Half Dome (a SS workout) was in my calendar for tomorrow night but I got home early enough so I decided to do it tonight and give me more recovery time before Thursday’s workout. My cadence wasn’t really high but it was comfortable in the mid 80s rpm for the first three blocks before falling to the low 80s rpm for the last three, and I think I’m happy with that after a commute.
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I’m finding Vo2 intervals a lot easier to improve average power when set against threshold sessions.
Day off tomorrow and then my weekly threshold interval on Thursday. Without doubt I’ll be meeting the man with the hammer…
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I think I needed that rest day back in my plan, whilst my cadence wasn’t ideal, tonight’s under/overs felt much more doable than last weeks. I decided to rate it as ‘very hard’ as that cadence wasn’t ideal but I think it was more of a just ‘hard’ effort 
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Since the heatwave crept up on me at the end of my last block I’ve taken a couple of easy weeks on the bike & today I got curious for some intervals again. I’ve been struggling with the heat & humidity on & off the bike so I decided to play it a bit conservatively with Zabriskie: 4×8’ @ 98%. It has a long warmup which is about right for my commute to the track. The 10’ recoveries seemed a bit excessive, my HR is typically back to baseline after about 4-5’ so I cut them down a bit. Also I stepped my cooling regime up a notch (air rushing across my skin @ ~40kph is no longer sufficient), with two 350mL juice bottles which I’d filled with water & frozen, then placed inside a spare pair of gloves & carried in my back pockets. (The gloves were to prevent cold-spots on my back.)
They lasted all of about 35 minutes, which was the warmup plus one interval. It actually felt pretty good for that time. But then, naturally, power started to drop off & I finished the last interval out at sweetspot. Didn’t reach VO2 max, no muscle soreness (yet 
- adding injury to insult I crashed on my way home because of trying to steer on a sneakily flat tyre, nice big graze on my hip but no other bodily damage). I just had nothing, as though I was trying to do the workout depleted, but I haven’t been neglecting carbs. To my surprise, TR wanted to pass me, but I marked it “All Out”, & considered putting it down to Other:Heat, but the heat is here to stay for many months to come so intensity it is. Threshold level was dropped from 3.7 to 3.0, but 
that’s the way it is for now.
Tempted to keep to a traditional-base-ish kind of program until autumn or the discovery of a better cooling solution, maybe with some sweetspot every ten days to touch up the sugarburners. It’s so humid here I finish all my rides (even the easy ones) drenched in sweat, so evaporative cooling systems seem to be out. The only thing I can think of is methylated spirits in a pour bottle. Or move to Canada & take up fatbike racing in summer kit. 
Advice welcome.
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@roleypup tough luck with the heat issues and crashing on the way home. Glad you’re ok. Hope your bike is, too.
I assume you’re south of the equator, so heading into summer. A couple of thoughts, mainly from my time in Tampa, FL where it is hot and humid eight months of the year. We used to do a group ride twice a week at noon! 
@pbase (south Texas) and others can chime in, too.
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Heat adaptation is real. Lots of literature and videos online about it, but your idea of sticking with base-ish until you acclimate to the heat is a good one.
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Since you have access to a track, you could carry ice socks with you in an insulated back pack, bar bag, or saddle pack, and drop them off someplace where you’ll be in a recovery interval. Take a quick stop to shove one down the back of your jersey and carry on with the next interval.
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Have you done a sweat test to assess your sweat rate and how much sodium you’re losing per hour? If not, highly recommend doing one to ensure that you’re replenishing enough. I believe that Precision Hydration has a home kit, and I’m sure there are others available, too.
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Ensure your kit is the most breathable, light weight possible. You could even try sleeveless … pretend you’re an aspiring triathlete!
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You could try insulated water bottles and chilling your drink / mix the night before, or loading it up with ice cubes to keep it cool as long as possible.
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Ensure your sunscreen is a “sport” variety. While I don’t think it is common much anymore, some sunscreens can reduce sweating.
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Bring extra water to douse yourself.
