TrainerRoad – STW approved sessions

Cheers. Doing a real test outside isn’t going to be possible. It’s not the power I’m concerned about, but the threshold h.r. so I can use my h.r.m. to mimic longer threshold type interval workouts such as Avalanche spire and carpathian peak in the real world. I’ll split the difference and say my threshold is 162.

Having one of those days when you look at what you’ve got on the plan and think WTF?! 😐

I had that last night with my 3x9x30s of 115% ftp.

That really hurt with my new ftp (201, up from 177). Although I’m reasonably sure that my tyre was going soft in the session since it was completely flat this morning.

I’m trying to psych myself up to do my first 8 min test since last July. But it’s sunny outside and I just want to go out and ride my mountain bike!

(I should really be writing my PhD thesis, but the thought of that is even worse than an FTP test!)

Having one of those days when you look at what you’ve got on the plan and think WTF?!

That was me last night, 51 sprints out of corners any one? (Lafyette).

I’m feeling like that, had a training day all day and am exhausted, but got Grassy ridge. hopefully by the time I’ve got home and had a uppa I’ll feel alive again!

Had a light tea, just got to put the kids to bed, bring it on!

Smash it Mr Blobby !

My cold has subsided so I think tomorrow will be 8 minute test time. Was scheduled for Tuesday just gone so only lost a few days

Go Blobby and ferrals!

Minor update from me: physio has said that he reckons it’s OK for me to take my brace off whilst on the turbo. Safest to wear it getting on and off, but can put it to one side whilst riding. This is good! I’ve only done one half hour stint like that so far, but it was better than I’d have expected really. I doubt I’ll be outside for quite a few weeks yet, but the turbo is the next best thing, and it’ll mean that when I do get outside I won’t be miserable at having completely wasted away from inactivity.

Great news gray, definately if you can get the legs spinning a bit on the turbo can only be a good thing!

Well, I rejuvenated myself by having an argument with the wife (I was only trying to get the bloody chilli in before starting turbo but apparently I wasn’t allowed to cook this evening 😕 ) so managed to smash out the hour no probs 😆

Great news indeed gray! A few winter miles in time for some outdoor summer smiles 🙂

Well it wasn’t pretty here but it’s done. Nothing particularly mental like ferrals Grassy Ridge but it was 2 hrs of tempo and threshold blocks with a few hard efforts (here) on top of already feeling quite knackered. Almost at the end of Season 5 of 24 now!

Well I eschewed the Turbo this lunchtime as its sunny out. Despite the London buses, traffic queues and headwind I’ve posted a time 1:30 quicker than the same loop in September ’15 which was immediately after my race season so I’d have expected to be fit.

This can only be good news, although I was 4w down today so maybe the wind helped, but atmospheric pressure & air density would have been very different.

Interestingly seeing as my winter training was a lot of “sustained power” efforts my strava records were hit on a long grind and a flat 2k segment, so perhaps TR works!

5 days rest – feeling fat and slothful. 6hr XC ride tomorrow. There are 28 hills to climb at threshold.

Managed 4.5hrs – wrecked and felt good. Now strained my inner thigh day before intervals start. Moving house with short completion => massive time crunch and stress. Feeling pissed off.

mixed emotions today. Finished base a week ago and was set for build. 8 minute test etc. Then got a snotty cold and havent cycled for a week, still not 100%

Anyhow did an 8 minute test just now, 11% increase on FTP, was riding fairly comfortably at 30w over their reccomended target . So for want of a slightly #lad-ish phrase I smashed it . However still not certain if accurate due to lingering lurgy.

Very pleased, but basically this was the first test i took using a fan for cooling. Huge huge difference. So i feel i may have been wasting time a little during base training (sans fan)

As a side note, is the OP of this thread still active on the forum?

I had the same concern as i did an lot of work without a fan, however from what I read, heat increases stress on the cardio system (hence slightly reducing energy going to legs) so wile not good for build, probably not the end of the world for base.

I’ve got The Owl this evening and am actually really looking forward to getting back on the turbo as been doing lots of outside riding 😯

Admittely I’d rather be riding now outside in the sun, but turbo work does feel a lot more productive training wise and having ridden outside for my weds, sat and sun sessions last week my legs dont have the same fatigue is they ahve recently

As a side note, is the OP of this thread still active on the forum?

