rkwaki

Per our conversation I would push through the week this week then recover, the heat as it is right now is draining not only you but everyone else as well. I would do your planned rides this week then rest and recover Mon-Wed of next week (maybe a light commute) and then stress the legs a little. As I am a big believer in it the other question I would pose is your nutrition. Are you giving your body what it needs to recover? Are you sleeping properly? Etc. All those things have a huge impact on performance.

Fat Boy

Up at 4AM, did a short circuit workout. On a plane now.

rkwaki

Apparently you don't listen to the pre-flight instructions

grolby

For the most part I think I'm eating pretty well, though when I think about it I've been low on complex carbs this week, I could be running low on the ol' glycogen stores. And I'm commuting by bike every day, about 4.5 miles each way, I might look into catching a ride with the gf for a few days. Sleep is definitely a weak point and one I should improve. Last night was tough, in spite of being exhausted after the fast ride last night. Makes me think I should get resolved to do better at getting myself to sleep, I'm not necessarily keeping up well with my needs; aside from riding, I've done eight crits in the last month or so, which for me is a pretty serious workload. So I'll work on that, and I'm going to go ahead and push through to the end of the week. There's yet another crit next Wednesday, but I might just skip that one in favor of saving up for the weekend.

GirlAnachronism

Run #2 on Monday, this time with a grand total of 15' of running, with some walking in between. Because I'm a badass.

Skipped team practice this morning, but promised the girl I'd do hill repeats with her this evening. Hopefully the stupid heat will keep the park a little un-crazy.

I guess this is all kind of fake since I'm not training for anything any more, which is turning out to be awesome. I'm going to ride cross bikes in the woods this weekend, and do some long rides with my friends just for fun. Stay up late, go on non-bike dates, ride to get to places, sleep in, run, cook, do all the stuff that racing and training keep me too busy to get to. Not looking at the power meter for the time being.

kensuf

Remember my mentioning that my legs were quivering from my workout on Monday? Last night I did a local hard group ride, and while I wasn't the nail, I sure wasn't the hammer either.

caloso

Yeah. Good catch. A few hours later, I got this email from Training Peaks: So, yes, it was too low. I wonder if it was an anomaly. I did Nevada City on Sunday and wasn't able to put out those numbers. Maybe I just had a bad day on Sunday and a really good day on Tuesday.

caloso

NP was 281w, VI 1.02

Racer Ex 

Even guys from Texas.

badhat

what do you guys make of the strava power guestimate thing?

like when i look at a climb ranking and i'm slotted between 2 dudes with similar ACTUAL power numbers and in my ballpark weight, is it pretty reasonable to assume that i'm workin at a similar power?

obv TT is gonna be all over the place due to different peoples aero profiles, but its seems like if you control for weight, climb power is gonna be pretty similar for similar times, no?

Creatre

Depends. Every power meter is a bit off to begin with, so even when there is a real power number up there, it's hard to know if it was crank based, hub based, if it was properly zero'd, including zeroes, etc. Usually it's a good guesstimate though on climbs. I compare closely in power with friends around my weight on local climbs. But like you said, really long steady climbing is the only place it's going to be anywhere close to accurate.

mattm

Training status: commuting today. Sunny out!

Freds love it.

Sorry, that's all I got.

rkwaki

I use it periodically to piss Fred off then like many of my posts I delete the record so they can live in their Freddom.

Creatre

Sounds like to me you are doing a lot of hard rides. Keep in mind not every ride has to be hard or long. I got in a groove a few months ago doing my 35 mile round trip commute 3 days a week at z3. It really tore me down. Make sure to vary the pacing and intensity between your rides.

I would probably power through the week, finish a good block, then take a nice rest next week. But really, you have to listen to your body and see if it's willing to push through the block and get some solid gains out of it, or if you are just hurting yourself.

Good luck!

badhat

freds?

timmy duggan and t-phin have been all over strava out here this year. and most of our local elite amateurs.

rkwaki

All depends how it is used. Around here they are real ******b@gs about it. I think it can be cool if you are mature enough to use, around here that is not the case.

badhat

yeah it sounds like the stava****** thing has gained steam here lately too.

for a while it was all in good fun, but theres more and more grumbling about it inspiring people to ride like d-bags on the trails.

too bad.

rkwaki

I don't really care - there are several of my friends that have my password for Strava and Garmin connect - they like to go in and take a look at what I have done.

shovelhd

Strava. Blowing up club rides everywhere.

plantrob

I'd venture to guess that most strava users don't update their weight with any frequency (I know I haven't changed mine from whatever I initially put in). Also, I know of at least a few cyclists around here who have obviously put in a silly weight (based on the power numbers Strava calculates for them). So the calculated powers may well be off because the weights they are based on are off.

I pretty much use Strava as a motivator on hills - helps me find hills, and gives me just a bit more incentive to push myself hard up them. I'm pretty sure that my best powers between 3 min and 10 min on my composite power curve are all due to concerted efforts up contested climbs in my area. If that's fredly, then I guess it matches well with my saddle bag and my frame pump

Fat Boy

Just on the plane first and killing time...like now at O'hare.

grolby

Yes, it could be just that I'm going hard every time I go out, but then, my time is limited. I'm going to push through, I have a shorter ride tomorrow evening and a couple long ones on the weekend. After that, I'm going to try to do absolutely nothing through next Wednesday. Not even commuting.

I think that's about right. More and more accurate as the climbs get bigger - basically, if the segment doesn't have a '4' or higher next to it, be skeptical. On flat or downhill segments that you're likely to blast through with a group, the power numbers will be ludicrous because Strava assumes you're solo. So Strava gives my best 10-minute power average as 422 watts, which is just ludicrous - that would be 7 W/kg for me. That would be a top pro level power output for 5 minutes, forget 10.

You think so? I haven't given it much thought, because so many people aren't using Strava, having a top-10 doesn't mean much, and I can't say I think too much about going for KOM's, nor have I heard too many other people talking about it. But maybe I'm talking to the wrong people. The major value of Strava for me is tracking my rides as an archive and showing me just how much riding I'm actually doing.

mollusk

I have been Strava free for 1 month now.

caloso

Swam laps for the first time in a long while. Felt so good, I'm thinking about getting some aerobars.

badhat

yeah around here theres a bunch of pretty hotly contested and trash-talked KOMs.

all in good fun, mostly.

there was a pretty entertaining escalation over the course of a few weeks earlier this year where a couple of us were going back and forth on a local 1 min power climb, shaving a second at a time until our local up and coming pro, chad haga of optum, came in and smoked all of us by a good 10 seconds.

maybe its regional or something but its definitely a mostly good natured but significant part of the scene here.