So, Sunday was a 384 TSS day. Along comes Tuesday, and I do my 2 hrs @ L1. My training journal entry looks like this ( ATL: 133.35 - CTL: 121.29 - TSB: -18.96 ) :

"Nothing exciting about today's ride. Felt very much like a recovery ride. Drizzling rain and a dirty bike when it was said and done. The legs are still feeling residual tightness from Saturday/Sunday. Using heating linament to keep the blood flow going. Had a hard night sleeping last night. Up and down 3-4 times. Hopefully tonight is better."

So, two days after 384 TSS the legs are still stiff. I get up Wednesday morning and prepare for my 6xAPI power workout. API's for me are 4 minute stretches at 380-400 watts. Last week they felt fantastic. Here's my training log entry from this week, Wednesday (ATL: 124.07 - CTL: 120.03 - TSB: -12.06):

APIs on a flat four corner loop. My legs felt like complete lead. I finished the first thinking "Wow, these are hard today." I finished the second one thinking "Wow, not even averaged out in zone." Not even half way through the third and I knew it wasn't happening. Legs just didn't feel it. Still recovering from Sunday's ride? Probably.

Called it quits so as not to sacrifice tomorrows threshold/crit work.

Simple answer - 384 TSS on Sunday means on Wednesday I'm still not recovered enough to get into the higher intensity work. The frustration is that I finished yesterday wondering if I was going to get anything useful out of this week's training. Did I just blow a week of training for a group ride I didn't really have to do?

I got up this morning with dread in my mind. Today's plan was 25 minutes @ 100% FTP followed by two sets of crit style interval sets ( 30 sec on/off @ 500-700 watts ). I got out on the road and started the workout. After a good warmup, I took to the 100% work.

What do you know? On the MONEY!




Today's ride file can be seen here:
Workout File - 20070329

I'm pretty stoked about this ride file. I was really concerned I'd blown the legs out over the weekend and had put myself into an unrecoverable hole. But today as the 25 minute workout came to a close I still had energy in the legs. The power distribution chart shows the possibility that my FTP might have crept up a little into the 350ish range.

Here's a copy of the power distribution. As indicated in the notes on the chart, because this is a workout specific to a certain zone, power distribution should be taken with a grain of salt. Certainly I would be intentionally backing off when going above intended zone.



This makes sense this time of year. As I do the API intervals from week to week and the VO2max level rises, the top end of the functional threshold should open up with a little bit of room. (Assuming VO2max is the current limiter to functional threshold improvement)

Finally, the 2 sets of 4 30 sec on/off micro intervals went as planned and on the second set I did a little bit of working on getting in and out of corners. This will be very important on Sunday on a course where cornering and power out of the turns is going to be vital to success.

Two days of rest on Fri/Saturday and TSB should come back positive for Sunday's race for a couple days.

Safe riding to all,
VW

Second post today, but wanted to add....

I often mis-spell this and call it Kihara, but it's definitely Kirara-Hama (Kirara Beach). The criterium race there going on the 1st of April should look something like this course:



I can't be sure of that, because I've never raced the course before. What I did find was a race "helmet cam" video from the Nov 19th race in 2006 (in the rain). I took a sample of a couple laps, timed the laps, computed average speed and then timed the corners. I made guesses at the shape of the corners and came up with this general course map.

Here's a link to the web page holding the video file: (click the link at the top, you should see something something something /picture/MOL0001.ASF in the status bar)

http://www.geocities.jp/kabetyoro200502/picture/1.html

I'm kinda curious to see what the course actually looks like when I get there on the 1st. I'll GPS tracklog it during the warm up for comparison later.

The course is 2.5km around. The event schedule is: 2.4km TT first thing, then later that day is a 12 lap, 30km crit. Should be fun, fast and furious! Holy corners, right?

Now that a day has gone by and I've collected my senses, I figured I'd write something about yesterday's group ride.

Here's the set-up. I drove up to Onomichi early to take the ferry boat across to start my 165 km ride. I hopped on the bike and was off and riding at 7 am. I expected to be pretty tight on the bike after a trainer ride on Saturday night and a long week of riding so I kinda tooled away right at the top of L1 to get the legs warmed up. The first 40km was on my own and I wanted to get a good feel for the bike on longer distances in the "new and improved" lower bars position.

The great thing about the century route of the Shimanami Bridges is the climbing on the second island. I hit the first climb on the big ring. In the previous 4 or 5 times I'd hit that climb, I was all the way down the cassette getting over it, so the ride started off well. I got through the climbing in great form and was stoked to get to the bottom and slide into a solid tempo. It's hard to go really hard in some of the sections because of going over toll bridges and city traffic, but I finished the first leg with a good 15 minutes @ 320-330 watts.

The group ride on the way to the halfway point was chaos from here. 8 of our riders decided to take an uncharted route without telling anyone which way they were going. We waited 50 minutes for them before I pushed on solo to the halfway point. Next 40 km leg had two good climbs in it, and solo makes it a little simpler to push yourself without wondering what others are doing. Second leg still normalized @ 291 watts, avg 250.

