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Unfortunately I’m pretty lean above the waist! Bigger arse and legs although I don’t think I’ve much weight to lose. 43 now and while I’m not putting any on I think it’s getting harder to shift with age 😫
From my perspective it was tough.
Should have come MTBing with me, it was a nice easy ride!!
still plugging away in Z2 here, managed 6hrs this week if I don't get anything in tomorrow, nights to nights and then picking the kids up, so will be an hour tops if I do, which isn't bad considering Wednesday onwards last week during rest week I felt shocking, so 2x 2hr sessions and 2x 1hr sessions isn't a bad week, still got the odd cough, so done nothing above z2 since 9/3 which isn't ideal but I know not to much it
on a weight front, i'm down from 88kg (I'm sure it was on 26/1, although I have 83.6kg logged on 7/2) to 78.5kg this afternoon when I woke up for work, either way, a decent downward trend, and I don't think I've stepped on the scales in 15 years and the number start with a 7
Should have come MTBing with me, it was a nice easy ride!!
Sadly I need a bit of toughness now to try and get fit 🤣
Was toying with joining you for your original loop before the weather turned everything to mush I must admit. (I came off of Facebook so can see the page but can’t comment or like posts).
That’s a very decent amount of weight off - that must make a huge difference in the bike. I found just dropping from 84kgs to 77-78 ish was a game changer
that must make a huge difference in the bike
hope so, only been outdoors once this year, just snowed under with kids and uni and still working, however, in terms of time and volume, in 2021 I did 99hrs and 2022 I did 80hrs, in 2023 I'm on as of today I'm on 71hrs (with only 1hr 13m coasting apparently), and watts wise, in 2021 I did 293w for 20 mins and 2022 I did 265w for 20, which I've matched already with 266w,
so with another couple of kg off maybe, a bit of strength training, which I need to get my arse in gear and do and a bump in fitness when I add some more intensity, we might crack 4w/kg
Well done @dirtyrider that's great progress 👏🏻
I was fairly trashed after Saturday. I did an hour easy on Zwift on Sunday and at 20mins I wanted to get off. By 40 mins I was feeling better and by the hour, I wanted to carry on. But I knew it wasn't the right thing to do. Then yesterday was a recovery day and today I get to see if my body has adapted to last week's Threshold session or not.
These top end gains start expressing within days apparently, so we shall see! It may have to be on Zwift looking at the weather, but that's fine as it will make holding consistent power easier.
It's interesting looking at the other guys from Saturday's ride on my Strava feed since then. Everyone was fairly equally smashed by the end it seemed and yet some have done some impressive high intensity in the meantime.
I'll be curious to see how they fair next weekend, as I definitely needed the easy time to absorb Saturday's training stress, so my guess is that I'll improve relative to them but let's see!
Some people seem to be able to main high intensity for longer / more frequently it seems. Unless it’s ok for a bit, then they break down but you just don’t see it?
I know with 1 mtb and 2 turbos a week that I’m making progress - with an ad hoc easy endurance turbo thrown in where possible. This week is going to be different I think as I’m mid bike build so haven’t turbo’d yesterday or today and got an evening mtb tomorrow with a mate who is slower / less fit. Going to have to hit up turbo thurs / fri in a row I think.
Been plodding along at 3.7 indoors most of the winter, TTE of 45 minutes
Had a week away and managed an 18 minute effort at 4.5, best 20 from the same ride gave me 4.1 which included a stop of 1:30 at the bottom of the climb.
mFTP outdoors is now 3.9 (35 minute TTE) so hoping a solid 20 minute effort could get me over the line.
And Tuesday World Champs start tonight!
Yeah, I don't think there's evidence of more than 3 sessions of HIIT a week being better Joe (other than maybe as part of a block training program) but it just comes back to the old thing of 'easy days easy, hard days hard' to avoid everything becoming a bit meh. I want to make sure I go into Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday ready to really hurt myself for the next two weeks.
