mattm

literal lol

topflightpro

I'll admit that I actually looked up Fiesta Island on google a few weeks ago because I wasn't sure if it was a real place.

aaronmcd

Ha I did the same!

TMonk

It's been three hours since I finished my workout and I still feel like I got punched in the stomach

rideaz

Current training status: tired.
I would post here more often but my computer and work tablet hate this site (it crashes almost every time).
Anyone going to be at Tour of the Gila this year?

Doge

My wife and Puppy same day on Fiesta Island
DebraStraighFiestaTT.jpg

Danielfiesta.jpg

Last year after rowing you can get a good view of the other side of the island (13 years later)

Ttoc6

Still feeling sick, but getting much better. The dr. gave me some of the stuff that always works for me. Pseudoephridine. 2 tabs a days means my body feels good. Took it really easy today on the rollers with no goals or intervals. Just wanted to move and sweat today. I hate taking days off like I did yesterday. I'd rather do a junk hour to get my mind right than nothing.

Taking my bike to the shop I worked for back in High school tomorrow. Going to get the dent checked out and get an assessment of the whole thing. Still need to figure out what bike I'm racing on this weekend.

aaronmcd

Did the park sprintervals ride after work, really good sprint practice/anaerobic intervals. We do 6 sprints and I went for 2 of them (I like to move up and be prepared as practice for all of them, but just can't physically go for more than 2). Got 2nd on the 2nd lap, but couldn't catch a guy that went early and gapped the rest of the sprinters. Also went for the final sprint, had a good position but the pain made my brain tell my legs to wait too long and ended up a couple lengths back from the top 2 going head to head. This is definitely the best group ride Ive done for actual training. Close, to the point, practice various speed sprints, positioning, and intervals.

Gonna take most of the day off work tomorrow, get a slightly longer ride in and study for a professional exam I'm taking on Thursday.

TheKillerPenguin

Holy balls I feel 99% normal, legs/breathing/well-rested etc. This is like the first time in a month! So happy!

mike868y

yay finally did my 4*10s all above 300w (had some data dropout issues so the first few show up lower on strava but I SWEAR IT'S LEGIT).

TMonk

nice @mike868y that's solid power at your size.

globecanvas

I'd have trouble doing that.

mike868y

thanks! 10' is basically the only duration i'm somewhat good at (also, using a stages so maybe this is fake news??). the delta between my 10' PR and my 1' PR is <150w.

scheibo

work is being lame right now because my manager has given me extra responsibilities which impact my ability to ride for multiple hours whenever i want. i'm trying to get back into my 'morning ride' routine but im spoiled from months of being able to sleep in and wait for the temperature to get above 70F. managed to get up and ride this morning (but had to wear arm warmers! in april! oh, the humanity!) - 1:00 hard (~120%) 2:00 recover (but uphill, so between 70-100% usually).

1' on/2' off seems to be my preferred way of doing workouts on climbs these days. i used to like 1'/1' but i never hit the 1' hard enough to create enough variance.

aaronmcd

All my threshold work for the past month has been 10-15 minute duration intervals hovering around 100%
Realized I haven't done long threshold efforts, or long rides with threshold, or long pure tempo rides in a good long while so... went out and did 4:15 with a 54' climb and 2x15 after 3 hours.

globecanvas

Nice fast group ride with TKP and a few others. Including a couple of buddies who are doing their first road race on Saturday. They're both plenty strong, definitely stronger than me, I'm curious to see how they do.

Heathpack 

I sometimes drive down Sat am to ride my openers on the course before Sunday's TT. I've been pretty ok with the safety of Fiesta when the road is open to traffic.

However during race time, it really can't be beat. Closed road and you can really race. Unlike say Santiago Canyon where you have to worry about getting sucked into the vacuum created by a passing truck.

With Santiago going away, we're only left with Piru & Fiesta as the regularly scheduled SoCal TTs. It would really be a shame for Fiesta to disappear, it's not like it's poorly attended. Hopefully someone will talk sense into the city of San Diego. Maybe we should start a letter writing campaign.

TexMac

I never do intervals in the AM since I figured I'm a PM person, but yesterday for some reason, I decided to do some 4x4AM intervals on my AM commute. Being a bit dark I din't see some gravel at a corner and my front wheel slid and I crashed hard on the tarmac, breaking my left collarbone and 3 ribs. This is after getting to ER and 25 something X rays. Oh well, there goes 8 weeks of forced break. Challenge will be not getting fat

aaronmcd

On the topic of training, and my last post with regards to longer training sessions (not just zone 2 base rides).

What are the collective your thoughts on long sessions? I asked a similar question about how often to train crazy/all out/destruction hard, now I'm wondering the same thing about long sessions.

1) how often are they necessary?
In the off season I try to do one or 2 big rides per weekend, but not necessarily climbing/threshold training. In season I notice I race too much and unless the race is Saturday with nothing on Sunday, I tend to neglect the long stuff. Road racing may be different - no really long sustained high steady power efforts (at least not unless I get in a break).

