended?

If your training schedule is constantly being messed up, perhaps you need to re-evaluate your goals, be honest with yourself about the time you can actually spend training, and tune your training to the revised goals. A person can become very good at certain types of races on ~6-8 hours a week of very short, but very high intensity training. There's really no need for four hour training rides if you're only doing 45 minute long races.

However, when you're "peaked" that white hot flame may only last for a month or two, so you need to plan the training calendar to peak during your racing season.

kensuf

And please understand, the tough love here isn't meant to be mean. If you're honestly trying to improve then re-think your training. If you're just having fun and screwing around, well there's nothing really wrong with that either.

rkwaki

Yeah baby now we are talking. But that 6-8 hours sucks a$$

echappist

thanks, I understand that. All things considered, I consider myself lucky to have the input of racers who are stronger and more experienced.

The other thing is that even at this stage of my graduate education, there's still quite a bit I could do to improve efficiency at work and such, and I think such improvements would allow me to be able to train ~11hrs a week and still have time for the experiments. I think time management, above all else, is the thing i really need get better.

Hida Yanra

Story of last year for me.
I didn't get to the acceptance phase until after race season had already started - then I realized that what I had dreamed about for myself wasn't going to happen and I went on from there. (In my case, I got a coach, coach looked at my power files and said things like, "26 hours between Jan AND Feb?", and after a firm conversation about what the outlook for the rest of the season was - started feeding me workouts that a) made me hurt, b) made be fast for everything under 52 miles long.)

This year, I'm more clear about how all that is and what it'll take. I am unlikely to have 14 hours a week to train, and I am pretty up front about it.
Last year would have been waaaaay different if I had admitted the reality to myself earlier, but whatever the case, don't worry - just re-evaluate, make a schedule that you can keep No Matter What. Perhaps a 6hrs of per week, with ways to add on another 2 hrs per week if it occurs... better that than shooting for the moon & landing in the middle of dead space.

rkwaki

Oh boy, oh boy...

badhat

bagged my first 300 mile week of the training season. bike fit is gettin dialed in, getting used to the cold. i had had a rest week planned this week but i'm feelin good i think i'm gonna power through and rest for a big chunk around new years, since i'll be on the road for about 5 days.

shovelhd

This time of year is really tough on the schedule. So much coming at you from all sides. That's why I don't start formal work until after New Years. It's just to stressful on the brain right now.

45m on the trainer checking out the Quarq. The 38T inner ring experiment was a failure. Too much chain rub in the top two cogs. Oh well. It was $25.

heppm01

First ride of base 2 today: 4:10 of Z2 goodness. Was originally thinking 3-ish hours, but with temps at 15* degrees above normal I decided to grab the chance while I had it. Too bad I only had three hours worth of water though...

Terrific ride. Legs felt great, stroke stayed smooth the entire time. My back got a little tight around the 3:30 mark but I had slacked off on on-bike stretching so I'm not too surprised.

Hope to back it up with a 3 hour ride tomorrow, but the forecast is looking rather craptacular (snow/sleet mix) not to mention a North to South wind shift that would mean a headwind both ways.

kensuf

Oh man yeah. I did the "how fast can I be on 8 hours a week" experiment a few years ago. It included a 12 minute workout (tabatas) on the trainer in the morning when I first hopped out of bed, and a 90 minute vo2max workout in the evening. Talk about rise and shine, more like rise and crawl to the commode.

rkwaki

How did it work out for you?

GirlAnachronism

Strength workout with the coach this morning, 4 x 3 over-geared standing starts. This year I'm going to focus on doing most of my strength work on the bike, with some maintenance and core stuff at home, and regular yoga, instead of a full-blown gym program like I've done in the past.

kensuf

I was great in crits and circuit races. Lousy in longer road races.

Last year I bumped up the volume quite a bit in the off-season, then cut back to 10 hours a week with more intensity. That worked pretty darned good.

waterrockets 

If I had 8 hours/week to train, I wouldn't have downgraded.

My 5-6 hours/week is focused, but does not suck. I still manage to win a few races every year.

ancker

Here's my last three weeks of training. Mostly trying to do about an hour on the rollers every night to build base.
I don't have a whole lot of time to train so I've spent most of November and December working on mileage.
I plan to ramp up my intensity in January and get into full structured workouts for February through April in preparations for my race season.

TMonk

that's hard to read.

TMonk

Second off day in a row for me. My legs still feel pretty sore. Woohoo rest weeks!

Tomorrow should be an hour z1 easy (42/18), and thurs will be 2-2.5 hrs z2 into work, (42/15) both on the fixed gear.
Ill ride on Christmas Eve and Christmas mornings, but just a little bit to prevent myself from getting completely fat.

echappist

almost pulled off the ride i intended, except i ran out of time. 3+ hours at 75% FTP, then 38 minutes at 87% FTP. During the high tempo section, it didn't at all feel as if i was going to implode, so that's good.

ancker

Sorry, if you 'right-click' and do view image or something it'll expand. Not sure BF displays it that small.

bostongarden

I made an effort to ride rollers for the first time in almost 20 years. After a few minutes, I decided that it can wait for another time; I went outside and spun it up high for 90 minutes.