He pops up from time to time. Some Spring Classics chat threads may tempt him back.

I finished sweet spot base 1 the other week – retested for the start of sweet spot base 2 mid vol. FTP went up by over 11%, during the 6 weeks of SS base 1 I’d dropped 6kg so was very happy. Did the first week of SS Base 2 mid vol and then did Kaweah on Saturday – 90 mins with 5×10 minute intervals at 95-99% FTP!! Jesus that was tough, first 3 were alright but the last 2 I was just holding on and didn’t do them justice.

Went straight out and took the kids to a roller disco – I skated too, who knew roller skating used so many muscles.

Keeler Needle in 30mins – looks tough too! I’m enjoying it..

irony?

anyway, if there are any kinetic inride owners here, I tried the kinetic app for a change instead of trainerroad and it popped up with message to tell me there is an exchange program on the inride power meter. if you have a mk1, they’ll exchange it free of charge for a mk2. Took 2-3 days from 2pure.

no idea what was wrong with the mk1.

Just done Stevens: 5 x 6mins @ 105% with 2min rests. I was a bit worn out last week so missed out on the mid plan FTP test but the load felt about right. If I’d delayed the plan by a week I’d still be doing efforts just before Easter and I’ve a big ride that weekend so need the recovery week!

I did the owl last night. I actually kind of enjoyed it!

To be honest I was getting sick of all the threshold/sweet spot long intervals that the sweet spot sessions get you doing so it’s actually kind of nice to see the bigger numbers come up.

One thing I have found with doing big efforts is that my turbo likes to move itself across my garage floor, is there a cheap and easy fix to keep it more stationary?

Some form of mat, usually rubber, should sort you out.

Yeah I like the ones like owl/priest etc. The hour goes way faster. I pushed the intensity this eve, the second bit I rode at around 100% on a couple of them

Funny thing with threshold type sessions, I find doing them Pretty easy, but then 10 minutes post warm down I’m cooked.

New video with some comedy numbers from Wiggins…

472 watts for 50 minutes to win Olympic gold. Anyone close? 😉

My 30 second medal is 451 😳

That’s just bonkers isn’t it. One thing I was wondering: given that he’s apparently put on some crazy amount of weight in preparation for this year’s track Olympics, and given that when he won the London 2012 time trial he came straight out of the TdF so would have been in mountain shape, is it reasonable to think that actually at London he wasn’t at his optimal muscle weight for time trials? I know that 4 minutes on the track is quite different from a 50 minute time trial, but they’re both about pushing out the watts against air rather than fighting gravity.

I guess 4 minutes must be short enough that having big-ass muscles that you can just burn through helps, whereas over 50 minutes your wider system just can’t power big muscles well enough to be efficient. I wonder if there’s any significance to the actual amount of glycogen physically sat in big muscles at the start of a pursuit versus smaller ones?

Sorry, just waffling and proving ignorance there. As you were. 🙂

Madness !

Hmm. Saw the surgeon this morning. He says I can ride outside now, without the brace (woohoo!), however he strongly advises me only to ride in an uprightish position for about 6 months. I choose to interpret that as “mountain bike, not road bike”, because a true sit-up-and-beg is not an option. Still though, that’s a bit of a blow. I had planned to get a road bike on the turbo within the next week or so to give it a go. Also looks likely that I’ll have the metalwork taken out around January 2017, which will mean further time off riding and recovery, so I doubt I’ll be on for something big in summer 2017. So it’s quite likely to be summer 2018 before I cane it up some alps. That’s 2.5 years from now. Focksticks. Still could be worse though, at least I can get out and feel some wind in my hair. Not much point virtual shopping for a new bike either now I guess – it’ll all have changed by the time I’m ready for one!

Sounds like you’d be ok on the tops with brief forays onto the hoods?

Not sure, am digesting at the moment. I think really he was probably thinking of a properly upright bike rather than even a mountain bike. I’ll talk more to my physio next week – I don’t really think that part of my back is particularly stressed on a road bike, especially when not on the drops. Ho hum.

Maybe fit a shorter flipped stem to be a bit more upright? I’ll look crap but it won’t be for long.

