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I'm terrible at sweetspot anyway, partly down to my old dumb trainer, doing sweetspot power requires an uncomfortably low cadence in one gear, or a silly high cadence in the next gear lower. So I end up just pushing a higher power than necessary to sit at a happy cadence! Weird...
@13thfloormonk I doubt your outdoor rides will be at sweetspot - but just because you can't do intensity for 1-3 days after dosn't mean its a bad way to train in IMO. Proper intense workouts are once or twice a week for me (in my 50's) and I generally have a rest day before.
@Whitestone - report back on the polarised TR plan. As I said earlier I decided that the TR format did not suit me. I seem to be doing much better (in terms of training accomplished, not results) with XERT.
@Kryton57 - I have a similar issue. Find it hard to do threshold workouts outdoors, much easier for me to be focussed when on the trainer. Possibly on outdoor group rides I'm guilty of saving a bit. But all the same threshold feels less sustainable outdoors for some reason. Perhaps its the more variable conditions.
As for breathing, one of the best things that I learnt from a few years martial arts training is breathing properly, it really helped me with cycling too. But that was in through the nose and out through the mouth. Interesting article 👍
The rails have come off my training also. I was always planning on have a rest week but I ended up taking this a week earlier than planned due to a generally feeling of fatigue. I'm also skipping the rollers/turbo in favour of riding outdoors, this riding is ridden purely on feel. I'd like to think I'm mostly sitting on zone 2 with a few short sharp efforts thrown in for fun.
It's all riding though, so better than sitting watching the telly 🤷
I think you can have miles that are quality for one person and junk for another too which makes for a woolly definition.
My current focus is building towards two days with 15hrs riding each day. My long rides are probably junk to most XC racers. But not to me as I condition myself to eat, ride and drink towards that sort of duration. The physical fitness and speed are already there, the mental game, physical comfort on the saddle, bike handling and nutritional tactics are the parts that most need work.
There’s still hard fast efforts, but they are not the focus.
I have a similar issue. Find it hard to do threshold workouts outdoors, much easier for me to be focussed when on the trainer. Possibly on outdoor group rides I’m guilty of saving a bit. But all the same threshold feels less sustainable outdoors for some reason. Perhaps its the more variable conditions.
I've just raced and spent 2h 20m in my threshold HR zone. I'm tired...
@whitestone for the TR outside workouts which Garmin are you using?
I have an edge 520 and as I don't have a PM will be using RPE but I could do with a screen that tells me what power I should be aiming at for the interval but cant seem to do anything. How do you remember what the interval should be?
Having to put some notes on the stem seems to defeat the point as it basically just becomes a fancy stop watch then. Power at least gives me an indication of what I should be doing relative to RPE
After nine weeks of structured (less so the last couple of weeks as the weather has been too good to sit in the garage on the rollers/turbo) training, my legs have started to feel good 😁👌
Went for an hours spin last night and could feel my legs just wanting to go fast, it is a truly great feeling. I'm going to make a concerted effort this winter to try and keep my weight down and my fitness up as it's getting harder for me to regain fitness after each glutinous Christmas now I'm in my forties.
Happy days! Just need to lose 5-6kg now 😭
@robbo1234biking - I've a 520 as well. There's a TR article where they go through the fields to set up for outdoor workouts but obviously it's aimed at a power meter setup. I set up a separate activity profile for this. One of the screens is a Garmin default one that has a "thermometer" style scale - green in the middle, then orange then red. I don't remember setting that up so not sure where it came from. Main problem for me is that the text is so small I can't read it without my glasses.
If you select RPE rather than power for the outside workout you get a message popping up saying "ride at RPE 7 for ten minutes" or whatever at the start of each interval. Obviously you have to have some idea of what those levels feel like. I've an endurance ride on Thursday, I'll set it up for RPE not power and report back.
What's surprising is just how hard it is to keep the power down to low levels when you are doing one of the endurance workouts - anything over say a 5% grade and you are just crawling along!
Does riding out of the saddle help to keep the heart rate down when climbing on endurance rides?
Thanks Whitestone - will give it a go and see what happens. Only one 5 minute hill on the route so if the HR goes up a bit for that it isn't going to kill the purpose of the work.
