The new Xpedo pedals arrived yesterday so I swapped their bodies & bearings onto my Assioma Duo spindles, & today I did Eyre +5 again. Mostly because its family is familiar to me & easy to knock off by memory. I chose to collect the power data but ride it by HR to confirm the last fortnight’s training done without power, with the idea of targeting 135, 140, 145, 141, 142 for the first set & 2bpm higher across the board for the second set, & checking after the fact if I was actually holding a target.
Power was noticeably rougher this time than when I’d been able to watch power, each interval was generally lower on the 2nd & 3rd segments, higher on 4th & 5th segments. (Call it a swap? ) I’m happy it was in the ballpark of the intent of the workout, & I’ve probably been “close enough” with the other workouts I’ve done. Well, except for Wednesday.
Today was press-the-button day (AI-FTP). I was a bit miffed that I didn’t get a bump of even a watt or two, so I’m still sitting on 298. (Though, to be fair I’d skipped Monday’s threshold because I was still a bit cooked from Saturday’s 300km audax.)
Today was Crows Nest. Out of spite, to empty the tank just a little more than the workout otherwise would’ve, & because again I saw the 20mph ahead, I overachieved on the lower targets. Still had a little left in the tank so pretty happy with it.
Been a LONG time since I had a hard start workout. Man these are tough. I did figure out that keeping cadence up between the hard start and long threshold segment made it slightly less painful?
I’m preparing for the UCI Gravel Worlds qualifier in Wales in September. I’ve decided against the Swedish qualifier after riding the course last week. Too much asphalt, but also some really rough tracks. Hard to balance those extremes with my bike setup.
The Welsh qualifier is 108km/1900m. Two laps of slightly rougher, technical gravel, which suits me well. Aiming for 29/30kph average (should be comfortable to qualify) and 340w/380w NP. Ben and Connor Swift only averaged 31kph last year, so it’s not a fast course.
So did a quick 80km today on smoother gravel at home today. 350w/372w NP, 33.5kph average. I was riding the Grail.
I’ll take the Grizl to Wales with the fatter tyres.
Red Kaweah -1 today. I’m looking after my parents’ golden retriever for a few days so this was perfect for the old, chipsealed forestry road near their place that gives me a max ~6 minute interval time.
The effort in the cooldown was where I chased a KOM on doubletrack gravel with 20mm stones, & rocks poking up… on my road bike First peak was getting up to speed. Peak at the end was where it changed from dirt to grass. I got it by 7 seconds.
Resulting adaptation was changing Wednesday’s 7×8-ish Bondcliffs to Garrowby +7. Makes me wonder if AT was actually able to read my annotation: “Trip to Bribie; short or split intervals only”, or if it was merely coincidental.
VO2 is my nemesis. 2-2.5 minutes @ 112-113% with 5-minute recoveries should be relatively easy, but alas … I even took yesterday off of the bike to rest the legs and build enough motivation to tackle this one. Maybe I should just do base year-round.
But there were nine of them. 25 minutes is a lot of time in zone for VO2. You still held the target amongst the bailouts, so if it were me I’d call it all-out, not a fail.
It looked like a stretch and was actually an adaptation the was an increase from plan. The first two sets were hard, but starting that last set was torture. My legs were smoked even in that last interval I completed before I finished the last 5 minutes.
This was the first workout I was unable to finish in the last three months. I literally felt like I was in the last minute of a ramp test on the last interval. I was nauseous when I got off the bike and had to lay down.
Normally I should be able to do this workout to the end with more to give, but real life stress, suboptimal sleep and probably slightly underfueled made this a nightmare!
That happens because those intervals are so short and close together that it looks green.
Think something like 10 seconds on then 10 seconds off it what I have here.
Just to see if I could, having never done any of them. Brutal, especially that second 10minute threshold block.
Maybe it implies my FTP is too high? Intervals.icu reckons it’s 284W. TR AI thinks 280W. I choose to go with the higher. I honestly feel that second 10minute block was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done on the trainer, and if it had been a watt or two higher I’d not have completed it. Finished that block with a HR of 191 (I’m 45yr old, max HR used to be 190 but I’ve seen a few instances of 192-194 recently ).
Anyway, got through that, and then the rest of the session felt very doable, if a bit unpleasant since I don’t think I’ve ever done more than 1hr30 on the turbo before.
) I’m happy it was in the ballpark of the intent of the workout, & I’ve probably been “close enough” with the other workouts I’ve done. Well, except for Wednesday.
ahead, I overachieved on the lower targets. Still had a little left in the tank so pretty happy with it.
for a few days so this was perfect for the old, chipsealed forestry road near their place that gives me a max ~6 minute interval time.
First peak was getting up to speed. Peak at the end was where it changed from dirt to grass. I got it by 7 seconds.
).
