Sufferlandrian Knighthood…I am dubbed!

You don’t have to be mad to work here but it sure helps…quite clearly the byline of this endeavor!

The Sufferlandrian Knighthood, ten back-to-back Sufferfest Videos, any and all are fair game with the exception of the two short ones, The Long Scream and The Extra Shot. There are in fact some very distinct rules that you can read about here.

With that in mind my attempt was schedule for Sunday April 20. Thanks to some super generous folks I had met my goal for my charity Beagles and Buddies, the source of our two mad hounds, Cali and Sprocket. After some thought, but not too much, I had sorted out the order of videos that I would be riding, although this would change during the day, my fuel and fluids had been primed, my tires were pumped, my chain lubed, my technology charged and with that I had a reasonably early night and set my alarm for 6:00am.

From a technology standpoint my plan was to use my Garmin 500 for each ride on an individual basis and then use my 910xt for a total elapsed time with a 305 as a back-up. I was using Trainer-Road on the screen so I was able to follow a prescribed power requirement.

I’ll spare you the usual morning routine except to say I had a shower and then had pancakes for breakfast. I was on the bike by 7:30am and after a small technical hitch I was underway by 7:35am. The first ride went by fairly uneventfully, I had dialed back my FTP to 75% which meant it was running at 173, based on my recent FTP test where it increase to 230. This I thought was fair as there no expectation that I could complete them all at 100%.

For the second and third rides I was joined by Becca and we rode them together completing the third video with an elapsed time of 3:38 on the clock. After this I was on my own while Becca donned her running shoes and left to finish her training brick. The fourth video finished and I was feeling pretty yucky. I had two fans blowing on my throughout the day but I was working and sweating up a storm as the temperature outside had reached late 70s and it wasn’t much cooler in the garage.

With just over five hours in elapsed time I made a decision to grab a quick shower and with some co-ordination with Becca I jumped off the bike and headed upstairs. A clean bib and with a fresh application of DZ Nuts I was back on the bike and heading into video #5. Fifty minutes later I was done. Off the bike and back on again for number 6 which was duly ridden completing it with seven hours forty five minutes elapsed

These middle videos sucked, the clock had been going by quite quickly during the morning but the afternoon hours dragged on into the early evening. My original planning took another hit as I substituted a shorter ride for the massive ISLIGIATT which lasts just shy of 2 hours. This would mean I would shave an hour off of my expected ride time which by this stage was more than fine by me.

The penultimate video was a mess and I was unable to hit any of the sprint, I basically fell off the peloton and rode alone at the back for an hour.

With one video left it was a case of hold the stiff upper lip and leave it all out there…well on the trainer but you know what I mean!

And with that I was done! I more of less fell off my bike got cleaned up and had a curry and beer as well as good rub down with my Bellecore Buffer which did a great job of cleaning all the junk out of my legs. It was clear to see the toll taken as it took several hours after I had dismounted to get my heart rate back down to normal levels and despite consuming liquids throughout the day there was always going to be cardiac drift as the day went on.

With time to reflect on this event I would say that the way to treat it is the same way to treat any long –distance/duration event, in terms of time this took longer than both my 50 mile runs (11-12 hours) but was quicker than my Ironman (13:42) and significantly quicker than my 100 mile run (30:00). You have to have some sense of pacing and that is where the conflict and challenge lies. Each video is a high intensity workout which is designed to put tremendous stress on the body often taking you beyond your FTP level but yet you have ride them and try and stay in Z2 or 3 from a Power and Heart Rate perspective.

In terms of training this is a really hard balance to maintain. I followed the TrainerRoad plan that was a build plan but was obviously not designed for the Knighthood. But it did contain many rides with intervals which gave me a good base and raised my FTP by 15% or so in the 9 weeks. Longer weekend rides also helped as this is just time in the saddle. The obvious difference of course is that an outside ride, has down-hills and changing scenery rather than staring at a TV and pedaling nonstop on a trainer. In the end you just have to focus on one video at a time one interval at a time and know that how deep into the suck you get it will finish!

