TrainerRoad - STW approved sessions

It's hell and I dread it.

Sounds about the right level 🙂

Well I tried Gould last night and it wasn't great. Previous week was supposed to be a rest week but due to a combination of circumstances (sweamrs changing rotation) ended up riding 3 days outside so my rest week TSS was over 600.

Suffice to say felt all that last night and really struggled with motivation. Still 12 weeks to my key race (BCBR) and wondering if I'm going to keep it up the whole time. Respect to people who manage a whole Base;Build;Spesh plan)

To my mind unless an session is "recovery" it should be painful. A few years ago I did a Lactate Ramp test at a local sports lab. At the end as I lay on the floor shaking from head to toe the coach said to me "You'll do well; you can suffer"

Yes. After my 30sec sprints the lactic was so painful trying to stay just under FTP I considered stopping each time, and really had to grit my teeth through it.

I too often wonder mostly during sweet spot intervals that I'm not trying hard enough, but I tend to end up more feeling sick/wobbly legged during VO2 max tbh.

Yesterday I had to wait a few minutes before my legs stopped wobbling enough for me to dismount.

As we all like numbers, here's the data from Mat Hayman's Paris Roubaix winning ride...

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/power-analysis-mathew-hayman-s-victory-at-paris-roubaix

All gone very quiet here. Everyone out enjoying the sunshine?

Had the summer bike out today for a shameless bit of KOM poaching 8)

Had to turbo last night after three days away, longest riding break in months, and legs felt bloody awful. Really heavy and sluggish. Thankfully back up to speed now 🙂

I've still not got a turbo bike setup since we were burglarised.

Have ridden outside though. Outrageously slowly, but hey!

Have ridden outside though. Outrageously slowly, but hey!

Good work! Only going to get quicker 😀

I was pleased to be maintaining over 20 for a bit, until I remembered that my Garmin is set to show kilometres, not miles...

Doing some TR stuff the last week - put the TT bike on and trying to figure out the position. Feels pretty awful, tbh - the idea of holding it for even a ten seems out of the question right now. Noticing some slight improvements, though, so just need to keep going with it.

Some of the latter sessions on sweetspot base II look quite intense - big blocks of threshold work. Leconte and Lamarck, for example - be tackling them in the next couple of weeks.

Well I'm having a bit of a rubbish week. Dislocated thumb on an innocuous climb on Wednesday and possible broken wrist. So back to the turbo it is with 12 weeks to BC Bike race.

Looking through potential workouts to simulate my outdoor rides and I came across the 8DC (not even sure what that stands for) rides which look to have a bit more variety in them than just sitting at x% of ftp for hours...

Anybody tried them? Wondering about doing a couple of them back to back on the weekend to simulate the 4hour mtb ride sweamrs will now be doing without me.. 👿

I'm still slogging away , finally in to 'specialism' next week . Still snow on the ground here in some parts so still feel inside is good training

Garry, turbo in TT position can feel absolutely horrid. Loads of threads about it over on the time trial forum. Mostly down to the turbo. I've only recently sorted out a turbo that I can do TT position work on, the old mag turbo I had was tortuous.

Having searched the blog it's 8 days of California and the idea is to do it 8 consecutive days...

So I'm going to wait until I know if I have a broken wrist (x-ray on Monday). If I do then I suspect this might be in my future. I'm at week 6 of General build so I think I'll switch to high volume for this week to make up for not being on the bike (and probably next week); then rest; then ftp test then 8 days of California... then rest then hopefully the cast will nearly be off.

mrblobby - Member

Garry, turbo in TT position can feel absolutely horrid. Loads of threads about it over on the time trial forum. Mostly down to the turbo. I've only recently sorted out a turbo that I can do TT position work on, the old mag turbo I had was tortuous.

Garry, have a browse through these threads...

http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=104861
http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=109277
http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=50038

Lots of good info there.

Most of the time the answer is to get a LeMond 🙂

Garry, turbo in TT position

I'm new to TT'ing and having spent up to 40 mins of TR sessions in the position, i found it - the position - surprisingly easy out on the road during my first TT.

I have my first 10 tonight at Hillingdon so those words may come to bite me!

Best of luck Kryton.

Really does depend on individual, your position, and your turbo. My old mag one I couldn't sustain my race power for more than a few minutes, with the LeMond I can get much closer to replicating a race effort and duration. It's mostly about the inertia and KE of the turbo. I think often an very closed TT position will make it difficult to push through the dead spots in the pedal stroke. Not much of a problem when racing but on a low inertia / KE turbo that can make it very hard.

Tapering for weekend after next - normal 5x15m Z4 down to 2x20m Z4. Fresh legs midweek feels as if I'm cheating.

Good luck Kryton! What a beautiful day it is. I've had yesterday and today off looking after the kids. I love a sunny day at this time of year.

Had a couple of weeks off myself focusing on getting outside. My first 10 of the year tomorrow. We should have a separate tt thread. One where we can show of our trainerroad improvements and "budget" cervelos

🙂 Are you referring to me?

Out for a lunchtime spin, nice day but there'll be quite a headwind if you are have a west to east leg on your TT tonight. I'm gatecrashing another local club 10 tomorrow.

So I've never spent more than 90 minutes on the turbo but Friday I'm looking at 2hours 45minutes. Hints and tips for surviving that kind of duration much appreciated....

Unexpectedly did my first 23mile hilly TT off the back of a winter of training for road racing. On paper it should have been awful, power meter died, I was late with no time for a warm up, on a standard road bike… In reality I was very surprised to pace it well going off feel, pretty much even lap split, 2mins faster than my target time and good enough to take 1st woman by 4mins (2nd lady was on a tt bike). Got a 25m hilly tt this weekend, worried I’m getting into it having sworn I never would...