@didnthurt for me personally my HR would increase if I were to stand as more of the body is being used not just the legs (more of the core and upper body becomes engaged).
Tried my first outdoor ride last night with TR. Worked well. I used RPE and kept the heart rate down for the most part. I did the flattest circular route I can locally and got 210m of climbing so didn't attack the hills but didn't worry about crawling up them. This had a couple of 20 seconds sprints in which I got done. I had to cycle the end of some of the intervals to do them on a sensible place on the road but just used the lap button for that. Overall it worked well for that type of workout.
Bagged my first Strava KOM (actually got 2 and a top 3) last night so my fitness must be on up. The trails being bone dry along with a lack of wind obviously wouldn't have hindered my efforts.
Frustrating days racing on Sunday. For perspective this is a slow course. The winner was around 20 minutes, someone who would be looking at 18 on a fast course.
I knew I wasn't in great form from the feelings I got through the week. I did 24 minutes on a standard road bike. Its left me feeling quite negative, it wasn't where I thought I would be and nowhere near where I wanted to be, about a minute off my PB and languishing in mid table mediocrity when I normally expect to be on the road podium (I won something like 7 events in 2019)
Preparation wasn't amazing. Hard ride on Thu, 10 mile hill walk the day before but that is fairly normal for me - I used to be able to double up CX races over a weekend and hold my own.
I followed the same pacing plan I have in the past. I know the course and the speed I need to do. So off the line I wound it up and settled down at the right pace. I've no power meter but my legs felt empty, it just felt like I couldn't press on and keep the speed up. My heart rate was where it would be from experience, threshold, 170ish bpm (max of 180ish).
So what's gone wrong. I'm fit, I've done mega miles since January but generally following the same patterns I always have. The only exception is racing days having not pinned a number on since the end of the 2019 CX season. My power on the turbo is better than in previous years and everything suggests I should be flying. I'm thinking one of two things. A fortnight ago I had a very heavy 10 days riding racking a strava RSS of close to 2000 when normally I would be 7-800. In the past on training camps, 2 weeks would normally see me peaking.
Would it really take that long to recover? There's a possibility of underlying illness but that seems unlikely given I'm still hardly seeing people outside a small group outside.
Diet has been well off. Felt tired, craved sugar and caffeine although I put this down in part to spending all day on Teams at home.
I think the answer is rest in any case. Work and personal stuff is going to conspire against my riding for the next two weeks so I will take it as a blessing. See what I feel like after that.
Not at your level but I had exactly the same experience at my first Gorrick (MTB) a few weeks ago. For me we've pinned it on not enough Z4/5 work as I struggle at Z5 anyway and everyone rode the 3hr race like it was a 1hr XCO.
A few sharper workouts and I was better at the last one although coming 17th/21 I matched my September '20 pace on the same course where I came 7th, so was just outgunned by the field.
I'm worried about falling into the trap of pushing on harder after a bad performance. Part of me thinks the answer is to double down and work on top end. But that's also the route to long term overtraining fatigue.
If it helps, I'm tired and have a lot of "work TSS" at the moment. There's another Garrick next weekend and I'm doing only the following after 2hrs MTB and 4hrs Road "free" this weekend:
Tonight - 35 mins including 8 x 40s Z5 at low cadence 50RPM
Wednesday - 30 mins including 1 x 5 mins
Thursday - a 35 min pre-race - 1 x 5 min at Z4, 2 x 1 min at Z5, the rest Z2 with an extended 15 min Z1 recovery
Friday - rest.
Saturday - Race.
I usually do the pre race the day before but am experimenting with an extended rest period to see if it helps.
At then of the day, I figure if I matched my prior performance early in this year and rode 3hrs at threshold, then thats likely all I've got - I can't help who else turns up on the day. I have all the Build to go for a June, July and August races.
.
Racing has its ups & downs doesn't it? Having completed the three 3h Gorrick races always finishing at the back of category:
Round 1 - was a mess for me. I hadn't spent enough time on the MTB and was all over the shop, and was not "race fit". I suffered and came away disappointed.