Here are my thoughts and words of advice for anyone wanting to try this;

• If you have not done a recent FTP test use Rubber Glove to set your FTP as your first ride
• Then reduce the FTP, there is no way you can complete 10 of these at 100%
• Consider the order, I went for intervals at the front and put the steady state videos at the end
• Talking of order put the ones you like at the end of the day
• Avoid ISLAGIATT and Blender, they are both very long and Blender is especially complex
• Avoid Violator, the sprints will just sap the energy from your legs!
• Have a hydration and fuel strategy worked out in advance, the deeper you get in the harder it is to stick to the plan but eat and drink even if you are not hungry or thirsty, it’s just fuel!
• Practice your hydration and nutrition plan; find something you like and that works for you
• Personally I opted for a mix real food; pancakes and soft Hawaiian rolls with PBJ or banana and Nutella but I also went through a fair amount of Gels and Bloks, consumption noted below
• Consider your electrolytes as you are going to sweat; I used a mix of SCaps and High-5 (a UK version of NUUN but less gassy)
• Because I was following the TrainerRoad plan I had not looked at a Sufferfest for nearly 3 months which was a nice mental break; familiarity can breed contempt!
• Taper before the event, if you’re new to that concept do some research
• Have a stopwatch for the breaks; mine were a bit tardy
• Eat a breakfast and get an early knight ;-)
• Change clothes if you can, unlike being outside you will not dry and if you are damp/wet you’re more prone to chaffing
• Talking of chaffing, get some Chamois Crème, I prefer DZ Nutz
• Enjoy the online interaction it makes it a lot more fun; Facebook Twittter and Instagram away during those rest intervals

Some stats

Per Garmin;

• Miles covered 168.55
• Total Time 12:29.49
• Moving time 10:11:14
• Ave Speed 13.5mph
• Ave Moving Speed 16.5mph
• Ave Power 122w
• Max Ave 20 mins 183w
• IF 0.741
• TSS 608
• Ave HR 132bpm
• Max HR 166bpm
• Ave Cadence 81rpm
• Max Cadence 113rpm

Per the mess on the floor;

Hydration and Nutrition

• 9 x SCaps
• 8 x 16.9 oz Lipton Diet Green tea
• 4 x 28 oz water with High 5
• 4 x Gu gels
• 4 x Hawaiian soft rolls with PBJ
• 4 x Pancakes with PBJ or Banana/Nutella
• 3 x Cups of tea
• 3 x PowerBar bloks
• 2 x Pack of Cramp Crushers
• 2 x Pack Clif Shot bloks
• 1 x PowerBar bar
• 1 x Mexican coke

Starting weight 180.6 Ending Weight 175.9

Data

• Strava
• Garmin Connect
• TrainerRoad
• Sporttracks.mobi

Now onto 6 Hours of Temecula and Vineman!

Sufferlandrian Knighthood!

Completed! Report to follow!

FTP Redux

I still have to write up my L’Etape du California ride report but this has been a crazy busy week and I just have run out of time, it was quite the adventure though! Anyway with that said I was able to retest my FTP this week. Post L’Etape I took two days off and then re-rode the the TrainerRoad 20 minutes test.

Just a reminder the entire ride takes 60 minutes. Following a full 30 minutes of warm-up, a 20-minute time trial is used to assess Functional Threshold Power (FTP) & Lactate Threshold Heart Rate (LTHR). The idea is maintain a steady maximal effort for the 20 minutes and from that an algorithm adjusts this to represent the same effort extrapolated over an hour. I had tested during Week 1 and Week 8 of the Trainer Road plan and my FTP results were 206 and 209 respectively. I felt that the Week 8 test was “weak”, I was tired and had a niggle in my ankle. I wanted to wait till after the L’Etape just in case there were any issues leading up to the day. But based on the L'Etape 20 mins max ave power of >241 on Garmin Connect so I knew there was plenty left in the tank

So on Wednesday I set myself up for the test. Loaded up Cycling TV with the As Live version of Scheldeprijs a classic one day Sprint Race, clipped in and was off!

After the 30 minutes warm up which I fully needed as my legs were still heavy the test started.
 

The TrainerRoad goal was 225 I aimed for 250 or thereabouts for the 20 minutes. The first 5 minutes was fine, the second harder, the third I was dragging my ass, you can actually see the effort start to fade. With 5 minutes to go I pulled out my stiff upper lip and upped the cadence during the closing minutes to increase the watts to 260 and then 280. Above is the result for the 20 Minutes test.