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Just for context, I live south of Houston, where it’s almost always hot other than Jan/Feb/March. This morning it was in the low 60s and I saw several people walking in sweatshirts/jackets. The big problem here is the humidity. 75 degrees plus 80% humidity and almost no wind is miserably hot when you’re working out, and that’s at 5am most of the year.
+1000 for taking the time to get adapted. It does work. My Garmin helps by telling me over and over that I’m not adapted, so I take it easy.
I leave very early when I can. Often well before sunrise. Every heat related problem I know of mostly disappears if I leave before the sun comes up and don’t stay out later than 9-9:30.
Electrolytes really do matter. I buy several tubes of SIS or Nuun tabs every few months. Every single bottle I drink has one in it. Even when I ride on the trainer.
I use the Polar double walled bottles (the lids develop less mold than the camelback version and are easier to clean). For a 2 hour ride, I fill one bottle about 2/3 with water and another about 1/3 and lay them on their side in the freezer so the ice goes all the way along the bottle. I make my sugar mix the night before so it sits in the cold fridge all night. I take the bottles out of the freezer, put a couple ounces of refrigerated water in them, and then an electrolyte tab (they dissolve much faster in straight water). Once dissolved, I then top off the rest of the bottle with the refrigerated sugar mix. Both bottles will be melted an hour into the ride, and by the end of the 2nd hour, will be pretty warm. If I go longer than 2.5 hours or so, I will buy water at a store and hope they let me use some ice.
I’ve done like you before and frozen a full bottle and put it in the back of my jersey. Between the sun and my body heat, it melts very fast, so it’s not really effective as a 3rd bottle, but does make for a great dousing bottle that I trickle down inside my jersey. Keeping the jersey wet with water (not sweat) is great for cooling, but it evaporates REALLY fast in full sun. Some people recommend sun sleeves, but I find they just make me hotter unless I’m pouring water on them constantly, and my bottles usually have sugar in them, so I don’t want to pour that on my arms.
During the hottest months, I wear hot weather jerseys and bibs. They are much thinner and they definitely make a difference.
I hope at least some of that helps. Again though, every heat related problem I know of mostly disappears if I leave before the sun comes up and don’t stay out later than 9-9:30.
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Much appreciated, thanks @rkoswald & @pbase! Though, I’m thinking I should’ve asked this in a different thread.
Current location is Brisbane (27°S). Earlier this year I was living at Hobart (43°S) where it’s about 10°C cooler & also drier. Massive difference! Actually I grew up further north than here, just somehow never got used to the heat & humidity. I moved to Hobart seven years ago as a climate refugee but I’m back because of family.
RK that group ride sounds brutal! How was the rest of your day after that?
Good point about difference in ability between sweat & plain water to evaporate. The track where I do workouts has water taps & I’d got in the habit of dousing myself between intervals. A few weeks ago when attempting Atitlan I realised it did not seem to provide sufficient relief anymore. Maybe I need to start before I get sweaty… as in, drench myself when leaving the house. Haven’t done a sweat test but I’ve settled on the maximum salt content I could stomach, which is about 3g of salt in 800mL bottles, so Na=1.4g/L (which I’ve found in the middle of an interval workout, now tastes better to me than plain water) & also supplement with magnesium at meal times.
Consuming cold water. It came to my attention several years ago that ingesting copious amounts of very cold or hot liquids could change the temperature in the stomach, & impact the chemical reactions that need to take place, in this case breaking down sugars, so I’ve been reluctant to do that. But there was no science to back that up. Maybe if it means I can only take up 60g/h instead of 100g/h, the workout is only 1½h, & I’m already carbed up then it’s not so big a problem. Maybe a Dr Kyle question.
Ice socks & more water blocks could be a possibility. I ride with a small top tube bag. Not keen though on leaving a backpack unattended at the track because it’s open for all & sundry to wander past & through, but I am in the market for a frame bag. Stashers are insulated & could be worth a shot, either with ice or just a cold water bladder. I love how their capacity is measured in beer cans! 
Don’t think I’d want to drink something bubbly or fizzy that’s been carted around in an unsuspended frame bag though. 