Oooo nice one @Haze Let us know how it goes 😀
There's no sign of life on our Tuesday night WhatsApp yet. We have been out as early as 04th April in years gone by but I could almost do with a few more weeks of structured training first. I find it's quite tricky to actually get good 'time in zone' on the chaingang because if I go too hard or too long on the front, I'm liable to nearly 'drop myself' by not then being able to catch back on the end of the train. I know that's probably the best bit of training on the whole ride (like an over/under) but I always end up leaving a bit in reserve to fend off hero pulls 🤣
Then West Thames starts at Hillingdon on the 14th so I may venture up and check my form (and I always find a good kicking good for the training motivation 🤣 ).
First few weeks will be the short route due to light, it gives us a chance to dust off the cobwebs and get the line working nicely.
In past years I'd only schedule one more intensity session per week, either in the form of a race or 'spritied' Sunday cafe ride ending up in a smash.
No racing for me this year so I'll probably revert to a structured session on Saturday and pad the rest of the week out with Z2, except the last half hour or so on a Sunday of course 😀
Agree with others that lots of HIIT sessions in a week is likely to do more harm than good. I know I've dug myself a hole by doing a TR low volume plan then adding on pacelines and fast club runs.
Currently on the 'experimental' polarised build plan from TR. I'm finding the endurance riding pretty challenging - in the past I've treated these as easy rides but they're definitely pushing into the tempo territory. I still prefer the HIIT sessions but it's nice to change things up a bit this year and will be interesting to see where it takes me.
Moved to a new area this year and there's some great ~4min hills right on my doorstep but I think I might need to explore a bit to find some longer stuff for later in the season.
Well that was good. I could tell I was freshening up as I felt all motivated all of a sudden!
It almost seems like I know what I'm on about too- either that or it's a placebo effect. So last week, the 4x10's went awfully bad. The average across 40mins was just 305w. But I also knew it was a shock to the system having not done any for years. Or much intensity this year. Every podcast I listened to or article I read, told me this stuff would start to get better in days- if you recover properly. (And I noticed Ed Laverack was proving it himself with some rapid jumps in Threshold fitness in a couple of short weeks).
Today had the advantage of ERG mode to help me out but the average across this weeks 4x10's was far closer to my suspected FTP of 330-340 at 334 watts! Dead chuffed with that. Now I can progress the duration and try 3x15 next week.
Reference my Saturday ride companions: one tried to do a TR Vo2 workout today (having done 3h30 yesterday and 90mins on Sunday!) and got 30mins in and bailed. Now, I'm not one to say I told you so but it did give me some motivation to post a good crisp set of successful intervals that's for sure 😉
Lol - if they’d done that intensity then tried to do a hard vo2 then sounds a bit much.
Good work on your 4x10 - sounds like you’re making progress!
In the end I’ve finished my new frame build enough that it’s bolted onto the turbo good to go - so got an hour TR vo2 ride I’m going to do shortly. Then mtb tomorrow and a sweet spot Friday. No proper weekend ride as going to watch football and the wife would be angry if I then tried to do mtb on the weekend too. May fit in another TR endurance ride Sunday if I can instead.
Need to bleed my brakes and try to get out on the road next few weeks as I’ll have new bike excitement. Don’t know what it weighs but feels light to pickup - hopefully around 8kgs.
Ah wicked, that will be ace. Nothing like NBD watts 💪🏻 😎
Plus new gp5000s on there which are supposedly quicker than the gp4000s that I’ve just taken off as the rear started to delaminate a bit and had gone rather flat on the top.
Will be interesting to see how the carbon gravel bike frame feels vs the previous alloy caad12 disc frame. It’s got a huge bb area and chainstays vs the caad so thinking perhaps it’s going to be stiffer (my previous boardman team carbon was stiffer I’d say too) but the handling will probably be a bit lazier into corners etc.
Lovely! GP5000'S are so nice they feel like cheating 🤣
I got my Diverge warranty replacement frame back today. Not sure if I prefer it to the original carbon colour but still, it's got all new bearings, futureshock cartridge and a new rear calliper so should feel nicer again for a bit.
Ooo, that looks nice. I’m not a tanwall fan but on totally black colour bikes I think they work. Got some tanwall Billy Bonkers tyres on my black bmx for that reason!
