Accomplished a 3:45 long endurance ride last week as part of my buildup to a century event, so I figured I’d push even further and do a 4:00 ride this morning. Vogelsang it is! Ah, the reason why the ride out was so easy was that there was a tailwind. Coming back, the headwind was brutal. Also, made a route calculation error and it turned out to be 4:20. Had the opportunity for another rest when I stopped to give another cyclist a patch and a CO2 cartridge for his repair efforts. Hit my target of 150-160w for the entire ride, giving me a good preview of a century effort.
Marked this one as Too Intense on the survey. Recovery includes a large Dairy Queen blizzard and a 90 minute power nap. Still more training to go…
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Training paying off right here! Felt great all day! Made a couple small mistakes and may have left a little on the table during a 2ish minute climb/sprint on the 5th stage but overall really happy with 7th out if 44 in my class! My best enduro finish ever and first top 10.
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Boarstone
Ran out of time to finish since I had to take kids to their evening activities. Last ride of recovery week between Base and Build. I did Polarized Base (6-week) twice and increased FTP 13w and then three weeks of SweetSpot Base II to bridge the gap to Build. I have also been working from home exclusively for the last seven weeks for training classes and a short vacation. Unfortunately, during this time, my left IT Band flared up again. In hindsight I think it was a combination of things including:
- 3-4 intense days per week as part of SSB II versus two with POL Base
- Not lifting legs or swimming for the previous two weeks
- Not stretching enough after riding
- Not seeing my Physical Therapist due to the training courses (but I have been doing the prescribed exercises, just nothing new)
So, with all that as background and since my A events are rides (not races), I switched my Build plan to POL and have doubled down on my leg and physical therapy exercises.
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Friday’s threshold workout, a day “early” because of the week-long family vacation starting Saturday. Scodie. Marked it hard.
Season PRs from 39-55 seconds and again for two bits in the endurance (55-58 minutes?) and 66-94 minutes, roughly.
Couple of long drives with family. Lots of long walks in my nation’s capital with a 6 month old Labrador while the family did museums. Absolutely 0 saddle time for about 8 days.
Didn’t even get in my “openers” or routine builder yesterday for today’s 20 minute FTP test.
I didn’t want the “super fresh” legs to over perform so I was sure to take some liberties with power as you see with the last minute of the 5 minute clearing interval, and the final 1 minute interval, too.
The actual 20 minute effort hurt, but it wasn’t out of control hurt and now I feel like I left a little in the tank, particularly with YouTube bike channels playing through rather than having laser focus from noise-cancelling headphones and my standard assessment playlist available. Oh well.
Added 15 minutes and rode ~20 minutes @~ 72%.
FTP estimate increased just over 1% and my PL’s dropped a smidge.
Post-Scodie:
Post-20 minute test:
I hope to ramp test tomorrow and get a lift session in. And then on to SS Base LV, phase 2. Totally going to add volume when life can manage it.
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So it was hard but not as hard as I thought before.
The hardest thing is to fall asleep after. For the ones that workout before bed what kind of strategies do you employ if any.
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@pirate very interesting that you commented on this. Yesterday I noted that my left heel was rotated outward more than what I would expect, so I rotated the cleat to bring it back in line. All bolts on the cleat were tight, so I’m not sure how that could have happened but, in hindsight, it was probably a contributor.
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Luckily Netflix exists! But that was the plan… so we follow the plan
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I leave my FTP settings alone (using the last assessment’s number). TR sets the target for a slight drop in FTP. In my case, about 3% below what I would need to pedal in order to maintain my previously set FTP.
I usually have a pretty good idea how its going to go about 5-6 minutes in, trying to pedal a “maintain” wattage (so exceeding the blue bar by at least a handful, if not a baker’s dozen watts). I adjust effort levels in micro increments from there, based on my own estimations. Usually simply trying to up the interval average to X by the 10 minute mark, or sometimes even the 15 minute mark and then hold on to those small increases over the last 5 minutes.
In yesterday’s case, the first five minutes, the second five minutes and the last five minutes were all ridden at the same average. The third quarter was literally one watt higher than the other three, even though I was trying to increase the output in the second quarter, I wasn’t quite there.
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Go for it. Its the industry-wide standard for a reason (even though it does have some flaws), and maybe you’ll discover that you’re on the “time trialist” side of the bell curve, able to hold really solid supra-threshold numbers for 20 minutes, or maybe you’ll discover that you’re really leaning on VO2 for the ramp tests and you could benefit from some longer threshold-type intervals.
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I was lucky that it’s the first weekend in a long time where we weren’t jam-packed with commitments.
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Lastarria (fail)
Welcome to Build. 
AI FTP Detection increased my FTP a little more than 1% but gave me a Productive VO2 workout (Lastarria, 2 x 12 / 3 @ 122%). I’m usually a little flat after a rest week and know better. I should have used Alternates to pick an Achievable workout instead.
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That’s a D+ not an F, in elementary school. Looks like about you got 8/12, of the intervals were completed. Right? Plus a little credit for #9-12. That’s a solid 78%.
No shame in it, 12x2(3?) is no joke. Take the AT adjustment and see what happens. I’m shocked that you were at VO2 7.8 right after a recovery week (no reassessment /estimated PL drop?). I didn’t get that high after Build 1, even selecting mostly stretches.
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Agreed. This happened to me the previous time I used AI FTP D, too. TR still has some more work to do, but I knew better.
Overall I’m fine with the effort - 20 of 24 minutes at VO2. I’ll definitely get some adaptations.
