Week Ending March 25th in Review

This past week was a bit of a battle: humbling.  Demoralization kicked in on Monday and the only way to combat that is to continue fighting and trying to stay on the course: trusting the process…Lots of fatigue setting in early in the week with a swim TT, track work and an FTP set.  

The ride with the Landry’s group on Saturday was the first day outside and so unbelievably refreshing. Although it was their ‘Recovery Day’ I was able to spend some time in the back giving chase. Definitely felt much more manageable to hold my higher wattages while outside, in addition to massive top end bursts of power well into the 1100W-1200W range.  As Matt would say, this is suited to my strengths.  Quick anaerobic bursts followed by full recovery in the pack.  I really enjoyed riding through the towns of Sharon, Foxboro, Easton, North Attleboro, etc. and riding with the group was a great break from 4:00 basement sessions on the trainer.  I changed out the tires and put on the armor-plated, lead-weighted Armadillos.  Good for training and burning up on the trainer.  Nice and solid ride.  Pat helped me adjust the seat a bit nose down which helped alleviate some front-end pressure.  Overall, 2:15 on the Phenom saddle was fairly benign.  Not bad at all.

Sunday’s run was to go out on AeT for 3X18’ with 2’ recovery.  It was a very manageable day with focus on 8:00 pace.  My HR didn’t come anywhere near the AeT projections which is good as far as fitness goes and also attributable to a nice cool day.  Brought some fizz tabs along for electrolyte support in water.  Later that day the ankle / Achilles was sore, right behind the right ankle bone.  Didn’t feel anything happen on the road, but noticed it afterward and beyond.

Good improvements this week.  It is now time to ratchet up the biking to the ‘Varsity’ level with longer intervals and durations, improving muscular endurance.  

April's Goals

Performance goals for the next month have been identified and include:

· Sub-15' swim at the 1000yd distance

· Sub-46' run at the 10km distance

· Lifting FTP up to a legit 270 watts via the 2x20' test.  

This would represent around 1-2% improvement in each sport which is extremely good for a short 4-week block.  This would ideally happen within the context of a plan that shows increasing volume around weekend key bike & run workouts that are designed to build aerobic efficiency.  The expectation is such that we haven't yet seen the true endurance limiters yet since most of the workouts have been relatively short by ironman standards.  Bike rides will be approaching the 4 hour mark by the end of April, and long runs perhaps approaching 2 hours. Some interesting stuff may happen as we stretch these long workouts to these durations...

Build 1 of 3 begins Monday.

Week Ending March 18th in Review

Overall, a very successful week.  The early part of the week was solely focused on Thursday’s FTP test.  This mainly caused some anxiety on trying to perform on this test and keeping the efforts fairly light to support that beast out.  On Wednesday, the angst was at a maximum.  I was thinking back to the previous week where I was unable to complete the 2x10min FTP intervals.  How on earth was I going to be able to double that effort without dropping out?  Matt helped me with the strategy to pace through it and made sure that I knew this was ‘just another strong workout’ and not to put so much pressure on myself.  In the end, I knew I should’ve been more confident in my capability and strength on the bike.  A couple of key highlights:

     ·    FTP Test 2x20min.  See previous post for detail.  All-in-all, a very good effort.

     ·    AeT run in NH around Opechee Lake (Laconia).  Went a little too hot for my 3x9’.  Target was 7:15-7:30, but I ended up running a bit more like 7:02ish.  Perceived effort was very hard but HR never really crept up to the estimated AeT range.  As a result, we’ve decided to knock back the paces for a couple weeks.  Somewhat humbling, but a good strategy to mitigate any risk associated with running too hard for these quality sessions.

FTP Test - 2x20

Steve Prefontaine once said, “I sweat blood in training so I don’t have to in the race.”

I had been dreading this since last Friday.  Considering the previous day I had tried to do a workout on FTP with a 2X10min and couldn’t hang for the last interval.  Granted, my cold had been taking its toll for the week leading into it and I wasn’t as recovered as I was today, but it definitely demoralized me and I knew that this test would result in pain, with hopes of success in that pain as opposed to defeat.  My mind wasn’t right about this.

Not looking forward to this all week was unnecessary.  Based on last week’s session, I didn’t have a good feeling about how to pace at that power for that long.  Matt helped me work through the mental pieces yesterday and some tips to get through.  His experience proved correct and his projections are right on.

I got up and grabbed something to eat.  Then set up the fan right in front of my face.  This was a lot more helpful than I had given it credit for before.  The first ten minutes were a struggle just getting into the rhythm, but the second ten is where the pain started to creep in.  HR was elevated well into the 170s, breath was short and rapid and the quads burned.  I just couldn’t get comfortable in my positioning.  I was able to muscle through it with an avg of 272W for the first set. 

The two minute rest interval went by in an instant.  With Running on Sun playing in front of me, I started seeing guys lying on the road and throwing up overcome with heat exhaustion and dehydration from running in the middle of the desert in summer for 135 miles up mountains.  I didn’t feel like I had anything to fear sitting in my basement sipping on a water bottle, so it put my effort into perspective.

