It’s an evil ride, but the sprints kind of make it more manageable. It’s something to look forward to
Should have been Carpathian Peak +2 but a total failure very soon into the session has made me realise that these type of workouts do nothing to help me with my target events which will be exclusively 10 mile time trials lasting no longer than 25 mins. I need to re-evaluate what is in SSBMV2 and remove the workouts which just straddle “100% FTP” as average power. TBH for me I believe this intensity is equally as much of a grey zone as tempo is often considered.
My intensity needs to be higher than this with races done at 1.08 to 1.1 IF but not yet, getting a good base from sweetspot is what I’ll aim at and then get some good VO2 work done in 6 weeks or so in a power build phase. I can safely say that at 53 years of age doing 54 minutes at this intensity is going to drive me into a big hole if I just mindlessly ground through them.
Mount Field in place of Beech as part of my recovery week. Legs felt a bit dull but then I’d done a day’s hard physical work yesterday so perhaps not surprising.
I’ve Glassy-2 (instead of Andrews) tomorrow then it’s some holiday leading in to my first event (it’s a C event) of the year next weekend. Then starting the Build Phase a couple of days after that - Sustained Power Build here I come!
Lots of folks crushing SSB2 and Build type workouts so feel bad posting Z2 stuff.
But it’s weightlifting and endurance season in my cave.
Last night was day after leg day so bit sore. Did 1x45 at +/- 10 watts around VT1. Typically use TR templates like Seneca Rocks or some custom templates, and usually pick a workout that is longer than what I have planned in case I feel like riding more.
So ignore the workout template in the background and just admire the nice 30 min at 190w and the 15 min that follows poking along about 175 with a couple stands to give my aging butt a rest toward the end :-]
p.s. – am working toward 90 min at this pace and then will start dialing it up. Building the engine back up is b-o-r-i-n-g
Lamarck this afternoon!
Felt hard all the way through every interval but managed to keep onto of it just about
The workout confirmed my FTP is near enough to what I have it set too
The average of the intervals was 3 watts less than my ftp is so I’m counting that as a win!
I have even got my self out of leconte at the weekend by booking onto 2 races! Easy week…
Haha I feel bad that I haven’t incorporated strength training yet even though I am in the build phase.
A shoulder injury prevented me from doing any strength workouts for a couple of months but I was able to do the base phase.
Yes it was consistent but think it was mostly because i was hitting close to my ceilling even in the first interval: 150-155 is the red zone for me on a bike and I don’t think my HR can go much higher in the cold garage while pedaling.
Eclipse - 90 mins with 3x20mins SS - felt a bit like hard work - just as well I have a day off tomorrow before Avalanche Spire+2 on Saturday - weekend weather looks good if cold in the UK so hopefully I can get out for 3-4 hours Sunday with my friends rather than doing 2 hours SS 
Galena +2 in the glorious outdoors! That’s a wrap on GBLV for me (discounting the last week of recovery workouts). The last couple weeks of it were pretty brutal to say the least, felt good to end on a successful note. Last interval was briefly interrupted by a tractor blocking the entire road, but other than that it was mostly smooth sailing.
+ 2 mile z2 yog after.
Mount Field.
36 minute of straight up tempo never felt so hard. Coming off from being sick last week, still dragging into this first week of my plan builder.
- Started the workout on my Minoura Rollers, one of the rollers basically blew up?!
- Switched to my Kinetic Rock and Roll after the warm up because of this
- Did the workout fasted, I felt like I have been over-eating at night and a fasted ride felt right
- RPE and HR was very high for this effort
- Sleep has been OK but having a very hard time waking up on time for the workout, need an earlier bed time.
- I did a full run on SSBMV1 before starting this plan builder yearly phase and took a week off of riding inside (recovery) week and just noodled around a couple days in the week prior so I have been off the bike more than preferred.
- B race coming up next week? I’m on the fence if it’s worth the drive now.
I’m going to plug in an endurance ride tomorrow morning and try to get outside for a workout this weekend.
Just did Baird+6. Blew up on the 14th interval. Last interval hero is a thing, it’s almost surely mental. I just try to tap into that in earlier intervals sometimes. Doesn’t always work.
off day today… yesterday wasn’t feeling like a 3x20 sweet spot was the right choice so I pulled up Friday’s vo2 workout and did that instead:
Bluebell which is 3 sets of 6x1-min vo2 but dialed it down to the kinder/gentler intensity of 92%. That turns those 120% repeats into 110% which is repeatable and a big deal for my diesel engine. Even though it wasn’t fully stressing the aerobic system, the heavy breathing made me feel like a teenager on first car date and to my surprise Garmin bumped up my estimated vo2max again and now my fitness age is 20 years younger. Even if vo2max estimate is not totally accurate, the trend since late August is up and to the right. More importantly I can feel the difference 
and the FTP bump will naturally follow. #SweetSpotGains
Nice… I went back to review a portion of last season which constituted a run-up into the best riding I’d done in the last 10 years (this was pre-TR, but doing structured work outdoors).
That was exactly what I did, more or less - just took a solid SS number (200W in my case) and just kept building it out, out until I was riding it for 90 minutes (in 30-45 min chunks, btw, with 5 min rests). Then, the 105% and higher got worked in…