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BWR this weekend so I’m giving the “intensity not duration” approach a go in the week leading up to it. Suspect I’ll still be blowing out my arse halfway through all the same
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Surprisingly pleased to get this Stretch-rated workout done. What can I say - I’m extra motivated not to let AT have it’s way with my adaptations!
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And so Build begins.
Pressed the magical new Detect FTP button and received
Was expecting to see a lower FTP compared with previous. All progression levels dropped around 1.0 except for those that were still at 1.0 default (Threshold, Anaerobic, Sprint). Closed and reopens the app to accept plan adaptations and poof!
Was supposed to do this yesterday but had a little mental anxiety with the higher FTP. This was actually rather reasonable for a Stretch workout. Only thing that got me was doing my quick strength workout/warmup thing and then the very short warmup in the workout. First interval had me questioning everything! Fortunately the 11 minute recoveries worked awesome and had me ready for the next round.
Swim and run were the only things planned today. With this workout already finished I see a swim later this evening after some food and rest, then the run tomorrow early with at least 6 hours between it and tomorrow’s regularly scheduled bike workout. Should be on track after that.
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Playing with the RGT “Magic Roads” feature since the announcement of Wahoo X. I’m doing Gravel Locos in a few weeks, so I loaded the course into RGT and gave it a go. My goal was .7 IF as I heard Jonathan recommend for long rides where your goal is just to finish. Pulled it off, but was starting to struggle near the end. 3:30 is a long time on the trainer, but I do feel .7ish is a great goal when you’re not trying to be competitive. This was my longest trainer ride since Disaster Day. Thankful for my rocker plate and my Romin Mirror.
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This week starts SSB2, LV. I’m still pushed a day from Tu/Th/Sat to M/W/F from vacation.
Monday ramp test: bumped up another 3-4%, (so about 5% from beginning of build phase)….Maybe I’m the guy who relies on a solid VO2, or maybe jumping into an assessment (the Sunday 20 minute test) immediately after 8 days off the bike wasn’t the best way to show improvement. Or maybe the previous three weeks of VO2 work really improved my VO2 and the answer is a complex combination of all these factors…. Either way, I’m claiming those vanity watts and Ramp testing is perfect this time. 
Followed up the ramp test with Routine Builder 75 for 96 total TSS, 1h40 minutes.
Scale said I was down a few lbs, as well, (three days in a row, AM as well as post-ride), so I’m now sitting in the 3.6 w/kg range.
Great news, my PLs plummeted again! Not all of the way back to 1.0, but I also refused to accept the pending adaptations. More on that below.
Post 20 minute PLs:
Endurance 4.9
Tempo 2.1
SS 3.7
Thresh 5.3
VO2 6.0
Anaerobic 1.1
Sprint 1.0
Post Ramp:
Endurance 4.2 (-0.7)
Tempo 1.4 (-0.7)
SS 2.5 (-0.8)
Thresh 3.6 (-1.7)
VO2 4.5 (-1.5)
Anaerobic 1.0 (-0.1)
Sprint 1.0
Tried to get a squat session in, but since I was really working on form, depth and range of motion, I managed to feel a painful pop in my ankle. Like most of my ankle, not just one spot. I re-racked the bar for the day, and spent about 5 minutes wondering if I’d done real damage, but pretty well came to the conclusion it was nothing more than a stiffness correction, like when you pop your knuckles, just on a bigger scale. I stayed away from the weights on Tuesday, hoping to jump back into the rack on Wednesday.
I had thrown Berkshire (endurance 5.6, 105 minutes) on the calendar for Tuesday and waffled about swapping for my long custom routine builder 105 (endurance 3.9) just to be fresh for Wednesday. I decided to do my lower target 105 minute ride. I rode my intervals a little high and ended up with the same TSS and IF as Berkshire anyway, but I didn’t feel any pressure to match or exceed anything. Obviously I knew I was exceeding the targets, kind of accidentally, but I was watching the L-B-L replay.
(82 TSS, 0.68 IF).
Today’s (Wednesday’s) scheduled ride was Truchas -1 (SS 5.9, 2x22 @ 90-92%), a “breakthrough” after the ramp test. AT kept trying to adjust my plan, including this workout to something that just looked crazy easy. I kept declining adjustments, but it just kept suggesting an “adaptation” downward, so I looked at the workout, my ride history and did a little napkin math. I compared Truchas -1 targets to my season’s best 44-45 minutes numbers. I’ve got two rides in the past three weeks with average wattages only about 4-5 watts lower than the targets for this 46 minute block (only a 2 minute break between the 22s).
Forget AT’s overly conservative reductions, I’m powering through until ML and AT catch up to my self-awareness. I marked it hard, but as you see, I had enough to ride the last 5-6 minutes at 100% of FTP and add three minutes of threshold riding. The initial bump was to prove to myself that it wasn’t a fluke, and the follow-on was because I was on the verge of getting the NP up to to a round number for the 60 minutes. It happened to hit that number somewhere in the last minute of effort. Tacked on 15 minutes, with about 10 of it Z2 and 5 stupid easy.
Season high power from 33 to 69 minutes. A few minutes in the mid twenties range, too.
(94TSS, 75 minutes.). And yeah, this might have been enough to get AT up to speed with my PLs (at least in SS).
No squatting today, not because of the ankle, or even the fatigue, but because kids/coaching had me running around this evening until I lost motivation (maybe three “big” days had something to do with that motivation, but I’m blaming the kids).
Looking for some easy ride-time tomorrow. I might play around and build a 90-minute noodler, even lower intensity than my Routine/Volume builders or maybe I’ll just ride recess and keep hitting plus until I’ve exhausted my patience with the onscreen entertainment.
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