They work, people. They don't even really hurt. I am currently coupling 3x20's on Monday with a 90 minute SST session on Fridays as the lead-in to a 4 hour total ride (except 2x20's week - only two threshold days per week is the schedule). Everything else is Zone 1-2. One time in the first block I did 3 APIs with full recovery (~10 minutes) during a longer ride.



Week 1: 333, 342, 342 (average 339)
Week 2: 342, 338, 344 (average 341)
Week 3 Monday: 344, 338, 339 (average 340, intentionally slightly easier knowing 2x20's the next day)
Week 3 Tuesdsay: 2x20's 361, 353 (average 357)
Week 4: Rest week

So far so good.....

Today, week 5: 349, 351, 357 (average 352)

(admittedly, I really pushed the third because I couldn't feel my wet, cold feet)

In fact, someone mentioned about the cadence changes on interval 3. By the end of interval 3 I was barely able to feel the feet. The cold rain was numbing them up quite a bit so I started to do semi "over/under" intervals to work through feet that felt like two lead blocks. I also like to do this toward the end of the third interval on occasion just to kill the monotony.

How long can I bring these intervals up? 13 watts from week 1 to week 5. PE on intervals 1 and 2 was spot on, and the HR mirrors that appropriately. Only when I really started jamming it at the end of the third interval did my heart rate come up and through LTHR (~177)

The goal is to have the 3x20's in the 360 range by February. So I'm looking for another 13 watts in 16 weeks. Gee... ya think?

Ride safe, ride lots,
VW

The parents were in town this week, so I took a rest week like a "normal" guy this week. I kinda floundered at it, mostly because I've never really taken a rest week and I feel very odd just spinning with no purpose on the bike.

But... I took advantage of the week. Finally, after long wait, the TT bike is assembled. I got the cables routed after much fussing and slapped on the Open Pro wheels to get it upright for its first photo shoot:








I still have some work to do getting the cable routing just right and tucked along the frame out of the wind. That and the messy cable routing for the Powertap both need some work, but I don't need to go fast for competition until spring, so there's plenty of time to worry about that stuff.

I got on the TT bike 3 days this week to play with the position. I felt pretty comfortable just by pulling the measurements off the road bike and duplicating them in relation to seat tube on the TT bike. (Road bike angle is 73.5°, TT is 78°) I probably can come up about half a centimeter based on feel and it will slide the saddle back a hair by doing that as well. For the next couple weeks I've got the TT bike on the schedule for a good portion of my recovery/endurance mileage. In a month it becomes my 3x20 bike. Time to start closing that gap between TT and road bike power!

I managed to get some time on the rollers on the TT bike this week too. I only did about 10 minutes yesterday before doing some spinning on the road bike on the trainer, but it was to just get a feel for it and see if I could get in the aerobars. It was the first time in two years I put the rollers between the door frames to keep from wiping out. Managed to get in the aerobars though, so progress was made relatively quick.

Finally, ended the week with a MAP test - the first time since March. Some people like to test, and test, and test. Me.. not so much. I'd prefer to work with existing workouts and repeatable interval values. The MAP test is a great repeatable number, but I've had "off days" on the MAP testing and realize that you can only base your training on a one day effort so much.

The results were respectable today. I MAP tested at 458. As a baseline going into the rest of the off season, 458 is a good number. I weighed in right at my target weight of 77kg, so that's a decent gauge of my current fitness. For TSS purposes I'm raising FTP from 345 up to 360 based on my repeatable 3x20's and 2x20's with the consideration of the 77% rule for MAP tests. I expect if 77% MAP is more accurate, I'll still close the ~7 watts from 353 (77%x458) to 360 long before I test again, so I can safely hold on to the 360 value for now.

That'll have a small effect on the TSS value of my daily workouts, so I expect to see CTL rise a bit slower now. I started last off season with a MAP in the 430's, so I'm starting the off season stronger than last year - a good feeling.

I'm definitely looking forward to some quality "leg opening" on the bike tomorrow as I get ready to hop back into training on Monday.

Just because rest weeks CAN be good for you, doesn't mean you have to like them!