As expected a hard ride but my FTP increased to 230, from 209 2 weeks ago and from 206 9 weeks ago!

Needless to say I am happy…although that may well change next week during my Knighthood Ride!

This is the output analyzed in Golden Cheetah,I am new to using this application so bear with me, the yellow highlight represents the 20 minutes test from mile 8.63 to 16.63 so 8 miles in 20 minutes…hardly Pro but for a middle aged age grouper 24 miles per hour on a trainer is plenty!

If you want a review of the TrainerRoad Advanced Build 1 Plan, click here.

Knighthood Training Week 8

A pretty vanilla week. Somewhat of three bears week, with two weeks ago being overcooked with 175 miles Papa Bear, last week being a bit undercooked with 121 miles Momma Bear, this week was pretty much in the middle with 147 and shut the front door 3 of those miles were running!!! Baby Bear This is the penultimate week of training so I was glad to have a solid week, it also closed out the month and the quarter so it was a week with lots of closings.

Here is how things shook out;

Monday; Rest.

Tuesday; Lone Pine. Dialed back to 92% as back is still sore. This was a nice solid ride.6x10-minute intervals in the Threshold power level at 95-99% FTP with 3-minute recoveries between intervals. Focused on form on the bike, sitting still, "scraping shoes" etc. GC Data.

Wednesday; Pyramidal. Very pleased with this, some work but well within myself. 40 minutes of Tempo with varying intensity every 5 minutes. GC Data.

Thursday; Red Kaweah. Had to stop for bio break between 2nd and 3 sets and forgot to restart Garmin hence missing 7 minutes and 1.5-2 miles...oh well. 4 sets of 3x4-minute efforts at 95, 100 & 105% FTP with slightly increasing rest periods from 1 to 3 minutes in duration at 50-60% FTP. GC Data.

Friday; Rest.

Saturday; North Maggie. Today was a FreeRide so as Sunday is on the road I just swapped them around. 5x10-minute Power Steps each beginning with 5 minutes between 90-95% FTP followed immediately by 5 minutes of 1-3% FTP steps which top out at 112%; 5 minutes of rest between each interval. Dialed intensity back to 95%, GC Data.

Sunday; Hidden Valley, WLV loop. Nice solid ride with a bit of everything, climbs (2800' of gain), flats and drops. Felt strong, hammered some of it and eased off in some. Followed this with a three mile run in the new Saucony Virrata 2s. I was chasing Becca for a bit and was pleased with the pace given my lack of running. Finished it off with a cold Mexican Coke!

In terms of the month as suspected I broke the 600 mile mark, this is a new high for me even compared to Ironman training back in 2012 when I had bike week (which was 190 miles) I only topped out at 476 and when training for the Tour De Big Bear last year I maxed at 498 so this is a big up in mileage from then.

That being said this plan is very consistent with 4 x 90 minute rides and a 60 minute ride per week and and then whatever I did on a Sunday.

For the quarter, well the numbers speak for themselves. This obviously reflects the two weeks off in January after the bike crash. That being said had I not crashed my training would have looked very different as I would have continued on the Ironman St George 70.3 plan, so there would have been a lot more running and swimming of course! Either way I am pleased with the consistency.

This is the last week of the scheduled plan. I have decide to skip Saturday’s ride; the only ride which I have missed since starting. This will give me an extra day of rest before L’Etape du California on Sunday.

My best estimate is that I will just break 70 hours of training over the 9 weeks and hit 1100 miles. I will write up a review on the plan next week!

Onwards…

Knighthood Training Week 7

After overcooking it last week this week I was back on the straight and narrow. Work got in the way of any commuting and my mileage went back to the mid-120s for the week. I also managed to tweak my ankle and back…on different days! Nothing to do with the bike I fell up the stairs on Monday night and the mis-stepped off something and that locked it up my back on Friday. So much so that I had to jump off my bike and hit the foam roller for 10 minutes into the ride Friday night! Up until now Friday has been my day off but with a long day at a Track Meet on Saturday I knew that there was no way I would want to get on the bike at 6pm Saturday so I switched it with Saturday’s ride and that proved out to be a good choice even with a crabby back. It’s easing up now and I am looking for a deal on a Groupon massage for this week!