I’m getting a craving for a power meter on the Dolan - torn between a 4iii left sided only one as I can get a good price on a left Ultegra arm with one already fitted - or those favaro assiomo uno pedals 🤔
I have a 4iiii on the MTB and it’s been great 👍🏻
Never tried any of the pedal systems.
@crosshair Yeah it takes me a couple of sessions before I can settle in to threshold efforts, I don’t use ERG though so it’s just a matter of pacing and finding that 👌 cadence.
VO2 after a couple of days on it is nuts though, given the idea is to accumulate time above 90% MHR it’s daft to go in without a decent days recovery.
Yeah, I actually feel sorry for Trainerroad if that’s the way people are tackling their plans 🤣
I definitely had a psychological breakthrough earlier in the first interval earlier when my mind came to terms with the fact that that intensity *was* sustainable. And my HR dropped for the next three.
This is the workout I did last night - was meant to do an hour but didn’t have time so did a 45 min alternative that had a slightly higher progression score instead. Decided I was managing the 319w intervals ok so started turning it up a bit towards the end to make it a bit harder. Last one was just over 400w and although it was hard I reckon I could have done a few more at that level.
I found in the new bike I seemed to be able to spin faster easier - wasn’t sure if it was because it was after work and I’d fuelled all day vs early morning workouts just on a banana or yoghurt. Also realised I changed crank size from 172.5mm to 170mm on this bike. Decided to go with cranks the same size as both mtbs 🤷♂️
Walking the dog this morning my legs do feel a little bit tired though so must have been a decent session.
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Awesome, well done Joe 👍🏻 Are they 30/30’s?
I like to pick my last interval up a bit at the end too. A 30mph lap of Hillingdon is about 2mins so I always imagine the bell going and racing the final lap when I have 2 mins of a set to go.
You may find TR undershoots what you can do on those sorts of intervals. You want to be going as hard as you can but that you can sustain evenly for the entire set if that makes sense. But there is also merit in being conservative and having one eye on your next ride so I never used to bother cranking up a TR workout.
Friel calls it risk/reward. The reward of doing them all at 400w is obviously a bigger adaptation response. The risk is you aren’t recovered by your next workout ⚖️
30/30’s yes. I think turning it up towards the end worked ok - but I think if I turned it up from the start perhaps I might have struggled more towards the end. Guess it depends how much I turn it up though!
Tonight is probably a chill mtb with a mate who is quite a bit less fit than me so slightly tired legs shouldn’t be a drama. Tomorrow I’ll weight train or swim so the legs get a day of recovery before sweet spot on Friday.
I suspect my legs could take more than I throw at them fitness wise but equally I don’t want to break myself as it’s just mainly boosting fitness for mtb rather than racing.
I am eyeing up booking an enduro race near Plymouth in October though if Incan get it past the wife to vanish early doors and get back late.
I’m getting a craving for a power meter on the Dolan – torn between a 4iii left sided only one as I can get a good price on a left Ultegra arm with one already fitted – or those favaro assiomo uno pedals
I've got Faveros (on both sides) and very pleased with them - good battery life, pretty much fit and forget. Obviously in theory you can swap them between bikes, but it's not something I'd want to be doing daily.
4iii on the road bike single sided don't see the need for double sided. Also can easily swap to my winter bike as they are both Shimano. Never had an issue with it except on those rides the coin battery gives up it goes a bit screwy.
TR V02 I don't turn the power up at the end I just increase the RPM trying to keep it above 120. More recently I've stopped doing this. Get the specific work done and walk away as Crosshair says.
I do TR ones outside as well on a shallow hill at the end of the road. 5x 30 30 gets me to the top. Power is typically 10 to 15% higher than I do on the turbo for no other reason than I don't have ERG holding it back but it is sustainable through the hour. Did my first one of the year on Sunday after being ill.
Trying not to use the turbo anymore this year unless the weather is really bad.
I just stuck 165 cranks on the TT bike that I train on @joebristol - they're recommended for anyone running an aero-belly in that particular discipline. Position-wise very promising, but plain power I am not sure. Did a sweet spot session that felt way hard but might have just been a bad day.
But a lot of folks get good results from shortening the cranks.