Round 2 - did all the prior training on my MTB and was much better technically. but the course was tough on me - training for Marathons and long climbs it was 3hrs of short and punchy, I missed the cut off for the last lap by 3 mins, but thought I'd raced to my ability otherwise.
Round 2 - I felt so much at one with he bike I didn't even think about it. Got the final lap in, felt consistent throughout but still missing my top end and again thought I'd raced well otherwise.
Then this morning I compared my lap times for Saturdays race; If I'd have raced on Sunday, I would have been top 10 in every single category including 1.5hrs.
FFS! Turns out Saturday afternoon rounds are full of hitters.
Great experience though and good to be in the mix again. Back now to training for the Southern XC Marathon and Pivot 12hr.
Thought rd3's course was really nice. Lots of fun sections, decent climbs and places where you could actually drink/eat!
Came in about 30 secs after the cut, frustrating but....
FFS! Turns out Saturday afternoon rounds are full of hitters.
I did the same series Kryton & pretty much agree with all you say! Felt brutally fast for a 3hr race..
Yeah its a brutal course but Rd was better. Im slowly learning to judge my results by personal performance not places, so im happy with this.
The Southern xc Marathon will be interesting for me as my base endurance/muscular endurance is clearly up, so with lots of z3/4 and weekend marathon simulations coming up before topping of the top end prior to the races i think im a good place.
Just waiting for a Stages crank to arrive as clearly training on the MTB helps, and it'll be good for post race analysis.
But before all that, a kind of taper leading to an ftp test next week - eek!
Yep, Southern XC marathon for me too & then possibly exposure followed by definitely Torq in your sleep. Might do a Southern XC round to see what the setup is like. I've alyssa enjoyed the Gorrick but if it's always going to the same venue that might get a bit boring after a while..
I did my FTP last w/e - bleuurrgghhh....HATE THEM.
A question for you folks with a bit more training experience. I had a good few months of winter training on the turbo and maintained my ftp which usually falls before I start ‘proper’ training ie; more work and longer outdoor rides but....work has gone mad as we come out of lockdown so I’m arriving home totally knackered, add a 5 month old Kelpie dog thatcneeds walking and lots of attention and my riding has been about 1.5 hours per week since Mid March. I have done few sweet spot sessions at my ftp and although I managed them I’m concerned I’m going to dig a fatigue hole for myself. I’m 54y.o and have noticed I have to be careful with training load to avoid this. Should I retest ( I really hate ramp tests) or just knock my ftp down a couple of %. I’m was hoping for TR adaptive training beta which sounds like it will adjust things for me. Any thoughts gratefully received.....writing it down I kind of realise I know what to do but still interested in your thoughts. Thanks
I much prefer to do a 16Km+ Tempus Fugit TT on Zwift and use the final 20mins, rather than ramp test, which always give me inflated figures in comparison.
Sounds like you need to test again for accuracy - if you’re so inclined!
You can do a number of different tests. 1x20, 2x8, 4DP & of course 1x60. The gold standard is the 1x60 but I know relatively few who’ve ever even done it TBH.
Personally I think the best is 1x20, but I get similar numbers on a 2x8 - sometimes..
I’ve not Sufferfests 4DP but the theory makes sense.
Whichever you do be prepared for quite a lot of discomfort..
https://trainright.com/cts-field-test-why-eight-minutes-not-20/
https://thesufferfest.com/pages/4dp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8O46zr01Tc
My test week has start well with a 1 min test today, moving from a 477w to 508w PB - a decent improvement.
A 5 min test tomorrow, which is where my power curve goes a bit South, threshold power for me is bottom of the bell curve.
Looks like I'm going to be able to have a go at climbing the B4501 from Debigh to Llyn Brenig in a few weekend's time, which will easily be my biggest climb to date (~7 miles, ~1200 feet).
Only snag is that my first OxAZ jab on 12th April knocked me out for at least two weeks, not done an awful lot since and I'm now the heaviest I've been since Jan 2017 (~84Kg, +8 since Covid and +11 since Aug '17), when I started cycling to try and regain some fitness.
If it's not a headwind, I might stand half a chance of getting up it in ~35mins.