So this is how the week shook out;

Monday; off

Tuesday; 2x8 Min FTP Test. Increase in FTP from 206 to 209. A bit disappointed but it's moving in the right direction at least. Could be a follow on from such a big week last week and/or slipping on stairs last night and tweaking ankle? Following a total of 28 minutes of warm-up, a couple of 8-minute time trials are used to assess Functional Threshold Power (FTP) & Lactate Threshold Heart Rate (LTHR). The recovery interval between assessment efforts is 10 minutes. GC Data.

Wednesday; West Vidette. Nice and easy 45 minutes of aerobic endurance ranging from 50-80% FTP. Fake rest day as last workout was 36 hours ago. GC Data.

Thursday; Smith. First ride of this with upped FTP, struggled to hit a solid cadence above 85 and keep the Power so dropped a gear and kept it in the late 70s, good hill climbing. Slower than the last time I rode this but generally feeling weary this week. 6x10min sets very close to FTP; 3 minutes rest between intervals. GC Data.

Friday; McAdie. Barely hung onto this, spent 75 mins hating it! 4x12-minute Over-Under intervals alternating between 2 minutes @ 95% FTP & 1 minute @ 105% FTP with 6-minute recoveries between intervals. GC Data.

Saturday; off, well on my feet most of the day but not on the bike!

Sunday; Out of the front door turn right! Road the first 3/4 of the Royal loop, then added Erbes climb and then reversed the ride coming home. Rode some hard and the rest was moderate. A mix of rolling hills and some climbing for a total of 2400’ feet of gain! Got to road test the new premium kit “Black” from Voler. GC Data.

With another full week to go before the end of the month I am on track to hit a solid 40 hours of training and 600 miles for March! I have two more weeks on the plan and it looks like it will total up to around 1125 miles in total, then I have an off plan one week taper and the L’Etape du California at the weekend!

Knighthood Fundraising…

One of the tenants of attempting a Sufferlandrian Knighthood is that there should be fundraising involved.  With four weeks to go it seemed like a good time to start. There are of course many worthy Charities that need funding but I have decided to keep this local to home.

In the last 6 months I have adopted Cali (Nov) and Sprocket (Feb) from a local Rescue Shelter "Beagles & Buddies". Beagles & Buddies rescues purebred and mixed Beagles, as well as other hounds and small dogs, from pounds, humane societies and off of the street. It seems only fitting given my love of cycling and of these two crazy dogs that I raise some money as I sit on my trainer for 12 or so hours riding to Sufferlandrian Knighthood on April 12th.

For more info on Beagles & Buddies click here

For more info on Sufferlandrian Knighthood click here

I have set a realistic and hopefully achievable target of $250, its enough to make a real difference to the quality of life that the dogs have in the Shelter. I am already nearly 20% there so hopefully I can exceed my goal. Click on the photo above to get to the fundraising page and thanks in advance!

Faux Pas and Faux Rest!

This has been a long week (and it’s not quite over yet)! You know one of those weeks where everything drags and Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday seem to be on a loop and the weekend gets further away the closer it gets! My workouts have been a bit meh too, I am not sure if that’s a result of a disappointing FTP Test on Tuesday. With hindsight I probably overcooked it last week, ramping my mileage up by 40% in a week may have been the culprit…my faux pas. I have been heavy legged most of the week so far and I am only three workouts in.

Most of my weekday training is completed in the early mornings, I am sure it’s nothing that anyone reading this has not has to do. As you know it takes a bit of planning; making the next day’s kid’s lunches, setting the timer on the coffee machine, even pre-mixing pancake mix are all done the night before. Of course this is in addition to the layout of the kit the night. But even with all these tricks some days are just a fail. Case in point yesterday! Alarm set for 4:40am, even with the best will in the world I wouldn’t be on the bike till 5:15 and with 90 minutes on tap that gets me off the bike at 6:45! This is just enough time to cook up the pancakes for the hungry hordes, get a scrape, shower and shampoo done and get the day rolling for me!

