waterrockets 

Agreed. I'm working with < 6 hrs/week this year.

YMCA

do enough of it each week and you'll find yourself in better shape than you'd believe
i guarantee it
good luck

mollusk

This week's base goal was 18 hours and today was day seven sitting at 16.5 hours and over 300 miles. Quads hurt this morning when I got out of bed and it was cloudy and cold, so I've been cooking instead of riding. Passive instead of active recovery or more accurately ***** instead of hardman. Training failure.

At least tomorrow all of the cross racer types on the team won't be on the team ride to torture the rest of us with their current form and fitness. I'd really like a 5 hour easy ride to kick off Base Week 3. Having a team mate for the whole ride would be great. Having a nice and easy 3.5 to 4 hour team ride and then the rest solo would be more than acceptable. 4+ hour base rides solo are OK, but not day after day. They get pretty boring.

I also cleaned the hell out of my chain and put on some dry lube.

hammy56

pfft...Im happy to get 12 hrs.

waterrockets 

pfft... I'm happy to get 7 hrs

YMCA

Admit it WR, that's all you really "want" to get.

waterrockets 

I did say "happy" It seems to be enough for me to have fun in this sport and get a couple wins/year

Homebrew01

I think you have a slightly different definition of training failure than many of us. You fail at failing .... qwitcherbidchin

Fat Boy

Just didn't have the steam to do the interval work I had planned for today. I was doing some zone 5 stuff it was supposed to be a (5-5.5-6-6.5-7) minute progression at 113%. The last time I did these was in August and I did a pretty damned good job of them. Well, today it wasn't happening. The first one was hard, but I hit my target. The second one was very hard and I hit 110%. Number three was 107%. I knew that on #4 (6 1/2 minutes), I'd drop below 106%, which is my cut-off. Knowing this, I decided to shorten the last two of the set to 5 1/2 and then 5. On those I hit 109 and 107%. The kicker at the end of these is 2-3 minute 'on' periods. Because you have 5 minutes of rest for all of them, these aren't too bad. I was at 110 and 113% for these.

In the end, I never did fall out of the bottom of my power window, but I felt like crap and didn't do nearly as good of a job of these as I had a couple months ago, which seriously bums me. What can you expect with my 9-day work travel that I just got back from, I guess? Even trying to hit a fitness room as often as possible, it's still not the same.

waterrockets 

Missed the trainer session this morning. Wife's out of town, three kids to wrangle, I just couldn't get to bed early enough to get up at 5.

shovelhd

Silver in the TdG? You are excused. Next.

Ultraslide

Missed my morning trainer session. The 4 year old was up before me. Damn time change ... <grumble grumble>

Fat Boy

Well, I wouldn't say I'm _missing_ work, Bob.

jsutkeepspining

After the soccer game yesterday, i could only get an hour of high z2 in. i was exhausted. i definitely think i have a lower ftp indoors than outdoors.

SalsaPodio

That's how I feel a lot of the time. The affect seems to be less pronounced on Kreitlers with a flywheel and headwind fan.

waterrockets 

malocchio

Haven't been on the bike since being doored six days ago. Since then I've increased my carb intake via beer and I have a 75km TTT on Sunday.

Fat Boy

Took 1:45 for 1:22 of riding. Had a couple flats. Does anyone actually get sticky patches to work? I don't.

YMCA

Yes, when i was a kid.
As an adult who can afford to buy tubes, I see no reason to go through that hassle.

graphs

Continuing to fail at training on the regular. Problem is, I don't actually want to be training. It's already been a pretty long while since I've been following a structured training plan (almost two full months) and although I've still been doing hills for an hour or so once a week, a 1-3 hour easy club or solo ride and a 4 hour fast group ride every weekend, my fitness is slowly but surely diminishing. This time last year I was SO stoked and had to hold myself back from doing too much too early, but this fall I have so little motivation it's worrisome. Am I 'over' bike racing after only two seasons? I'm not overtrained and I should be fully recovered from any fatigue I accumulated over the season (and there was fatigue!) so I don't really know what gives. Anyway, whatever, it's still really early and I'm probably reading into it too much but at this rate I can't see myself all of a sudden super motivated to ride the trainer or in freezing temps anytime soon.

waterrockets 

I'd put the bike away for a couple weeks until you feel like getting on it again. After that, if you can't deal with the trainer riding, try to find some sort of cross-training that might work for you, and get back into it slowly. Don't try to make up for the time off -- just keep the stress low and do it because you want to.

Regarding freezing temps: there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad equipment. Dress for it, get tires for it, fenders for it, lights for it, MTB for it, whatever, but it is possible to comfortably enjoy sub-zero riding.

I put my bike away for a couple weeks, and ended up giving up training altogether for about 5 years, and I'm glad I did. I rode just for fun, when I felt like it. Commuted most of the time. Yelled at cars. Generally had fun. I ballooned up about 40 lbs and just did a Cat 5 race once/year because it sounded fun or I was mentoring a friend into it.

When I got back into it, I dropped weight in a hurry, no stress, and have been having fun ever since. Don't force it.

GirlAnachronism

Bronchitis. No fail yet, but I have a feeling it's forthcoming.

hammy56

planned on another 2.5 hrs today...when my alarm went off I knew it wasnt meant to be. Slept for another hour and did 1.5 hr in the little ring. Not a bad failure.

kensuf

Very cold this morning, so I did my work on the trainer. Wanted to do six intervals, leg strength work. That didn't go so well; doing that on the trainer really sucks.

shovelhd

I absolutely hate the trainer. I equate it to a medieval rack, created by the devil for punishment. However, up north we can't do any significant amount of structured training during the long winters without it. I think what gets me motivated to ride now, in base season, is knowing that I'll be on that death machine for weeks starting in early January. Now is the time to ride for fun and enjoyment with no significant goals, no intervals, and no races for the most part, donut derbies excepted. As that date gets closer and closer, my focus on adding structure increases, but for now I don't have to, and I don't want to, think about it.