Ahhhhh.... that's the sigh of relief of getting on the bike for some great long distance riding. I'm telling ya, racing takes a mental and physical toll on you. You hold back, hold back, and hold back all week and WHAMO, race on the weekend. Hold back, hold back, hold back... WHAMO.. do it again.
It's not like there's no hard work in between races. There's intervals to be done, stuff to keep you fresh and keep the legs working. But it's just not the same.
Then... there's the "let down period." In Friel's terms, it's called "transition." Me, I call it "irritation." It's a necessary evil to let your body recover and prepare for the next long block of training. It's well documented that the transition period is vital to allowing your body the chance - on a "macro" level of training - to recoup some of the beating you've put it through over the previous couple months. That doesn't make it fun. In the world of bike addictions, transition period is just the thing that happens at the end of a period while anxiously waiting to get back to the grindstone.
For me, the grindstone reacquainted itself with my nose yesterday.
For my first "LSD" ride of the second half of the year, I took myself up to the mountains for some good tempo work in the hills. Man did my legs want to move. Sunday was my mental and physical revenge on myself for bombing the MAP test so horribly. A whole messload of me just wanted to prove that I was indeed stronger than 6 months.
So, here's what I know. On Feb 7th, after a rest day, I set off to do MIET - Medium Intensity Endurance Training. That means I'm riding pretty much 85% threshold - middle of sweet spot training, basically. I rode it on the flats for 90 minutes, and while it wasn't tremendously painful, I remember being pretty happy it was done. Normalized power that day 299 (avg 296).
Yesterday was to be L2 Endurance Training. I typically ride L2 endurance training at around 275-280 watts on the flats, maybe 260-270 if I'm feeling tired. L2 does not equal sweet spot training really. Well, yesterday sorta broke the mold for me.
Once I got in the rhythm yesterday, it was on. I stopped watching the powertap CPU for a bit and got into what I felt comfortable for a 3 hour ride. Looked down at the power tap and was pushing 300 watts pretty steady. I remember pulling back a bit and thinking - nope.. too easy, let's make it work. So off I set into the mountains and pushed it on. 2 hrs and 45 minutes later, when I rolled back into the city I felt comfortably worked out. I didn't feel all out blasted, but I felt like I'd had a good workout with probably another hour or so of push in the legs if I'd had that on the schedule.
Yesterday's stats for the main session:
Main Session:
Duration: 2:43:43 (2:47:23)
Work: 2639 kJ
TSS: 198.8 (intensity factor 0.854)
Norm Power: 295
VI: 1.1
Distance: 93.341 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 642 269 watts
Cadence: 34 109 86 rpm
Speed: 3.8 66.7 34.3 kph
What's that mean? I did 2 hrs 45 minutes of riding at a pace I was struggling to complete for much of the spring. I felt so good I had to check that the torque was zero'd on the powertap a number of times throughout the ride.
I followed yesterday's ride up with a nice 4 hour long ride today. Even on the tired legs, my long ride pace was in a comfortable 250'sh watts for much of the ride. I held back on the hills to keep myself from burning up my week's worth of energy, but it was definitely a day that felt good. I took the trip down and around Oshima Island. 8 or 9 months ago, the 118 km route would have taken me just over 4 hours to complete at a zone 1 pace. I've since had to add some distance to clean up the training time. With some distance added I rolled into the base today with 126 kilometers and 3 hrs 57 minutes. A solid 20 mph pace in zone 1.
Right now the legs feel great - okay, they're sore - but they feel great! I'm excited to see the TSB dipping into the negatives.
So, how does the second half season start? For reference for the end of the season, I'm starting the endurance phase again with a CTL of 108. Two days into the session I'm @ 113 and won't see anything below 110 for quite a while now.
Lastly, a new set of wheels with a new Powertap are in the mail on their way to me as we speak. Velocity Aerohead rims (OC rear) - black Sapim CX-Ray spokes, 24 front, 28 rear. Once they get here I'll ship off my current PT SL to Saris for maintenance. I'll be anxious to get on the new Powertap and see if there's any noticeable difference in measurement between it and my "needs maintenance" Powertap.