To try and overcome this I employed my fake (faux) rest day deferring a morning workout by a little over 12 hours to the evening giving me a good 36 hours in between, only 8 hours shy of a full rest day!

It seems to have worked as I managed to PR for 60 Minutes of Power on last night’s ride and was only 3 Watts shy of hitting the 90 Minute PR too. If you remember I zero’d all my PRs when I switched to my Stages Power Meter in January. This is reassuring as last night was all work for sure!

Now today should actually be a real rest day but with a all-day Track meeting tomorrow, literally all-day (8:00am-4pm), I am riding tomorrow’s ride tonight so I don’t have to sit on the Trainer at 6pm on a Saturday night for 90 minutes…although it wouldn’t be the first time!

Knighthood Training Week 6

Well this turned into a big week! As mentioned last week I was able to drop a commute to work in the mix on my day off (Friday) and then had a double on Sunday, so before I get ahead of myself this is how the week shook out;

Monday off; check!

Tuesday;  Kearsarge. Nothing to report on this one, after a day off it was all very doable. 6 sets of Anaerobic Power repeats ranging from 120-150% FTP lasting either 18 or 24 seconds but both in the 20-second sprint ballpark. Recoveries between intervals are about 1 to 1.5 minutes while your downtime between sets is about 4 minutes in all cases. Had an easy 3 mile run in the evening. GC Data. 

Wednesday; West Vidette. Nothing to see here! 45 minutes of aerobic endurance ranging from 50-80% FTP. GC Data. 

Thursday; Smith. All work on this ride, started to lose it on the 5th interval and held the 6th together, struggled to ride a good gearing, 80-82rpm held the power, the next gear down put my at 92rpm which I couldn't hold for the power. 6x10min sets very close to FTP; 3 minutes rest between intervals. Another 3 mile run in the evening a bit quicker than Tuesday. GC Data. 

Friday; commute to and from work adds an 28 miles to week and an extra 2000 of elevation gain.

Saturday; North Maggie. Went out too fast and fell off at the end. 5x10-minute Power Steps each beginning with 5 minutes between 90-95% FTP followed immediately by 5 minutes of 1-3% FTP steps which top out at 112%; 5 minutes of rest between each interval. Not a 100% believer in the totals for this as I cranked out 30 miles in 1:34:12, I didn’t change the resistance on the trainer but this seems super-fast to me! This was after pretty much being on my feet all morning at a kid’s Track Meet. GC Data. 

Sunday; off the Trainer and onto the road and trails; the first ride was 10 dusty miles on my Mountain Bike pacing Becca as she trains for a local trail Half Marathon, it was super-hot, pushing 90f in the canyons. After the rain of last week the trail was pretty rutted and a lot of the dust covered rocks were more slick. Not surprisingly my MTB skills are very poor, I feel strong enough to get up the climbs but I lack the technical skills that are only acquired spending time on the trails. Best news of the day…I only fell off once, as my wheels slipped out from under me and I very delicately landed in a bush! GC Data.

 

After a short pause to let the temperature cool off some we set out for a 2 hour road ride and instead of heading to the Rock Store we opted for a slingshot out-and-back from the house to save time. The ride itself has rolling climbs to the turnaround and the return ride is always a bit quicker. Neither of us had practiced the best fueling strategy and a stop at the last Gas Station on the way home to share a fully leaded ice cold coke got us up the last climb and I even snagged a couple of Strava PRs on the way home. There are so many cyclists in the area that it will be a cold day in hell when I get a KOM on anything that doesn’t start on my driveway! GC Data.

 
Other notable items of the week.

• I actually started my Core workout sessions, I am trying for four sessions per week…trying!
• I passed the 1000 mile mark for the year on Thursday, after the weekend I am at 1128 miles, I am on target for a 550-600 mile month which is my biggest ever on the bike
• My super-duper Bontrager shoes are heading back to the store…malfunctioning ratchet strap is the cause!

So the Weekly/Total Training totals are looking like this;

Onwards…

Knighthood Training Week 5

Another week and another 125ish miles in the bank. Nothing super special to report on this weeks’ worth of training. Mid 120’s seems to be the ball park for the 7 hours of training, I would like to get the weekly mileage up to the 150 range and hopefully now that the clocks have gone forward a day’s commute will add another 28 miles (14 miles each way) and obviously adding two commutes a week adds another 28 and that pushes me closer to the 200 mark. I am conscious of just adding junk miles to the plan but fortunately the rides to and from work both have around a 1000’ of elevation, these are the profiles from Strava.

