I did Shortoff +4 and Stromio +4 earlier this week (Tues and Thurs) with no problem at alll, even notched up resistance a bit in last intervals.
Today (Sat), my workout was Picket Guard, so a classic over/under, not much different than Palisade (which I had also done with no problem). But I could not turn the pedals beginning midway through first interval on the overs. Hit pause, took 30 seconds, attempted again, struggled through not even two full intervals. Really puzzling given my performance on the other workouts. Advice?
Lots of possibilities but I’d just chalk it up to an “off” day. They happen and don’t dwell on it. Maybe “notching up resistance a bit on the last intervals” from Thursday left you with a bit too much fatigue, extra off the bike stress this week, poor sleep/nutrition, etc, etc. Move on and know that you gave your best today and that’s all you can do.
It just means that you are right where you need to be in terms of intensity. As MI-xc suggests you also just may have had a bad day. If you continue to struggle and fail workouts it might be an issue of carrying too much fatigue. Fatigue will slowly creep up on you if you not careful. One bad night sleep or a stressful day at work and bam!!! your body says no more. Training is a balancing act of workload and recovery. Its good to fail a workout once in a while. it reinforces the idea that your workout is right were it needs to be.
I had this last week on Monadnock / Budawang / McAdie. Monadnock was tough had to drop it down, Budawang was fine, but McAdie I couldn’t do the overs, had to drop down a couple % to finish it off. This week no issues, straight through the big 3. These are the real crux workouts of the sustained power build, and they’re HARD. Possibly the hardest 2 weeks of the whole training season.
Don’t treat it like a failure. You’ve ridden your legs off for 19 weeks and you finally hit the wall on workout 97. I think you just had a bad day after 2 hard weeks. Nail Tallac and CRUSH your recovery week.
Got to agree with MI-XC on this. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Especially with over-unders next workout. Think of the bigger picture if you’re going to crank it up. I shouldn’t dwell on it though - you’ve now seen how you can be affected, so tick it off as some learning and move on
Perhaps I am off base here, but is it possible that you are pushing hard and are deep into a block of heavy training, and adding extra resistance to your last interval workout just overcooked your legs a bit?