It just happens that it took me ~35mins to climb the Zwift Epic KOM plus the radio tower bonus climb this afternoon, pacing the main climb, to average ~270W (best for some months as I don't often attempt to find my limit beyond 30mins).
I managed 299W for the last 20mins of a Zwift TT this past week, which surprised me a bit, after how rough I felt after my jab.
For what little prep I can do over the next two weeks, would it be better to keep practicing my 35-40min pace, or would there be more value in doing multiple 4/8min VO2 max intervals at ~120% FTP?
@Kryton57 @mrlebowski I did the Gorricks too
Pity you were not doing the Day 1 AM Kryton, then we could've both been at the back together 🙂
I only managed to get in top 10 for round 3, I think a bunch of the better people were on holiday that week 🙂
Didn't have brutal bits as such but was relentless, more like doing a 3hr time trial than a traditional MTB endurance where there tend to be some long downhills.
I need to lose weight, and train..
Any other races coming up? around London? I only found out about Gorrick by chance.
Twisty there is the Beastway series (XCO). I'm not doing it but here:
Bit of a pig to get to if your aren't nearby as the North Circ can be slow, but the M25 approach via J26/Loughton is OK.
@n0b0dy0ftheg0at - UK climbs are rarely a steady gradient. Looking at a map of your challenge there's three chevrons en-route and presumably a few that don't quite make 14% so I'd be inclined (sic) to do 4min VO2max intervals with a view to improving recovery so either 1:1 or 2:1 effort:recovery.
My polarised plan is going quite well - it's actually pretty easy to follow at this time of year as you can used the weekends to get long Z1/2 rides done so you just need to find 90mins or so twice during the week. Wednesday's workout was a bit of a technological "how not to ...", the power meter battery warning came on five minutes into the ride and my Garmin then stated that its memory was full so didn't record the whole ride. The workout consisted of 9x2min VO2max intervals. Fortunately the timer functionality still worked so even though the PM conked out after the third interval I knew where to ride to on the hill to get the right figures.
Today's workout was better: new battery and a cleaned out Garmin. 4x16mins at threshold! There's a local hill that takes me 14-15mins so that's close enough. My times for the first three laps were within 15secs of each other but I faded a bit on the last and lost 30secs. I was also a bit over threshold (the hill has ramps of 16-20% so hard to keep an even effort) and my average power figures were 105%, 106%, 105% & 103%. I did enough of an effort at one point that Intervals.icu bumped my FTP by 7 Watts. Their estimate has continually been lower than what I've tested using the Ramp Test so it's possible I'd be higher on that as well.
Thanks @whitestone , will endevour to try 4min intervals over the weekend, my legs were still a bit sore from ~150TSS yesterday so I went with https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/less-than-30-minutes-to-burn/lactate-shuttle-short (mainly 1min VO2) tonight and then added the odd z4/5 effort on the remaining inclines up to the radio tower and back to Watopia base.
Any other races coming up? around London? I only found out about Gorrick by chance.
Not that many around London, as well as Gorrick there’s https://eventrexuk.com/mountain-biking/ in the SE.
I couldn't find an instantly available workout on Zwift that did 4mins VO2 intervals and trying to create a custom workout on the Surface Pro seemed impossible, because it would not bring up the virtual keyboard to change the default interval lengths.
So I went with "The Gorby," 5x5mins VO2 with 5min rests yesterday afternoon, https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/less-than-60-minutes-to-burn/the-gorby ... Brutal after a work shift and having done z4/5 intervals on Thurs and Fri, this morning the legs are the sorest they've been in some months... I expect today might be a pootle on the hybrid in the granny ring at best! 😆
5x5? At what % of VO2max power? Whatever it is that can’t be pleasant!
Does anyone know, I read twice yesterday that a 20 min test can result in better power using a lower than usual cadence, shifting effort to quads and glutes rather than the cardio system?
