Woooohoooo! Nice work.
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Experimenting with repeatable power.
VO2max are always hard for me (love me some sweet spot!). These are even harder right now as I’m dealing with allergies and have started “make hard days hard” with morning leg work in the gym. At the moment if feels like two steps forward, one step back. Forward progress is good.
Under current training conditions it seems that 110-114% is is better for 90 second intervals than 120%. And cross checking against HR on 2nd and 3rd sets, that lower % puts me at 90-95% HRmax. All good.
So for now on these 120% intervals I’m going to dial down to 95% and as low as 92%. And that is still well within vo2max power range as determined by ramp test. Then extend interval durations before increasing power.
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Figuring my legs were probably still fatigued from last Saturday’s gravel race, I opted for Spencer -4 over Spencer +2. I think I made the right choice. Made it through all but the last interval. I hate these 3 minute efforts.
Capped it off with Taku to get some more miles and a cooldown.
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Matthes or one of its variations looks more my speed than Spencer. Not that Matthes looks easy, but 120%/3 minute intervals really wipes me out.
I’m going to keep Matthes in mind as an alternative for the future.
clouds rest +4. A really good VO2max WO. More than 20 minutes above 90%maxHr
I lowered the power during the interval as you can find on this blog:
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What’s the difference between this (Cloud Rest) and Taylor/variants? These are 30/30s, right?
Washington +3 → Washington +2.
I’ve really been struggling with pretty much everything since the start of the second half of Sustained Power Build. This week is kind of a roll-back week for me, given recovery from illness and work travel, so I wanted to try another supra-threshold interval workout. I failed Washington +4 the first time, and have only really been able to cobble together Mt Hale -5 for 18 minutes above threshold successfully.
Today, I worked Washington +3 (7 min at 105% on 4 min rest). I made it through the first two intervals with one backpedal late in the second interval. Again, I didn’t feel nearly recovered enough by the start of the third, so I swapped over to Washington +2, extending recoveries to 6:00. I made it through all five intervals, but with one or two back-pedals each interval and wanting badly to just bail on the fifth interval, but survived enough to maintain about 34-35 minutes above threshold.
Extended supra-threshold time is new for me, and this has definitely been harder than over/unders or VO2max work. Coupled with the higher FTP from SSB2 and the first half of sustained power build, it’s been quite a slog. I’m trying to persevere and maximize time spent at or above threshold regardless of rest or backpedals, but I’m very much looking forward to going back to SSB1 after this to get more time to acclimate to a higher FTP with sweet spot and over/under efforts, rather than continuing to bludgeon myself with 120% → 105% → 95-99% of threshold work day after day.
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30 seconds rest is too long to be in VO2max mode. In the beginning of the “rest” interval the heartrate still rises and then drops. 15 seconds is not enough to physically rest but gives a mental break. 30 seconds is too long. You get out of “vo2max3 mode.
The research of Ronnestad also uses this configuration except 3 minutes rest between the blocks. By using a hard start (app. MAP) you reach quickly VO2max territory and lowering the power you can hold it longer but still stay in maximum oxygen uptake. You know when you lowered too much because youre RPE drops below 9 
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Run yesterday didn’t happen though I intended it to. So I ran this morning, just under 40min. Instead of the prescribed 2hrs on the bike, aimed for 90min due to time constraint but did under an hour on the gravel bike as the temperature dropped, the wind picked up, and my gloveless hands became uncomfortably cold.
Quick pause at home then off to the pool. Felt great going to the pool and getting into the water. But then, into the warm-up, I realized that, well, maybe the ride wasn’t a great idea.
Main set: 10x200m (100 fast, 100 easy) on 3:15. For the first few, I enjoyed a proper rest. Then on the next few, the fast degraded so I had to push the easy, making the whole 200 seemingly the same pace. Then the last couple should have been a straight 400 as I came in on the interval (ie 3:13, 3:14, 3:13). Warm down was 5x200 pull. I did one and got out.
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woke up scared of this workout but I did it with added intensity on the last two intervals! When I saw this workout on the plan 12 weeks ago I thought it was crazy. Trainerroad works!
Had some computer issues and had to restart after the warmup.
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Looking Glass this afternoon. It was my first time doing this one and it felt really rather manageable. Also had a swim this morning.
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Taku today, mid recovery week in General Build. More importantly than a screenshot of boring ole Taku, just hit a mini-milestone:
Past rides:
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Think I would have done the same
Short version of Huxley for me today before the race on Sunday. Got a ride with the team on Saturday morning and then it’s all guns blazing, I hope 
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Ebbetts in SSB2 LV, so the first workout with the new FTP. I was a little scared of it, but turns out these coaches sort of know what they’re doing I guess.
I did it in ERG mode, per a bunch of other forum posts. The display in the app made it look like I never hit the power target in the short sprints (and the average power was always way under), but zooming in on the intervals afterwards did show a couple seconds at target for each one. I’m hoping that’s roughly the gist?
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TSS and IF both look just about spot on. I’d say you nailed it 
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