Finally, we met up with the full group at the halfway point and it was time for the hammerfest back to the group ride start (from which I'd have 40km to finish up my ride). Starting off with me in the front on a hill, we took off. Again finding that my sitting power was just feeling great, we set a stiff tempo up the hill. I knew I'd get relief on the other side, only to find out that I crested the top with the group some 100 yards behind me. I coasted and dropped back into the line knowing we had the second murder climb coming up.

I was 3rd/4th wheel starting up the second climb, but let the others drop off doing 300-320 watts. When the road really tipped up I was pulling onto the front and sat back and pedaled. Pulled over the top at just over 410 watts and dropped down the hill to hop on the back again. From here it was a steady change of leaders to the next stop.

The local club racers decided we'd do a navigation of that particular island for the purpose of hitting the really great climb there. It's about 1.6 km at a steady hard climb, according to Google it should average out to about 7% which sounds just about right - some steeper toward the top, some not so steep at the bottom. Masaki and I raced up the hill, trading pulls and came over the top together - both of us spent.

We pushed back at a solid tempo effort, I was avg'ing 250-270 on the whole until we dropped off the group for their trip back and I pushed back to the end of my ride on my own. I settled down into L1 with expectations of the 3 hard climbs to come. The first climb hit and I pretty much exploded on the way up and felt like I'd come to a stand still. 8 hrs and 20 minutes since I'd left in the morning with too much waiting around and some very high tempo group riding and my legs were done. I pushed over the last two climbs which are minuscule compared to the one I'd just finished, settled onto low L1 to cool down.

I got back to the ferry 9 hours after I'd left, and only 6 hrs and 15 minutes of that was riding. I HATE having that much time off the bike in a day of riding.

The vital stats for the day wound out something like this:





Woosh.. that's some TSS right there! That plunges me drastically down with a couple days to recover coming up. With 384 TSS, I probably won't be positive TSS from the Kirara Crit coming next week, but honestly, I don't care. I'm just looking forward to racing again with childlike glee.

Word has it from USCF that I will be able to submit my results from my races here for upgrading to Cat 4, so my goal for the year is to get 10 starts in before we're done with 2007. That way I can go back to the states and start at Cat 4 races and maybe make Cat 3 in 2008.

You heard it here first! Cat 3 in 2008!

After a good weekend with a race post taper, I took the dive into the negatives on TSB again. As gentle as one would come up positive for a taper, I dove negative with a quickness and are my legs feeling it.

The last four days of work look like this:



Tomorrow will be another 150 TSS day and Sunday is a group ride century which bodes for 240+ TSS if done at L1 pace. This will drive me into the -20 range in TSB, a 40 point drop from Tuesday's high point.

Here's how the week worked out:

Tuesday was supposed to be a 2 hr L1 ride with no real pressure. Silly me, after a weekend taper and a massage on Monday - the legs felt fantastic. Instead of 2 hrs at L1, I ended up getting 2 hrs in at the bottom of L4. 1 hr 45 min of the ride was @ ~310 watts, normalized.

Wednesday was 3 hours on the bike with power intervals. I still felt great on the bike and was getting ready to go for my 5th one when I flatted so I had to fix the flat and get going again. After the legs cooled off there was no way I was going to get another upper L5 interval in, so I did L1 back to the house.

Thursday was 3 hours of L2 riding. Hit some steep rollers and some good steady climbs with beautiful weather. At the end of the ride we were at 3 hours normalized @ 265 watts, smack in the middle of L2. Grabbed some advice on bike fit from some folks and took it. I shifted from a 110mm stem to a 120mm stem and dropped the angle quite a bit. I could definitely feel the fit difference on Thursday, but nothing other than being much lower.

Friday - today - I got in 4 hours and a little extra of L1 time around Oshima Island. It was a gorgeous day and I almost regretted being in leg warmers/long sleeves. It took my legs almost an hour to "warm up" so that even L1 wasn't painful. I grabbed an espresso and some carbs at the 1 hr mark and pressed on - with the intentions to turn around in 10-15 minutes if I wasn't feeling better. I felt better, so kept going.

In the second day in the new position I started to notice something I didn't notice the day before. It was like free wattage being handed out. When I get into a comfy position with my arms resting on the bar tops/hoods my perceived exertion compared to power numbers was definitely different. I was creeping up into the mid to upper L2 ranges without even noticing it and had to constant back myself off.

Tomorrow I get to do another 120-150 TSS day. 3 hours of L1 which will contain a 25 minute threshold interval at 330W or better. I'm curious to see how this lower position works out for me during that interval to really get a feel for the differences in perceived exertion.

At the end of the long week it'll be 16 1/2 hrs on the bike (Sunday to Saturday). 950ish TSS, I'd guess. If I count it Monday to Sunday, we'll be closer to the 1050 TSS mark and nearly 20 hrs on the bike.

Hiro Results Page can be found here:
All West Japan Road Race Championships Results

Results for my specific event are here:
B3 Results Page - Mine is the name in English in 8th place.

Next person to come in was a minute back. My guess is the 4 DNF's all crashed out on the 3rd turn a minute or so into the race, which is why their times are zero'd out.

VW