Details in the link, www.whatsonzwift.com breaks down the Zwift workouts as %FTP or Watts for your inputted FTP. 😉
5x5 @ 110% FTP
I've ever done The Gorby once before and that was 3 years ago, it was a lot more unpleasant than I expected, but I've had three days heavy training load by my own standards compared to the last ~15 months. I'm at 558 Strava "Relative Effort" this week after averaging ~200 for the previous three weeks after the OxAZ first jab hit me for six, when I'd typically do approx 400-500 (as a mix of 3 shifts of delivering mail by foot, cycle commuting, plus other cycling including turbo).
Thanks for the race info.
I also like the short lactate shuffle, although I perhaps do it in a strange way - set it to 115%FTP and see how far into the final Z6 interval I can make it (not sure if I've made it half way through yet).
Soo... I'm actually going to give a zwift training plan a go..
the 12 week Build Me Up...
I'm still sticking with my FTP from when I was beasting the STW races over xmas.. 301W..
I suspect it's too high, and i'm more likely down at 280ish.
But..i did the 'zone benchmarking' workout this am, and it felt pretty bang on...
My main issue will be time - fitting it all in...
I think i'll likely do another FTP test in a few weeks..but again..time!!
DrP
There's a new Southern XC round at Pip Park on the 13/6. Might be of interest to those of us doing the Vittoria the following month. I shall probably go to it to eyeball some of the ground. No doubt I'll disappear out the back somewhere between the start gun & the first 100m...
https://my.raceresult.com/169506/registration
I'm back to square one again, my consistency is down the pan due to work/house moves and injuries, so I've given up trying to get faster and am focussing on developing a core and strength routine for the next 2-3 months before CX training starts again.
Riding will just be good old fashioned sporadic and structureless, will hopefully mostly maintain on-the-bike fitness and continue to develop base, whilst sorting out whatever the hell it is that has reduced on-bike time to such a lottery of back pain.
When I am feeling good on bike am still feeling pretty good though, some proper rolling and twisting TT efforts last night resulting in some surprise KOMs, which was nice 😎
Continued experiments with nasal breathing seem positive as well, able to maintain it for longer and harder efforts and it always seems to correspond with good performances on the bike so will be a useful tool going forward, might help reduce exercise induced asthma type symptoms on the CX course although unfortunately I doubt I'll be able to nose breath at CX race intensities!
Hmm, on the recovery week at the end of the six week polarised plan so went on a local loop that includes part of the Leeds Liverpool canal for a steady ride. This was on the HT so no power meter just ride by feel and a bit by HR.
There's a 4.5km segment on Strava, my PB (Feb this year) is 10:30 and got within 30 seconds of it "without really trying". Certainly the RPE today was way lower than on my PB, say a 6 rather than 8 back in Feb, so something's working. Confession: it was harder than the intended intensity of the workout but I felt fresh. Intervals.icu gave me the same TSS for the workout as the plan prescribed so the rest must have been a bit easy!
The polarised plan fits in well with work: there's two "effort" days with the rest being Z1 (out of three) endurance which is what most of my normal riding is anyway. In truth it's only the VO2max workout - varying repeats of 2min intervals - that actually feels like a full-on workout, the threshold workout is tough but just feels like hitting the hills on a group ride.
I'm going to move on to the 8 week build plan. It's actually very similar to the 6 week one, the main difference is that the 2min intervals increase both in number and intensity. VO2max stuff is my weak point anyway so I want to keep pushing at that. I can do all the workouts outdoors as well which is a bonus at this time of year.
New Gorrick event for those interested 12/9:
Anyone racing the Mideweek MTB madness series in the North West? First round on Wednesday night. Will be the first MTB race i've done since 2018! Can't wait
There’s a new Southern XC round at Pip Park on the 13/6. Might be of interest to those of us doing the Vittoria the following month. I shall probably go to it to eyeball some of the ground. No doubt I’ll disappear out the back somewhere between the start gun & the first 100m…
I'm having my nadgers cut off the thursday before..unlikely I'll be racing!
so i've completed the first week of the 'build me up' programme, and did a session today at 0630 for this week..
It's good; i actually enjoy ahving a schedule of training to stick to.. no more 'on a whim' workouts.. I know i've got to fit in 4 sessions this week, so plan it ahead.
Ths am was hard though as had been on the fizz all weekend!
DrP