Started out on the second set and spiked right back up.  Matt said this would be the most difficult quarter of the effort, but would improve after 10 left, and it proved 90% true.  This segment certainly was a struggle.  Seemed like the 7:00-10:00 markers were an hour long, but I didn’t notice anything getting easier after 10.  Right in the middle of this interval, I could feel my cadence failing me.  This seems to be where the deterioration begins.  My 93-95 rpms start dipping around the 90 rpm point.  Power dips follow.  The last 4 minutes were tough, but I knew I had it at that point.  Time virtually stood still and comfort never returned for the entire 42 minutes.  My attempt was to get those rpms up in the mid-90s for the last couple minutes to boost that interval’s overall average power.  I was successful in taking it up a couple Watts in doing so.  I ended up finishing strong, probably a small amount left in the tank, but glad I was able to end it strong.

Recoverite to follow, and soreness to follow that.  The quads definitely burned, but I love the burn!  Makes me feel alive and like I have diesel fuel powering the motor….I was worried about it for nothing.  I should’ve had more confidence in my capability and my mental toughness to duke it out at 4:00 in the morning.

From here we take Normalized Power over the 42 minutes to set a new FTP of 265 (reduced 5W) and a reduced LTHR to 178bpm.  All reduced from the sub-20:00 Indoor Time Trial.  Next step, continue to raise the FTP by training in the right zones.  Still won’t look forward to the next one of these, but won’t feel as consumed by it.  Good times…

Week Ending March 11th in Review

Tough week for me as coach was gone, I was still battling sickness and my efforts were less than ideal. However, this is part of the process.  I remained consistent despite a few hiccups.  I’ve been doing this long enough to know that not every workout is going to be spot on.  There will be days where I just don’t have it and need to pack it in to live for another day.  The week in summary:

    · Bike cadence is coming around and starting to be part of my neuromuscular changes.  The 95-100 rpm spot seems to be right where I like to stay these days.  I’m happy to be able to generate power this way, especially as we start creeping into the higher power ranges.  I definitely notice a power loss in the aero position.  I’m hoping to work on that in the coming weeks.

    · The FTP 2X10 intervals brought me back down to reality a bit.  I could not sustain the FTP effort for the 2nd interval.  Sickness and fatigue are expected to have played a part, but I was somewhat disappointed in this effort.  As a result, we’ll be doing an FTP test this week, which I’m already dreading.  2X20 min – all out effort.  Yikes!

     · Weekend sessions started out great.  Saturday was AeT intervals on the bike.  This meant ~210W and not-to-exceed 159 beats for 3X18min with 2min recovery.  Went really well.  Power improved over the course of the 3 intervals.  Followed up with a 20 minute jog.  Felt great.  AeT on the bike is a nice place to be.

     · AeT on the run is another story.  This means anywhere between 7:15-7:30 pace with a not-to-exceed HR of 173ish.  This one hurts quite a bit more.  All was going well until the 2nd interval, when off-road, the right knee tweaked on a little incline.  Seemed to steady out and then on the third, both knees began to cry – patella tendons.  Cut the last in half and rolled E/L pace all the way home.  Iced, Ibuprofen and rest.  I am so paranoid of injury now, that I didn’t want to take any chances.  Hoping it isn’t something serious and on-going.

     · Inked for two new events:  Providence ½ marathon on May 6 and the CRW century ride on May 20.  Think this will be fun and challenging.  The ½ will be planned as a B race and expecting a race-pace performance.  The hundo will be a C race to begin understanding my sustainable power output over 100+.  

All-in-all: a good week.  A few minor setbacks but continued growth and learning.  This week will be better.

Week Ending March 4th in Review

This was a great week for the training logbook; a lot of discovery in theory that I’ve experienced now in practice.  The week in summary:

• Hyannis half marathon.  I learned the run/walk strategy for racing.  Having always known the theory, I was always resistant to putting into racing, but by doing so, we preserved my body and both had a very enjoyable experience, as well as a solid decent finish time.  I executed the strategy with precision.  Ah-ha number 1.
• Cadence to generate power.  After Thursday’s brutal FTP intervals (short), I knew that Saturday’s long FTP intervals would be incredibly hard unless I changed something around.  I needed to leverage muscular endurance over muscular strength.  Thus, high cadence comes into play.  By keeping my avg cad in the mid-90s, I was able to get through the longer intervals while generating the required power.  This was my second of two huge ah-has this week.
• Threshold swimming on Friday resulted in a strenuous set of 200s at T-pace.  Although challenging, this work was manageable and felt incredibly powerful.  With only 0:15 RI, this workout reminded me that I can endure a lot of T-pace work.
• Garmin 910XT was added to the repertoire this past week.  This thing does almost everything.  The swim metrics are definitely new to me and will take some fine-tuning.  All the power data is very similar to that of the Joule2.0.  The pairing of this unit was SO easy.  Still, need to export the file and upload to TrainingPeaks for complete activity data.

All this great work completed with having a head cold since Wednesday and having Matt gone to Florida. I’m really looking forward to what is in store over the coming weeks and months when I’m 100%. Looking forward to working through some of the new potential we’re about to unlock.