Ride safe, ride lots,
VW

Yawn... what a week. I'm tired and glad to be staring down the barrel of a semi-rest week while my parents are in town. Knowing I was going to get good rest this coming week, I really buried it this past week. Next week I MAP test for the first time since March. Looking forward to the 11 minutes of pain!

Monday, 3x20's... no problemo. I really enjoy this workout. 3x20's @ 91-93% are right at that intensity that feels hard, but doesn't make you want to puke. They're hard enough to get you threshold benefit, but easy enough that you can do the repeats without wanting to quit. This week I planned to take them a little easier. 2x20's on Tuesday meant I wanted to be as "fresh" as possible and still get a workout in on Monday. Rolled them @ 344, 338 and 339.

Tuesday, 2x20's for the first time since - hmm... March, I'd say. These were on the "I'm really tired and don't want to do them" day. I stayed up too late to watch the Giants lose, and turned around with a 4am wake up to get to work via bike commute. I still made the target wattages, even though I really did NOT want to do the second workout. 361 and 353 respectively. I do this to do a little bit of "pull" on the threshold training. They're definitely not a routine part of the training yet. Once a month is plenty to just refresh the brain what threshold feels like compared to the 91-93% I do when I'm doing 3x20's.

I was glad to just get on the bike and spin on Wednesday. Nice 2 hour steady ride. I'm noticing that I've lost some of my ability to just sit and spin at 90-95 RPM's for hours on end like I used to. I tend to stand and mash ever 4-5 minutes for a bit before settling back in. This won't work in TT world, so I'm going to get back to spinning higher RPM's on the long ride days and focus on sitting a lot more on short climbs.

Thursday I rolled about two hours before getting to the Wakefield group ride. Pace was pretty slow, so I just took off to get my planned VO2 work done. Once I got out of sight of the group I hammered 3 API's with full recovery. Just enough to remind the body once every couple weeks what that intensity is supposed to feel like - mostly as compared to threshold work. Total of ~3 hrs on the bike, but feeling remarkably good for having some really hard days this week.

Nice steady recovery day on Friday. Spin, spin, spin... not on the TT bike this week. But the headset was installed today! Now just have to cable it up and I should be on the TT bike Tuesday!

I hit up what quickly became one of my favorite long ride routes out to Bull Run Mountain, through Aldee, up to Purcellville and home. Today's mission was to max effort up Bull Run Mountain and see what kind of suffering I could get. Last month my time was 6:22, avg 380 watts. This month I pretty much crushed that time when you consider the length of the effort. Up the climb in 5:49, avg 418 watts. Windy day stretched my ride time out quite a bit, but I was still feeling pretty stinkin strong when I rolled in the house pushing nearly 6 hours on the bike. It was a beautiful day on the bike.

Wow, what a week indeed.

First, the details:





I continue to focus on steady aerobic endurance training with the added threshold intensity to induce an increase in threshold power. Lots of long ride time on the bike, good eating, and smart recovery.

Monday's have become the day I look forward to right now. I really find that I enjoy 3x20's. 3x20's for me right now are at 91-93% threshold power. Last week I did a full 10 minutes of recovery between them. I wanted to make sure I got through the first week with full completion of the workout. (Nothing is as demoralizing as failing the first time on a workout routine). This week I bumped the recovery back. 6 minutes is what I used, but that was more dictated by the stretch of road than anything else. 3x20's were at 341, 338 and 344 in order. (last week's 333, 342, 342)

This coming week I will work the same basic intensity, maybe slightly lower (335ish), but with 3 minutes recovery.

I got to commute this week on Wednesday, and I worked a bastardized method of establishing my training stress for the day. Because the ride is done at such a low pace and there is a 7-8 hour break in between, I don't believe you can call it a full "200+" TSS day, like Monday was. But, my experience from the spring was that the very easy recovery pace commuting for 20+ miles was still having an affect on training/recovery.

Thursday's R/FS (recovery/flat sprint) day, was all recovery - spinning 160-170 watts on the trainer watching cycling racing.

Friday's MIET workout was fantastic. Even fighting some traffic on a slightly different route and negotiating stop/starts, power for the session was up from last week and I felt like I had a lot to give. Power was lower than I'd like, still - but I'll continue to work on route selection that will help me keep the pedals spinning and I think those numbers will continue to climb accordingly. The stretch on the way back home was a comfortable cruise. This weeks MIET was 90 min @ 321. I should be getting that into the upper 320's/lower 330's - so that's a target for the next time this is on the calendar.