More training reports should start flowing as I work through some new sessions to help break the crunch I felt in the transition period. This week is all steady, long ride time to get the legs back in motion. Next week we're into threshold improvement and see if we can get things moving again.
Ride Safe!
VW
It's not like there's no hard work in between races. There's intervals to be done, stuff to keep you fresh and keep the legs working. But it's just not the same.
Then... there's the "let down period." In Friel's terms, it's called "transition." Me, I call it "irritation." It's a necessary evil to let your body recover and prepare for the next long block of training. It's well documented that the transition period is vital to allowing your body the chance - on a "macro" level of training - to recoup some of the beating you've put it through over the previous couple months. That doesn't make it fun. In the world of bike addictions, transition period is just the thing that happens at the end of a period while anxiously waiting to get back to the grindstone.
For me, the grindstone reacquainted itself with my nose yesterday.
For my first "LSD" ride of the second half of the year, I took myself up to the mountains for some good tempo work in the hills. Man did my legs want to move. Sunday was my mental and physical revenge on myself for bombing the MAP test so horribly. A whole messload of me just wanted to prove that I was indeed stronger than 6 months.
So, here's what I know. On Feb 7th, after a rest day, I set off to do MIET - Medium Intensity Endurance Training. That means I'm riding pretty much 85% threshold - middle of sweet spot training, basically. I rode it on the flats for 90 minutes, and while it wasn't tremendously painful, I remember being pretty happy it was done. Normalized power that day 299 (avg 296).
Yesterday was to be L2 Endurance Training. I typically ride L2 endurance training at around 275-280 watts on the flats, maybe 260-270 if I'm feeling tired. L2 does not equal sweet spot training really. Well, yesterday sorta broke the mold for me.
Once I got in the rhythm yesterday, it was on. I stopped watching the powertap CPU for a bit and got into what I felt comfortable for a 3 hour ride. Looked down at the power tap and was pushing 300 watts pretty steady. I remember pulling back a bit and thinking - nope.. too easy, let's make it work. So off I set into the mountains and pushed it on. 2 hrs and 45 minutes later, when I rolled back into the city I felt comfortably worked out. I didn't feel all out blasted, but I felt like I'd had a good workout with probably another hour or so of push in the legs if I'd had that on the schedule.
Yesterday's stats for the main session:
Main Session:
Duration: 2:43:43 (2:47:23)
Work: 2639 kJ
TSS: 198.8 (intensity factor 0.854)
Norm Power: 295
VI: 1.1
Distance: 93.341 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 642 269 watts
Cadence: 34 109 86 rpm
Speed: 3.8 66.7 34.3 kph
What's that mean? I did 2 hrs 45 minutes of riding at a pace I was struggling to complete for much of the spring. I felt so good I had to check that the torque was zero'd on the powertap a number of times throughout the ride.
I followed yesterday's ride up with a nice 4 hour long ride today. Even on the tired legs, my long ride pace was in a comfortable 250'sh watts for much of the ride. I held back on the hills to keep myself from burning up my week's worth of energy, but it was definitely a day that felt good. I took the trip down and around Oshima Island. 8 or 9 months ago, the 118 km route would have taken me just over 4 hours to complete at a zone 1 pace. I've since had to add some distance to clean up the training time. With some distance added I rolled into the base today with 126 kilometers and 3 hrs 57 minutes. A solid 20 mph pace in zone 1.
Right now the legs feel great - okay, they're sore - but they feel great! I'm excited to see the TSB dipping into the negatives.
So, how does the second half season start? For reference for the end of the season, I'm starting the endurance phase again with a CTL of 108. Two days into the session I'm @ 113 and won't see anything below 110 for quite a while now.
Lastly, a new set of wheels with a new Powertap are in the mail on their way to me as we speak. Velocity Aerohead rims (OC rear) - black Sapim CX-Ray spokes, 24 front, 28 rear. Once they get here I'll ship off my current PT SL to Saris for maintenance. I'll be anxious to get on the new Powertap and see if there's any noticeable difference in measurement between it and my "needs maintenance" Powertap.
More training reports should start flowing as I work through some new sessions to help break the crunch I felt in the transition period. This week is all steady, long ride time to get the legs back in motion. Next week we're into threshold improvement and see if we can get things moving again.
Ride Safe!
VW