Off to work!

Homeward bound!

The same as last week all five of this week’s rides were trainer based, despite the weather being perfect, albeit a bit windy on Saturday, sometimes you just have to workout in the garage. This was how the week shook out ridewise;

Monday; Off. Check!

Tuesday; Eisen. Legs felt sluggish out of the gate on this one and even though the intervals were short I struggled. 10x2-minute largely aerobic efforts at 107% FTP with 4 standing neuromuscular bursts at 150-200% FTP lasting 6 seconds each. Recoveries between intervals are just about 5 minutes long. GC data.

Wednesday; Black. Nothing to see here...except my awesome socks! More on the socks to follow 1 hour of aerobic endurance ranging from 50-80% FTP. Keep your watts more toward the middle of this wide wattage range as riding toward the top of the range will turn this into a more intense, and probably shorter, Tempo effort. GC data.

Thursday; Trojan. This was hard, three rides and three 5:30am starts catching up with me! PM dropped during interval 4? 6x10-minute intervals @ 95-99% FTP with 5-second neuromuscular bursts between 150-180% FTP. Recoveries between intervals are 3 minutes long. GC data.

Friday; Off! TGIF!

Saturday; Free ride, I chose Colloseum.. 90 minutes of aerobic endurance ranging from 50-80% FTP. GC data.

Sunday; Siliman. Felt easier than last time although that could have been due to it being on a different day. Same mileage for the ride but my IF was a fraction lower. Ave HR the same and Ave P 2w lower and TSS lower by <4. Just better rested maybe or adapting more? GC data.

I am hoping to add a bit of running this week as cross training, nothing too fancy but just to try and shed those pounds that I need to get off to get the new kit! To aid in this the good folks at Saucony sent me the Mirage 4 and Virrata 2 shoes to review and a pair of the Peregrine 4’s are on their way as well!

 

What can I say…I like red shoes!

I also picked up Tom Danielson’s Core Advantage: Core Strength for Cycling's Winning Edge and I will be incorporating his suggested routines. Just to make it interesting the folks from VeloPress are going to send me Quick Strength for Runners 8 Weeks to a Better Runner's Body and I will be mixing and matching the exercises for the next month to see what happens. Not a bad idea long term as I shift back to Triathlon training in another 5 weeks or so to ramp up for Vineman!

I am also play with a new feature in SportTracks Mobi called Training Load…more on this to follow to! Holy crap it’s nearly Summer…well not really but the year is flying by already, only four weeks left to the L’Etape and six weeks to my Knighthood attempt!

Knighthood Training Week 4 (halfway through the plan)

Week 4 and to use a well-worn cricket phrase “Rain stopped play”! well not really but it was five out of five on the trainer. California took a beating this weekend with two storms raining through. This was the first week since starting the plan that I have ridden all 5 prescribed rides. Here is how it shook out;

Monday off; check! Felt like I was coming down with something!

Tuesday; Cirque. I was not feeling the love this morning, had a sore throat yesterday and a scratchy one this morning but it will only get worse so better to get the workout in early. Was barely hanging on at the end for the last 2 sets. 7 sets of high-power repeats lasting 15-45 seconds ranging from 120% to 150% FTP with very brief, 15 to 45-second rest periods during each set; slightly over 5 minutes of rest between sets of repeats. GC data.

Wednesday ; Pyramidal. Throat felt better. Nice spin, very happy to see that I can keep the intensity dialed back and still have a pretty good MPH. Getting closer to the average 20mph. Warm up then 40 minutes of Tempo with varying intensity every 5 minutes, cool down. GC data.

Thursday; Miter. This one really really ripped me a new one, between having a head full of snot as the cold poured out of me and tired legs I just couldn't get the pace up so I ground through this as good low cadence standing hill work, ran out of gears at the 230w mark! Miter utilizes 3 sets of 2x10min Criss-Cross intervals @ 95-99% FTP during the 2-minute valleys & 105-110% FTP during the 30-second surges as each interval criss-crosses your FTP. 1 minute of recovery separates the intervals and 5 minutes of recovery separate the 2 sets. GC data.