Kit is Neopro, jerseys are super thin. I don’t wear base layers. Always wearing light &/or brightly colored kit. I’m already a system-bucker, looking like an aspiring triathlete, because I wear ankle socks & ride with aero bars. So I don’t mind going further down that road. pbase I agree on sun sleeves… anything on my skin traps more heat than the heat in the radiation it reflects, unless as you say, it’s wet. 
Sunrise today was 4:48 which makes for a very early start! I generally get on the bike around 5. But I agree: pre-dawn & that first hour after are the best.
Thanks again for all the tips. I’ll start with the lowest hanging fruit & try to keep doing interval work. Trad base until autumn is not ideal because of the timing of a race, but if it ends up being the only thing I can do, aerobic fitness is never a bad thing!
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No! 
GCN appeals to the masses, I want an advantage over them! It’s only a theory anyway. I might pick my least favorite jersey, declare it sacrificial, & try it with that.
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Big Mountain
Just finished the hypertrophy phase of the FasCat 10-Week Weight Lifting plan, and it called for a four-hour ride today. Didn’t really have the time (in hindsight maybe could have made it work) so dialed up Big Mountain to make each interval 70-75% FTP. Guess that weight lifting stuff is working because I felt great and definitely could have done another hour.
Breakfast is done, now off to rake some leaves. Trees are bare so hopefully this is the last time this year.
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First workout for a few weeks. I came down with the flu or something and had a recovery week after that where I just commuted to keep the stress down. Harmon adapted into my plan (until a day ago it was a level 4.9) a ‘Achievable’ level 1.5. Im not sure if AI dropped it too much level wise but afterwards its adapted the next VO2Max workout to 3.7.
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We’ve had some rain the last couple of days & the temperature has dropped substantially, such a relief! This morning was 22°C & cloudy (contrast with high-20s & sunny last week) so I went out for some sweetspot work. Yes cooler, but it’s humid & I’m still feeling a drop in both confidence & willingness to suffer, from the incomplete/substandard workouts in the last few weeks. So I played it conservatively again today with Tray Mountain -1: 3×15’ @ 90% / 5’
Hit my targets, obviously had enough to rally in the final minutes of intervals 2 & 3, & finished feeling not thrashed, so I thought that’s really positive. Legs had a bit of a whinge during the actual intervals, but that’s to be expected. Called it hard.
I have in the past experienced that complaining feeling for 20-25’ intervals & I contemplated, could I have managed 3×20’ today? Maybe, but I’m happy enough with the lesser win. 
Another time.
A bit of high endurance / low tempo on the way home, as usual it was punctuated by manœuvring through/around traffic control features.
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Nice steady intervals. Well done.
We’re all different, but the ability to do that extended high overshoot at the end would tempt me to bump the 3 intervals up to a higher % in SS or add a 4th interval.
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Depends where I was in the block. Week 1 - I’d probably leave it alone. Week 2 - add another interval. Week 3 - extend the last interval until RPE decouples.
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Give me VO2max over Under/Overs any day. Tonight’s Under/Over session was the exact opposite of Tuesday’s VO2max session and I struggled at lower cadence, probably didn’t help my self by having the resistance high but at higher resistance I was getting closer to the target and it was probably a psychological thing. TR passed me but appropriately downgraded the next few Over/Under sessions.
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I tried and failed to negate my customary two weeks off the bike and found it wasn’t optional!
First week back, AI dropped my ftp by 3 and I am feeling refreshed both mentally and physically.
First threshold session completed successfully after three failed threshold intervals.
I, like other individuals this week, have found out you can’t outrun rather time……
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Thank you. 
An extra interval did cross my mind.
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The 14degC temperature swing here has brought rain and 60mph winds so most people stayed indoors today me included, so I picked a TN workout. After a few refreshes Palmer looked interesting and I opted for that. I made the mistake of using ERG on the Suito for the first time in ages. I’d forgotten how slow it was to react, which leads to catch up overtime and me grinding away at a stupidly low cadence. I stayed in the threshold zone but I rarely went super threshold which I was supposed to do!
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A bit better workout after lunch to try out TrainingPeaks Virtual. I did it on terrain mode so I’d have to change gears. and keep it interesting. I spun out a few times and could have done with going to the big ring but I resisted the urge as I suspect the neighbours might complain 
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