2) how long is "long"?
My typical training this year is between 2 to 3 hours total with to/from, maybe 0.85 IF. Able to do this a few days in a row - it doesn't wreck my legs/later in the day I might not notice the fatigue. But somehow the jump from 3 to 4 hours and, while I may feel great finishing the ride, the legs remember the rest of the day. Can one possibly build up to such a high mileage in base that that short/long threshold moves out to like 4.5 hours? (Not like I have that kind of time, just thinking that would be a super useful ability in a p12 road race.)

3) are the long sessions tempo/sweet spot/threshold, or do you like to throw in a late-ride anaerobic set to really eff with yourself/prepare for road racing? I like the focus of long climbs on these rides, but a series of surges (like Ridgecrest road on Mount tam) later in a ride is such pain, and may be useful to try and train up mid-build once some non-pathetic level of anaerobic repeatability is reached on shorter rides.

Sorry/not sorry for the long post, this is an interesting topic for the current phase of my bike racing hobby! (And why in the hell does it take 3 years to even start to understand ones own body as it relates to training???)

aaronmcd

Damn that sucks! And to not even have a sketchy peloton to blame! When I broke my collarbone I was solo also - but even more my own fault, was lazy about installing new cleats.

jsk

Oh crap, that sucks! Sorry to hear it, hope you heal up soon.

Ttoc6

Another day off the bike today. Mainly because I had to bring the dented frame to the shop. Hopefully I get a ride in tomorrow. Feeling a bit less sick. Will probably result in just an easy day again tomorrow inside. Our weekly crit series starts tomorrow and as much as I want to go, I know I should stay out of the rain and cold what with racing coming up again this weekend. Took 2 doses of antibiotic today (had some left over from an acne prescription). Usually I don't need much to kick over a sinus infection which I'm pretty sure I have now despite what the doctor said. We'll see. Won't take it on Friday to attempt to avoid the negative affects come race weekend.

topflightpro

My coach pointed out yesterday that WKO is now estimating my FTP about 50w higher than at then end of last season. The WKO estimate had been about 30w lower than where I tested too.

I haven't done a true FTP test in some time, due in large part to weather, training load, and other life issues, but I'm going to try to get on in soon.

TheKillerPenguin

1) Long sessions you mean volume yea? IMO volume isn't exactly a bad thing provided you stick to low level tourist watts. Like high z1 low z2 stuff. I'll spin around at like 190 for 4hrs and it's fine. You're just looking to maintain fitness, not gain fitness. Easy watts do that; whoever coined the term "junk miles" is full of ****. Unless you're doing that during base, then yeah...it won't work for what you are trying to do. But I'll probably do something like that 2x/wk on top of the race. If race is Sunday I'll do the long volume thing on Monday and tack on some miles to the front end of a group ride on Wednesday. If race is Saturday I'd do the chill volume on Sunday. Again tho it's just maintaining the work you've already done, not really generating a ton of TSS, because you're focused mostly on being fresh for the next race.

2) You should be able to do long rides in z2 day after day after day. If you're having trouble doing that you're probably riding above your actual z2, or you have nutrition issues. .85 is long breakaway efforty, 2-3hrs is enough to fry you. Like to do that I'm doing 300W, and I know I can hold that for that long but it honestly feels terrible towards the end, and doing that multiple days in a row flattens you out and makes recovery really tough. As far as interval days go, I'm given lots of vo2 + volume during build, so like I'll be told to get in 30-35min in a 2hr stretch in 3-5min intervals, and then do tourist watts for a few hours afterward. So a vo2 day may wind up being 4-5hrs. If I'm crunched for time or it is gross out I simply cut out the z1/2 spin part because it's not absolutely necessary, but it helps. So a shorter normal vo2 sesh is like 2.75-3hrs. A normal over/under sesh is like 3-4hrs. If I'm given say, 4x20 tempo I do that over a 5hr ride and pedal at like 180w between. In race season you err on the side of caution because you want to be fresh for the weekend, so watts are lower between races as the focus is on maintaining rather than gainz.

3) Do you mean do intervals over the course of a 4-5hr ride? If so see above. You basically get your work done and then dawdle around in z1/2. It feels like you're not working while you are doing it but it is enough to maintain what you built over the off season, and a race counts as a legit workout. Do you mean like a solid 3-4hr block of tempo? That takes a ton out of you and is stuff I typically reserve for the fall silly season or for when I know I have a rest period coming up.

topflightpro

I don't keep tabs on everyone's training efforts, but Aaron, I get the impression from your posts that you hammer it all the time. And it seems like there is really no rhyme or reason to your training. So far, it hasn't held you back, as you have been able to do well in racing. But it seems like now you are a 2, you maybe have hit the point where you're no longer stronger than your competition and having a more focused training plan might help.

Like I said, I don't keep track of what everyone is doing, so I could be completely wrong, but that is the general impression I have of your overall training.