Nice work dgoab! It is curiously addictive.

Best of luck to those racing tonight. Don't forget a headwind leg is definitely not all about smashing it! Just get tucked in and be as aero as possible, don't worry too much if the power is a bit down.

Not been using TR in ages, been focussing on outside stuff as cant fit mtb on turbo and its light enough to train outside. THinking about suspending TR for a while I'm right in thinking it stores all your data so you can re-activate account?

Figure might not use it till septmeber.

Good luck for the TTs

I'm right in thinking it stores all your data so you can re-activate account?

I last used TrainerRoad in 2013 and all my data was still there when I reactivated my account this January

Just abandoned a session due to yesterday's squats and bike ride plus a stinking cold . Tried at 90% but I'm now resting in the bed reading singletrack

It's the turbo for me tonight. Really can't be arsed. For anyone else of a similar disposition...

I find myself in a Premier Inn in Dorchester . No, I didn't bring the turbo, but luckily it coincides with a Week 4.

Well last week got the summer race bike out, a few nice rides, even got my legs out for a couple. Winter bike with guards back out for the weekend. And last night it was back on the turbo. Cold, wind and snow down south today so looks like turbo again 🙁

The old garage is warming up a bit now and my Dyson fan that did nicely in the winter is struggling. Any recommendations for something powerful with a remote control?

I've seen picture of some that sit on the floor in front of the bike and angle up at the rider which look like a good idea.

I have a couple of [url= http://www.screwfix.com/p/fe45-h1-18-high-velocity-floor-fan-220-240v/54056 ]these screwfix ones[/url].

Remote control? Belkin Wemo switch to control from your phone?

I bought one [url= http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Black-FAN-16-40-cm-Pedestal-Fan-55W-Remote-Control-3-Speed-7-5-Hour-Timer-/141636682111 ]of these[/url]recently from ebay - 40 quid with a remote control.
It works great, level 1 is easily enough airflow, oscillates - bit rinky-dink, though, really basic quality so don't know how long it will last.

Makes quite a difference!

Only 55 watts 🙂

Handy, thanks.

I've got 2 Honywell HT-900 Turbo fans running on mid-speed. It's pretty noisy but not ridiculous and they certainly seem to shift a lot of air..... They aren't remote but I just turn them on and leave them.

So my workout for Saturday is "Broken finger". The last workout of the general build. Looking at it in detail this is Kern (3 sets of VO2 max intervals) followed by some over-unders.

I did Kern on Tuesday and is was one of the hardest workouts I've done with me lying on the floor afterwards and feeling sick for ~ 1hour. There was no way I could have managed some over-unders afterwards.

Do people think it's better to dial the % down and finish the workout or try it and know I might be bailing after the VO2 max part? Or do Kern again and find some over-unders to do the following day?

Broken finger

125 TSS in 90 mins, that's going to be hard!

I'd just give it a try and see how it goes. You could always skip one or two of the O/U if you're legs are done.

TBH Kern on its own looks pretty tough but it's an hour at 0.94 IF so shouldn't really be leaving you dying on the floor. I'd guess your power above threshold needs a bit of work (just because two people come out of an FTP test with the same number, doesn't mean they'll both have the same capacity for work at 115% of that value.) So maybe it might be worth knocking it down a few percentage points while you do these sorts of intervals.

I agree on power above threshold needing work and I think I'm going to do parts of the short power build at some point. I really notice when riding with a few friends that while we all have roughly the same w/kg they are much better at punchy climbs or pulling away with a quick burst of power...

Just to echo the above post, due to moving house and getting sick my build training suffered a little. lots of little breaks here and there.

Anyhow I'm now on to specialism and finding , for example, the last interval of 3 to be very tough. I am hitting the power output but not holding it. The frst two intervals i can complete, all be it slightly under the requirement on the 2nd interval.

Should I dial down the whole workout a few % rdo the intervals i can then drop it right down to complete the third interval? or just do the best i can for all three?

Thanks in advance.

Should I dial down the whole workout a few % rdo the intervals i can then drop it right down to complete the third interval? or just do the best i can for all three?

Dropping it right down may mean not being 'in zone' which negates the benefit.

Generally better to do the first intervals at the power you can hold for the last. If this takes you below the desired zone drop the number of intervals or reduce the non interval section.

Been using TR for a while now and reading this thread on and off.

Just thought I'd pop up to say has anyone seen the new programme stuff? You can now track your workouts against a programme and it'll tick them off as you do them.

Dropping it right down may mean not being 'in zone' which negates the benefit.

Generally better to do the first intervals at the power you can hold for the last. If this takes you below the desired zone drop the number of intervals or reduce the non interval section.

Ok so start as i mean to go on. Reduce the percentage of the whole workout from the beginning and complete all the intervals at the recommended power etc.

Then i suppose go up 1 % after a workout of two until back at 100%?

At this point I have to own up to not actually using TR so can't help on that bit. The targets for my own intervals are based on a loose triangulation of how I feel, what I've done and how much pain I feel I can cope with. I'm not willing to hand that over to an algarythm. I do try and stick to a principle of never give up which means if I overdo it I will do the last intervals at reduced power rather than give up. From a training point of view giving up might be better but for me it's a mental mindset I don't want to start.

Sure , appreciate that. I don't give up on the last interval section , I still do it as hard as I can , but the power output is perhaps 25w under the goal.