Friday; beer me! Runny nose, sore throat thing on its way out too!

Saturday; Silliman. After a day off this was manageable, hitting the highs on the middle set was a challenge (140%ftp) 3x15-minute sets of 1 minute On/1 minute Off where the On-segments are spent at 120, 130 or 115% FTP and the Off-segments are spent at 40% FTP. Rest between sets of intervals is 10 minutes. GC data.

Sunday; McAdie. Wasn't sure how this was going to go given the lack of recovery time from yesterday but all in all it went pretty good! 4x12-minute Over-Under intervals alternating between 2 minutes @ 95% FTP & 1 minute @ 105% FTP with 6-minute recoveries between intervals. GC data

In terms of mileage the week and the accumulation looks like this;

So a pretty solid first four weeks (of eight). My thoughts on the plan are as follows;

There is a lot of interval work, when I say a lot I mean a lot! Four out of the five rides from last week were intervals. This is no surprise at the description of the Plan from the TrainerRoad Website states;

“This is very similar to the Intermediate Build I training plan, but each weekday workout has been extended to 90 minutes with approximately 50% higher stress (TSS). Additionally, the weekends now offer an extra intervals workout in place of an endurance/tempo ride.

These are big doses of stress, maybe too big for less experienced or tired riders, so proceed with caution and choose the corresponding 60-minute version (or Base/Tempo alternative on weekend rides) of each weekday workout from the Intermediate Build I training plan when necessary.

These workouts can also be done where weekday workouts are indoors and weekend workouts are outdoors.  Just take the same workout structure and bring it outdoors.  For the weekend free rides, replace the 90 minute free rides with 2-3 hour rides on the type of courses that are described in the plan.”

As a reminder Training Stress Score® (TSS®) is a way of expressing the workload from a training session. It is the product of the workout’s intensity and duration. As either of these increases, TSS also increases. The formula for TSS is: TSS = (sec x NP® x IF®)/(FTP x 3600) x 100.

If you look at my TSS score from Training Peaks, the people who invented the term, the workload over that last four week has been;

Note the preceding two week were the Tour of Sufferlandria which at the time seemed tough! The TrainerRoad workouts are longer. Four of five TrainerRoad rides each week are 90 minutes compared the average day in the Tour which was 72 minutes.

So overall the intensity of training is high but that works well for me when I have limited time I want to minimize the junk miles, and intervals help do this.

I am struck by the similarities of this plan and the this and the FIRST plan which I have used successfully for 10k, HM and Marathon training, both are high intensity and highly structured. These appeal to me and I like the “do this…get that” type of philosophy when it come to training, you know you put the investment in and you get to withdraw the benefits!

Overall I am feeling stronger though and my endurance is increasing, physically there are some adaptations happening. What I need to work on now is dropping some weight. This morning I weighed in at 177lb, I would like to be sub 170 by the time the L’Etape du California on April 6th…ack only 5 weeks!

 

I have another 4 weeks on the plan to go which include a FTP test in 2 weeks. I am feeling pretty confident that at the end of it I will have an increase in my Threshold and bee a good place to deal with 10 hours or so of Sufferfests!

February summary

A quick end of the month round up, this is only quick as I want to do a “halfway through the plan” post next week. No surprises it’s cycling heavy. It included that the last day of the Tour of Sufferlandria and a couple of runs; one trail and one Brick for the The Sufferfest Chrysalis Review. The Annual totals reflect taking two weeks off in January post bike crash and the shift from Triathlon Training to Bike training which explains the drop in running and swimming this month. So the totals;

February Totals

• 24 bikes; 462.45 miles in 28:33:39
• 2 runs; 9.84 miles in 1:37:35
• Total; 472.30 in 30:11:14

Annual total

• 40 bikes; 745.53 miles in 45:20:06
• 4 runs – 17.18 miles in 2:39:42
• 2 swims – 2.06 miles in 1:21:57
• Total – 764.77 miles in 49:21:45

As you can nothing too onerous…I am sure based on the plan that March will be much the same albeit with 2-3 extra rides as the month is a bit longer!

