Thanks and agreed. I think Chad’s in workout text said this workout was about exploring limits & boundaries. And I had a peloton Christian Vande Velde class on in the background and he mentioned something to the same about people having no idea where their limits are. It’s a good message.
It was also nice to hit that point in the training block from it transitioned from suffering to complete the hard workouts to realizing that you’ve put in the work and you’re stronger than you were a few weeks ago.
Today is the last day of week IV in SSBLV-I for me. I woke up and lolligagged around knowing what was coming. What was coming you ask? Warlow! I have never performed this workout before but was confident I could endure the trial. For this ride I mixed up my two bottles of Skratch mix and then another bottle with 40 grams of sucrose + 1 GU tab (for flavor & electrolytes), my bottles are 16 oz bottles. I aim to take in 100 grams/hour of carbohydrates – this includes some gel or other solid food (eg a SPOTTY banana, dates, biko aka rice cake, etc). I threw over and the first two intervals were good but after the second interval I spent 30 seconds in the middle of the recovery valley backspinning – just one session.
Then the third interval came on and the workout became challenging. This required focus on keeping the effort on target and a spirit of determination to keep me going. Then in the subsequent recovery valleys I spent 20 seconds backspinning every minute. In the last interval I made a promise to myself to completely rest tomorrow and on Monday if I would only finish the interval on target. This is a promise I am probably going to break but keep it to some short endurance spinning instead of short sweet spot workouts. I finished the workout, a bit sloppy in the out of saddle interval but the next two were okay.
The workout ended, the music kept playing, and ended with a well deserved triumphal march!
Rode outside in the cold. Brrrrr. Garmin head unit died 1/2 through (I forgot to fully charge it, and the cold zaps battery life). So look at these numbers and double everything. EDIT - distance and calories, obviously.
Living in the city means constant stop and go - which makes for an interesting power profile. And, when you’re fat, every little hill puts you into threshold and higher!
15 minute Old Man Warmup followed by Tallac +4. First training session with a new pair of shoes…was making adjustments on the fly during the recovery periods. Decided on a different purpose for almost every interval.
First Interval: High cadence, climbing form with hands on the tops.
Second Interval: Regular cadence, aero form with hands in the drops.
Third Interval: High cadence, regular form with hands on the hoods.
Fourth and Fifth Intervals: Regular cadence, regular form with hands on the hoods.
Sixth Interval: Increased power.
I had grand plans to do another Kolie Moore FTP test today and then I forgot to turn off the heater, so it was about 400 degrees when I started and I promptly blew up. Sweet-spotted myself the rest of the way up the Alpe with a huge TR crew, which kept me on the bike and made up for my derp. Thanks guys.
Pleased to nail this one, especially after struggling with Mt Hale +6 on Thursday (SusPB). Fueled well yesterday and got above average sleep last night. No concerns with dropping the power a little during the recovery intervals since these are still well above the TR base workout (also modified it for a longer warm up).
Geiger +2. Bit of a slog after Kaweah yesterday - not as physically tough, but the same mental challenge to deal with in five decent intervals. Feet up tomorrow.
Nice job buddy! I had pretty much the same experience today. First Kaweah after a pretty big bump in FTP. I consumed about 130 grams of carbs and it still took an immense amount of mental fortitude to push through the last interval.
Funny how at some points I found it easier to push a little harder and go above my FTP than it was to maintain the target. I think it just gave me more wiggle room so I didn’t feel as bad about slipping back down Anyway, time for a big ass burrito.
I need to be better about not posting up several days of workouts in one post…
Tuesday was a ramp test, I think I posted that one already. Wednesday was supposed to be Collins +1, 1:15 of endurance, which I replaced with 2 hours of Rouvy at 228W on the Quick-Motion rollers, nothing exciting.
Thursday was supposed to be Carpathian Peak, which I bumped up to Carpathian Peak +1. Felt good after the first set, so I bumped it up to 102% for the remaining 2. The second recovery I bumped up, too, I felt like it was just too low, I feel better if there’s still a little work. Added on 40min of endurance at 240W after that. Rouvy route was “Marcialonga (Predazzo)”, a very nice route with two climbs.
Today was Spanish Needle -3. Heart rate monitor decided to take a vacation day, it didn’t want to connect at all, bummer. The first two sets weren’t bad, so I bumped it up to 105% for the remaining four sets, which definitely felt better and got me working. Distraction provided by another Rouvy route called “Oberschwaben-Unterland”, which ended up being ideal for this.
@Psychopasta
Kaweah is a killer! Good job. I’ve taken breaks on that too!
For me, Mary Austin -1. I tried to replace with normal Mary Austin but that was during the weird outage hiccup and it wouldn’t populate to desktop. So I did the final interval at 105%. Felt like I was breathing fire! Raaarrrrr
Felt really strong, crushed the workout with no rests (The drops in the beginning is me figuring out why my dog was barking lol) My quads and glutes are sore now though !
Antelope today. Pretty happy with this following McAdie yesterday. 3 weeks in to SSB1 MV and I’m beginning to feel stronger. I did this whilst also doing a group ride on Zwift. It’s a bit of a faff to get this setup and stop Zwift trying to control the trainer, but I worked it out eventually.
Sweet Spot Base Low Volume I had me doing my first threshhold workout of the training season yesterday. Early on all was well but by the end I was backspinning (during the rest intervals only), praying, and making promises to myself to get through the last intervals and minutes of the effort. One promise I made was to take Sunday (today) and Monday completely off. Shortly after, I finished the last effort I then resolved to break the promise I made to myself!
I was sleeping well and then about 2:00 am the phone rang and as usual it was the job scheduler from work calling to inform me a batch job was running long. I want to tell it to have patience especially since it is a test job. I have found that the scheduler rarely calls me a second time on these test jobs (for a given job). From that point on my sleep was all janked up, but I did manage some more sleep.
I woke up for the day at my usual time (sans 1 hour of sleep) and weighed myself, took my blood oxygen saturation reading, and measured my HRV. My HRV app informed me I was highly parasympathetic (not too surprising after yesterday’s Warlow workout) so I searched the workout library for rides with low IFs and duration and found Dans. I popped some dates into my mouth, filled my water bottle (with water), and threw over. Simple as that, a half hour of endurance/recover work.
Anyway, time for a big ass burrito.