Finally, today was supposed to be 4½ hours of endurance pacing. I opted to merge that with the team's group ride today and that worked out great. It added some time/distance/intensity to the overall ride but also added some distraction from a 5½ hour day in the saddle. We rolled over some roads that I'd never been on and tackled two decent climbs. They weren't significant in length, but they worked the legs for sure. The first one was ~3 min 40 sec @ 392 watts. The second one was 4 min 50 sec at a sub threshold avg of 338 watts. Both of the climbs if attacked from the very bottom could provide me with ~ 5 minutes of VO2 work on a long ride, so I'll add these to my repertoire for the winter when I'm adding 3-4 VO2 efforts on a Saturday long ride.

I finished the week with a higher training load than I've seen ever before. My intent is to really bury myself this last week before my parents come into town to visit in two weeks. I wouldn't normally take a recovery week in my regular scheduling, but having one sorta "forced" on me allows me to really push it this week and then let the body rebuild the week after that.

So, this week's coming workouts will be:

Monday - 3x20's, 91-93%
Tuesday - 2x20's 95+%
Wednesday - 2hr steady endurance ride
Thursday - ~3 hrs, including 4 x 4 min VO2 efforts.
Friday - Recovery
Saturday - 5½ hrs, 107 mile route with a good hammer up Bull Run Mountain (~6½ minutes climbing - goal is to beat my previous 380 watt avg)

I'll drop my outside endurance miles to protect my recovery for the harder intensity. I really can't wait to see what I can do on the 2x20's on Tuesday.

I'm also looking forward to MAP testing in two weeks at the end of my "rest week." I'm pretty certain I should be calling FTP @ about 360-365. I haven't adjusted zones since May. Once I get a warm/fuzzy confirmation of that change, I'll retroactively change it to the beginning of September. That'll shift my actual training load numbers, but not so significantly that it matters.

I'm loving where my body is at right now. Training is going fantastic, recovery is going just as well. And... hopefully I'll be on the TT bike this coming Friday for my recovery day - finally!

Ride safe, ride lots!
VW

It was definitely a good week overall on the bike.





I already posted about Monday's workout, but that went extremely well for the first time doing 20 minute intervals in a couple months.

Tuesday was an average long ride day. Nothing too exciting, just getting out on the bike and getting some endurance time in.

Wednesday was supposed to be 2 hr 45 min of endurance riding. It was raining nicely when I left the house, and about 10 minutes into the ride I took a corner too hot on the wet roads and slid out. It's true what they say about sliding on wet roads hurting less than on dry roads. Nonetheless, the road rash on the hip stings still. Half hour later I get the third flat in 5 days. Top that off with a totally malfunctioning frame pump and I'm stuck without a full tire and road rash. I bailed on the workout and the wife came to pick me up.

Thursday was a normal recovery day, and with two "easy" days I was essentially race tapered for Friday's MIET session. I took a route that had a lot of road crossings and that drove my power down a little more than I wanted to. I'll work that out over the next couple weeks in route selection. Even still, the power distribution looks right on the money for a 91% workout over ~85 minutes.



It was a good cruising pace on the way home and felt good to get the first two "structured" workouts of the base season right in the park.

Finally, today was a long "easy" day. I planned to meet some teammates for a ride. The start point was right at the edge of the "making it in good time" from the time I left the house in the dark. So I hammered away @ SST zones. Hooked up with the teammates but our intensity intentions were too different to be compatible, so I excused myself and pushed on at my own pace. Finished the day with just under 5 hours on the bike.

And finally... to top the week off! Picked up the TT frameset today. Pictures to follow soon as I get the frameset put together. Need to go out and get a headset installed and get the fork cut to length, then I can put everything else on myself. Hopefully, by the end of next week I'll have the whole thing put together and ready to start spinning on to adjust the fit.

Next week is a carbon copy of this week's workouts. Should be a pretty uneventful week if the weather will hold up for me!

Ride safe, ride lots!
VW