@joebristol You could try switching ERG off and going hard early...will get the HR up earlier and you're hopefully spending more time >90%
Obviously you'll need to pace it well which will be a bit of trial and error, power will likely fade towards the end of the set but so long as you don't drop right off HR should remain high.
@haze I haven’t tried the turbo at all outside of using erg - I keep thinking about having a go on Zwift in which case racing I’d have to use the gears. I imagine it needs more discipline than erg mode to stay in power zones on TR…
It does, takes a little bit of trial and error...once you have a gear and cadence that gets you in the right area then it's pretty straightforward to replicate.
It's all a trade off. On the one hand, not using ERG is (maybe) more flexible. On the other, when you are used to seeing crisp graph lines, an au-naturel workout looks like a shambles 🤣 That can be tough to deal with mentally.
Although 30/30's are a good candidate for no-ERG anyhow.
ERG is one of the things TR has done insanely well and when I had a Zoom call with Jonathan Lee once (don't ask why 🤣) he said it was pleasing I had noticed (how good their ERG is) as they have worked really hard at fine tuning the experience for every trainer.
Zwift ERG isn't as good but will let you float above or below a little. I had it set at 320w last night but was able to average as high as 342w for one of the intervals without it continuously correcting me, it just kind of resigned itself to giving me that resistance in that particular gear 🤣
Good for some things, not so much for others...I find it a little subjective tbh and always do my Z1/Z2 in ERG (whilst keeping an eye on HR)
Threshold stuff I like to pace, give you a good feel for your threshold and how long you can actually hold it for.
Actually do my shorter VO2 stuff in ERG but make the first few reps hard to spike my HR, then reduce to ride out the set. Longer efforts (3 on, 3 off etc) I lean more towards ERG off to avoid the death spiral should my cadence drop!
Yeah that is the trouble. I did gradually downshift through the entire cassette at one point last night to keep my cadence up and was like strewth, better stand up and sprint to get enough momentum back in the flywheel to shift up again 🤣
Weather and roads are minging today so I’m probably gonna head round the Pretzel route on Zwift. It’s usually about 2h45 in zone 2.
Dumb trainer and powermeter here so no ERG (use Trainerroad). I don’t find it an issue - you can smooth the power data by selecting it to average over a short defined period.
Up to 3.45w/kg this morning…..
Weather and roads are minging today so I’m probably gonna head round the Pretzel route on Zwift. It’s usually about 2h45 in zone 2.
Plodded around the route at basically Z1. I need the volume in my legs but also wanted to recover from yesterday and prepare for tomorrow. Friel mentions in his book how you sometimes need to mix conflicting objectives into one ride during build as there's not enough days in the week for everything 🤣
I did the epic KOM at 206w and the reverse epic KOM at 230w but everything else was just tapping along at low HR.I haven't done one since Zwift 'routes' were a thing so it was good to tick it off.
Back to Vo2 tomorrow! Prob shoot for 4x4min @ 380w and adjust once I see how painful/achievable the first one is.
If I can find a slot in the weather I'll head out on the gravel bike and do them. Possibly commute over to a hill and do them as the ones nearby are mostly sub 3mins.
How do you keep your mind interested on that long a Zwift ride at low intensity? Fair shout - sounds like some almost zone 2 endurance whilst also recovering.
I did a blip off road round the local trail centre bits - no real hills and with a less fit / slower mate. Had a good chat and social but then I did a bit of sprinting from corner to corner - I haven’t ridden the hardtail so much recently as I’ve really being enjoying the Sentinel since I coil shock / cascade linked it. Front end nailed grip wise with a 2.6” Magic Mary but the 2.6” Forekaster on the rear (bit worn at that) was all over the place drifting. Ace fun.
Not sure what I’m doing tomorrow - maybe a back and biceps weight session before back on the turbo on Friday
Awesome, sounds fun 😀
So yesterday, I wanted to tick off a route badge. (Sounds cheesy but it’s surprisingly motivating).
I set off and just let my avatar follow the course. (I guess it’s like the difference outdoors of riding blindly off down the street or programming a route into your Garmin. You kind of feel obliged to follow it).
Then I had a 90min podcast on I wanted to listen to.
