July Summary

July was an improvement over June and I am creeping back to the high numbers that I saw in May. I started and completed The Sufferfest 3 Week Climbing Plan (review to follow) and saw a quick and substantial improvement in my fitness. I was able to stick to the plan even while on vacation, such is the benefit of traveling with a bike trainer!

I added in a bit of running as cross training and overall it was a pretty solid month!

I am hoping that June and July prove to be a good launch pad into a strong August!

Everesting Week 3

Another pretty good week and the final week in The Sufferfest 3 Week Climbing Plan, I had to juggle things a bit at the end as Becca and I drove out to Boulder over the weekend to give her a week of altitude acclimatization in advance or Ironman Boulder. Here’s how it shook out;

Monday. Off.

Tuesday. The Sufferfest The Wretched. 1m extra warm up and 2 on the cool down to round it up to 20. W/O flywheel. Longer warm up would have been better as first 10 minutes of video I was still struggling to get my legs spinning. Possible/ downside of zero miles off day?

Wednesday. The Sufferfest The Long Scream. 5mile/20 min warm up before video and 2 mile cool down after the end. ~5 minutes faster over the 20 miles than last week. Legs felt very heavy during warm up but by M6 were ok. Better cadence during second half although still struggling to reach the overall Wattage targets. Easy 5k later in the day.

Thursday. The Sufferfest Angels. 3 mile warm and 1.2 mile cool down. Really felt in the zone for this. First hill cadence was 69, second 93 (slower than last week's 96) and the third 73. Power felt easier to sustain and compared to last week w/flywheel I covered 0.8 less miles in 8 minutes less (so at pace that's 2.5 - 3 miles). TSS up to 94 (from 83) and IF up 94 (from 88). 

Friday. TrainerRoad Lazy Mountain. Seemed a good choice as I am heading to Colorado where there are no lazy mountains! 1 hour of easy, steady effort between 45-55%

Saturday. The Sufferfest ISLAGIATT. 3 mile warm up and 1.5 miles extra cool down. Solid ride and bettered my ride from last week by over a mile. Heart rate was 2 bpm lower than last time too. This felt easier than last week. Broke my 40k Time Trial time and took another 2 minutes of it bringing down to 1:10.

Sunday. In the car and on the road! Got into town and had an easy 5k run…just for a change!

So a solid week albeit with a ride short, I was very pleased with the TT improvement. This coming week will interesting, a solid block of three weeks of training in advance of nearly two weeks at altitude, we are staying at around 5500’.

134 miles over 5 rides and 7:46 and 10k run!

6k in 6m!

Jarlinson Pantano gets dropped like a hot potato!

Everesting Week 2

The second week on The Sufferfest 3 Week Climbing Plan was no easier than the first, more pain, more mile, just more in general! Here are the details;

Monday. Off. Well managed a 3 mile walk into Big Bear for Ice Cream!

Tuesday. The Sufferfest. Angels. Extra 20mins/5miles warm up before starting the video. Rode first climb at 70rpm, second at 96 that 100), third at 70rpm. Extra couple of miles to cool off. Easy 5k run later in the day.

Wednesday. The Sufferfest. The Hunted. Added the extra weighted Flywheel onto my Kurt Kinetic Road Machine. +0.81 IF +14.3 TSS vs the same ride last week. Really worked hard for this! Another 5k later in the day.

Thursday. Headed out on the open road and flatted! Should have been a 15 min WU 45 minutes at TH 15 min CD. Flatted at 20 minutes, had a gear failure when I discovered that I was carrying a threaded and non-threaded C02 cartridge. Fortunately a good Samaritan stopped and helped me out.

Friday. The Sufferfest. Long Scream. 5 mile warm up. The Long Scream, 2 miles cool down. Struggled with second half to hold cadence/power…and you guessed it a 5k!

Saturday. The Sufferfest ISLAGIATT. 2 miles extra to warm up and cool down gave me a total of 42 miles. TSS and IF was down vs. last week but I covered the same distance (38m) about a minute faster. Ave HR was 3 bpm less. Less effort for more speed? Struggled to sit in and find a sustainable tempo.

Sunday. Zone 2 ride. Plan was 5 minutes warm up, 2:20 PZ2 5 minutes cool down. This is impossible on the hilly terrain where I live. That said I tried to keep in PZ2 as much as possible. 69% of the ide was in PZ1/2/3 and 21% above. Played with a couple of segments but this is such a well ridden loop that I need to hammer it all the way round to get any bling. Stopped at house for track pump for Becca and to help a stray/lost dog!

So for the week;

175 miles in total (including 16 miles of running) in 12:35.

I am feeling tired but stronger, one more week left on this plan.

If you are interested in these rides I have reviewed some of them here.

Everesting Week 1

This was always going to be a clunky week, it was a week away with the family at Big Bear. But the vacation didn’t start until mid-week and then the first few days I would be alone with my two boys and then Becca would arrive with hers, we would spend a few days altogether then I would drive back and then return again. The ups and downs of a “blended family” fortunately Big Bear isn’t that far, about a three hour drive. So the car was loaded up with boys, bags and bikes.

I had to be creative and ended up setting up the Trainer on the balcony, still the view wasn’t so bad!

I had also committed to The Sufferfest 3 Week Climbing Plan. My rationale was that this would give me a good kick start into training for the Everesting attempt. So here is how things shook out:

Monday. TrainerRoad 90 minutes Medium Intensity. A buddy had created a ride on TrainerRoad so I used that as a starting point, Warm up was a bit short. Standing climb for last 6 minutes of the first set, all of second and first half of third. Good solid workout! Squeezed in a 5k run in the evening on the treadmill.

Tuesday. The Sufferfest; Hell Hath No Fury. A hard ride. Fell off the back about 30 minutes in and struggled to not get dropped. Another 5k in the evening, this time in Big Bear, nice and easy and a bit late in the day, finishing at around 10pm!

Wednesday. TrainerRoad; Muir. 50 minutes at W153. 50 minutes of aerobic endurance @ 70% FTP. Keeping the watts toward the middle of the wide Aerobic Endurance wattage range 50-80% FTP. Another 5k

Thursday. The Sufferfest; The Hunted. Legs just didn't have it! Hung on! Altitude and new FTP kicking my ass all the way down the hill! A very easy 5k.

Friday. Off, well actually I went canoeing!

Saturday. The Sufferfest; The Rookie, 55 minutes of hard work! Followed up with a 5k

Sunday. The Sufferfest; ISLAGIATT Increased FTP and back at sea level meant this was a strong ride. Last time I rode this it was 40m over 2:10. Drove back to Big Bear in the afternoon and ran a 5k

So the totals for the week.

159 miles in 11:22 and just under 40 minutes’ worth of canoeing!

That’s a pretty good start!

Testing time

Now that the Gran Fondo is in my rear view mirror it’s time to focus on the next challenge. Before I embark on that I have a week of baselining my fitness, this actually sounds a bit fancier than it really is. Basically I ‘ll be doing a couple of baseline rides to give me sense of my fitness and a FTP test.

I opted for the TrainerRoad FTP (rather than the Sufferfest Rubber Glove version), a slightly extended warm up which I find I need and I was set. Just as a reminder after the warm-up, a 20-minute time trial is used to assess Functional Threshold Power (FTP) & Lactate Threshold Heart Rate (LTHR). Specifically I am interested in the FTP number as I train with a Power Meter.

The results;

An increase from 206 to 219, that’s a 6% increase in two months. A good start!