On the bright side, you can still turbo so can get yourself Alps ready 🙂

Uurgh. I felt wiped out by a long drive yesterday, woke up feeling “hollow” and have been on the throne three times this morning but never put two and two together until I watched TR loading and my HR settle at about 14bpm over my RHR.

I’m racing next week so have sacked today’s session off for some R&R, I’m obviously fighting something. Sigh, I always feel like my efforts are fading away at times like this.

@mrblobby – yeah, I think I’ll measure the bar height on the hardtail that I’m currently using, and compare with my road bike and see what I can do with a stem change, at least for turboing.

@Kryton – that sucks but it sounds like the right decision.

I just did two hours on TR (Hawk Mountain) whilst watching a film. Felt OK really. My bum didn’t like the saddle that much, and some (muscle) bits of my back were a bit achey, but nothing bad. Just had my first shower of 2016! #feckyoubrokenspine!

Gray – you may be surprised at how quickly the fitness comes back when your back is fixed, especially if you’re able to train your base (at least) before the metal comes out (my brother in law has a huge mechano set in L1-L3 and is going better on the bike than he ever was before his accident)

I had very major surgery for cancer in early August, and I’d not been on the bike that much for a couple of years before that. I lost a lot of blood and a lot of weight – 10kg, and I wasn’t overweight to begin with. When I crawled back onto the trainer in early October, my 8 min test results gave me an FTP of 169W! I was basically starting from scratch – no base, nothing.

I did another 8 min test on Tues (after Sweetspot base 1 & 2 and the first 4 weeks of build) and I’m up to 262W already (I was around 300W, possibly a little more, in 2012 before I got sick), and I got through ‘Gould’ last night no problem with a NP of around 240W for the hour. I also did a 95km offroad ride last week that was basically the Brecon gap route + the MBR black mountain killer loop. That’s my progress in 17 weeks – which I guess is a pretty good endorsement of the low volume trainer road plans supplemented by some outdoors riding.

If you go into your op in Jan 17 as fit as possible, don’t write off the summer. Look at Ed Clancy!

Blimey, some seriously heroic efforts on this thread at the moment! 😯

Gray, Ianpv, you probably don’t get many at the moment on the recovery road, but you definitely deserve a sack full of these

Where’s everyone else? Out enjoying the sunshine?

Turbos definately on the back burner now, light enough to ride outside around work 😀

Feeling a bit pissed off as seem to have got the killer cold thats devestating south wales a week before my first race, but compared to gray and ianpv I can’t really complain (but I will 😳 )

Turbos definately on the back burner now, light enough to ride outside around work

yeah, I know. I’m about to bunk off work to go BMXing with my son…

Finding the willpower to complete the second 4 weeks of build indoors is tough, but when it’s done the clocks will change and I’ll hopefully be in good enough shape to survive the chaingang… Looking forward to putting the winter bike on the turbo and getting the fast bike off it and outside!

Whenever I have the blues, I’m remembering Grey and Ianpv on this thread. Good grief chaps, massive respect!

Where’s everyone else? Out enjoying the sunshine?

I treated myself to a windy sunny ride. I was supposed to be practising my TT position, but the wind and traffic scared the shit out of me, I probably did 2 minutes of 1h 07 on the TT bars.

I tried really hard to smash the ride – I wanted it to be a training ride not just a ride, but the wind in my face ruined any Strava PB’s and it took me some time to get used to the reduced cadence/higher force the 53 (changed from Compact) seem to represent. It was also the first use of my Infocrank. Lots of traffic queues to creep past as well.

Ended up with an NP of 205w, real 195w average at 27.4 MPH – rubbish. If you consider a 5km rolling section I rode at 38KMPH average at 218w waaay under FTP, you can see how the wind/traffic affected the rest of the ride. HR 57 mins at threshold though!

I had very major surgery for cancer in early August, and I’d not been on the bike that much for a couple of years before that. I lost a lot of blood and a lot of weight – 10kg, and I wasn’t overweight to begin with. When I crawled back onto the trainer in early October, my 8 min test results gave me an FTP of 169W!

Thanks for making me feel even worse about my FTP of 191 with absolutely no excuses! 😆

Just done Mount Goode – 45mins at FTP!

This is the last week of efforts on this plan, next week is the recovery week so rather than start a Speciality plan I think I’ll get to the end of this plan then suspend my account for the summer.