Once the weather clears up I should be out on the roads a bit more, until then I am on the trainer!

Knighthood Training Week 3

Week 3 completed with a little shuffling mostly due to a complete fail to get out of bed on Tuesday morning…hey I am only human!

This week was also a test week on a new pair of shoes. I have the devil’s own job finding cycling shoes. For the last two years I have been using my Time Ulteam Tri shoes which I wear with no socks and as a result of 1000’s of miles they have taken on a very distinct odor of their own! Added to which our dog decided to have a bit of a chew on them! They are now discontinued but I did manage to get one of the last pairs I could find online as a reserve pair for racing. But I have been looking for road shoes to wear with socks for months and last weekend I was able to get a pair of 2013 Bontrager RXL Road shoes 50% at a LBS sale! So on with the week!

Monday; off, rinse and repeat, every Monday if off!

Tuesday; aforementioned fail!

Wednesday; Taylor. I just pushed the whole week back one day. Tuesday became Wednesday, Wednesday became Thursday and so on. The carried over day off showed with an extra 1.5 miles over this ride last week! 3x20-minute sets of 30-second Billats @ 120% FTP where the recovery intervals match the work intervals with 30 seconds of rest between each Billat and 7 minutes of recovery between the sets of Billats. I totally misread the plan though and today should have been a different ride altogether…oops! GC Data.

Thursday; Black. Easy ride, nothing to see here. 1 hour of aerobic endurance ranging from 50-80% FTP. GC Data.

Friday; Thor. This seemed appropriate enough as my bike’s name is Thor, after Thor Hushovd, we have the same bike!

Left foot/leg was a bit crampy. This was a tough one, micro sprints really tough to get up to in short time, macro intervals very doable! A massive 8 sets of 3x12-second sprints at 200% FTP followed closely by a slightly suprathreshold 4-minute effort at 105% FTP. Rest following the sprints is minimal and won’t allow complete recovery while rest between Sprintervals is 3 minutes long with the intention of allowing just enough rest to effectively repeat these challenging sets. Sprintervals aim to increase fiber recruitment via short, powerful, pre-interval sprints such that the subsequent intervals feel more manageable as a result of more muscle activity. GC Data.

Saturday; Emerson. This is the second time I have ridden this, this time felt easier than last time but a lot of work nonetheless. PM started dropping out during last interval? I moved cleat back on left shoe 2mm and it was much more comfortable than yesterday. 5x10min intervals spent slightly above or slightly below FT (3U/2O); with 5 minutes rest between intervals (RBI). 5x10-minute Over-Under intervals alternating between 3 minutes @ 95% FTP & 2 minutes @ 105% FTP with 5-minute recoveries between intervals. GC Data.

Sunday; in much the same way as last weekend this was another recon of the L’Etape du California route which was finally announced as 4 laps of “Rock Store” a 21 mile circuit. Here are some great photos from 2010 when it was last used.

It’s not really a surprise but it’s nice to have final confirmation. So the goal of this ride was to complete 2 Rock Store climbs. For those not familiar Rock Store is a local favorite ride in the Santa Monica Mountains named after the biker café at the bottom of it. Now depending on “exactly” where you measure the start it is essentially a 2-2.7 mile climb, the elevation gain over is about 900’ and the grade varies from 3-9% with the majority of it at 7-8%.

For the L’Etape we have to ride four loops for 81 miles but today we wanted to focus on the actual climbing section. We had agreed to cut the first loop short but taking a short cut back down to the start of the climb. I rode the first climb hard. The second one I eased off and tried to sit into it more!

Of course the joy of Strava, especially on a popular segment, is the data overload;

As you can see above there are 8 segments that I can use for this climb, of course the key is consistency so I am using the longest one “Rockstore (store to top) 2.6 miles, 905’ gain, 7% grade. I have ridden it only 4 times, three in the last two weeks.

But I am getting better! Of note the difference between hard and sitting in is only 16 seconds! GC Data. Here are the weeks digits!

Here are a couple of photo’s from the day…none of me though! Becca needs to work on that I think!

 

A Badass Kitten and a Bactrian Camel…carefully they both spit!

So that was the week…onwards to Week 4!