After about an hour, I was bored but not uncomfy so I lied to myself that I would get off at x minutes or at y miles a couple of times (and then you just keep going) 😀
By that time, I was so far around the 45 mile/4500’ loop that it seemed silly to quit and have to do all that first bit again another time.
Another thing that helped was doing a couple of centuries on there. Now anything under 5hrs feels easy 😀
Finally- I don’t think this ride would have been any less “boring” outside 🤣 Sometimes you just have to commit to the work.
It’s kind of back to the ‘ride slower to ride faster’ thing isn’t it. Maybe it should be ‘ride more boringly to ride more excitingly’ 🤣🤣
Oooo, down to 75.6kg this morning. Don’t know if perhaps I’m a little de-hydrated or whether that’s genuine. Not too far off my target of 75kgs though. Just need to find 45w per kg extra now 🫣
Hey that’s great news ⚖️ 💪🏻 😃
Found a gap in the rain so went out to try the Diverge. I missed it 🤩 It’s so chunky and comfy and stops properly and GRX shifts lovely and big tyres make so much sense on our awful roads.
Turns out it wasn’t a gap in the rain at all- I got soaked twice 🤣
Anyway, I did my 4x4 Vo2’s as hill reps. Up Whitchurch hill twice, then Pangbourne hill and then finally up Streatley Hill. (Ironically my pb’s up those hills were from a very similar workout in 2017 when I was training using Friels Book 🤣).
It was one of those rare good-legs days and I ended up hitting 430, 398, 398 and 407 (but those two in the middle would be 400 if I’d pressed lap at 4.00 not 4.01 🤣)
Even better, I feel amazing. Despite the rain I wanted to carry on riding!! Next task is to recover up for Saturday though so I resisted and went home.
If someone had told me I’d feel this good today when I was getting off the turbo yesterday- I’d have punched them in the mouth 🤣🤣
The weather is awful at the moment - got properly soaked last night too. For road I’ve just bought a better cost that I need to try out and see if it’s as breathable as it claims whilst still being waterproof - Gorewear Active something or other. Need to fill / bleed brakes before that though.
I can imagine bigger tyres and a forgiving frame are a game changer - there’s one descent off Lansdown Hill (between Bristol and Bath) that is scarred and rutted even though it’s a main road - felt like I had to really back off down it on the caad12 as it jarred through the front. Hopefully the GXC will make lighter work of it.
Sounds like you smashed your numbers out the park - strong work 💪
Oh cool! I don't have much good waterproof gear. I like my Gabba but it's too hot from about now onwards.
It’s interesting looking at the other guys from Saturday’s ride on my Strava feed since then. Everyone was fairly equally smashed by the end it seemed and yet some have done some impressive high intensity in the meantime.
I’ll be curious to see how they fair next weekend, as I definitely needed the easy time to absorb Saturday’s training stress, so my guess is that I’ll improve relative to them but let’s see!
Another one went pop tonight 🤣 He left an admission on his Strava that he had over exerted himself after his FIFTH fast Zwift group ride or Race since Saturday 💡🤣
(And they were padded out with pace partner warmups too 🤯 )
Unlike on the internet, I keep my coaching opinions to myself IRL but sometimes I feel baffled by what people do given the huge wealth of information available online.
Although maybe the same could be said of me and the weight loss side of the equation 🤣🤣
indoor ftp, ftp higher when cycling uphill, don't care not bothered, watts is watts 😂
did an hour Tuesday Z2 when I didn't think I'd squeeze anything in that day, then Wednesday everything seemed to catch up with me, did the school run and thought, I'll have an hour, get up, do some jobs and do a couple of hours while watching Dwars door Vlaanderen, slept from 930-2pm, so that buggered that, took it as a sign to rest, slept well last night and did uni today, felt fresh this evening so thought I'd have a smash up the Epic KOM on Zwift, not done anything over Z2 since March 2nd I don't think, weighed in at 80kg flat in my indoor riding kit, so happy with that, all time low Zwift weight
did 24:53, average power of 289w (293w for 20 minutes, so FTP from 263w > 279w)
and thats with nearly 90% of my yearly riding in Z1/Z2 after 6 months off, bonkers
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