TrainerRoad – STW approved sessions

using the turbo power erg mode is really precise, output is a flat line with no variance, but using my power meter (a bepro pedal) it’s much more oscillatory around the target power

Wahoo artificially smooth your power readings in TR: https://www.smartbiketrainers.com/myth-smooth-power-lines-3490 – I think other smart trainers do as well.

I use power match and find that although I fluctuate around the target power it doesn’t really affect the overall power of the interval. Sometimes it’s a handful of watts out either way but nothing that’s ever derailed a workout.

I chose to stick with it so that I didn’t have to compensate in the difference in readings between my Stages and my turbo when using the bike IRL.

Thks Haze and Stevious – Are you on erg mode Stevious? My set up feels like something’s not right in that respect on the power match, as I can drop the power quite a bit below target. If you slow your cadence on the turbo erg mode you instantly feel a big build up in resistance from the turbo to maintain target power.

Easiest thing would be to just use the turbo power but I have quite a discrepancy, 7 – 8%, so would be good to go off the bike power as that’s what I’ll be testing on.

Average the two out so you’re at +/-4% possibly? Then use the intensity to adjust as necessary

The sweet spot base burn definitely kicked in this weekend! Saturdays over-unders required a bit of concentration but were doable. Sundays tempo session was a real struggle and I did Leavitt +1 not +2 due to time constraints; admittedly I did it at 6am but I was expecting an easy-ish hr 15 of riding listening to podcasts but found it really mentally taxing and had to back pedal a couple fo times. Pleased I didnt up my FTP!!

@Garry-Lager I am on ERG mode. For the problem you’re having it might work to put the bike in a lower gear to keep the flywheel inertia lower? I think that makes it easier for the powermatch to do its job.

If you keep having problems, the TR support team are really good.

@ferrals – I find the workouts that are similar to old school turbo sessions the hardest mentally, you really do need some distraction for them. I substituted similar workouts when I came to them in my recovery weeks so workouts like Baxter which are reasonable approximations of a rolling road ride with near constant switching of effort. I use sub threshold workouts, so sweet spot, temp and endurance, to work on my eating strategy, figuring out what works, what does and doesn’t cause stomach upset, etc.

Over/unders are surprisingly taxing, but then they are meant to be.

Nothing like a ramp test on a Monday morning post half-term!

281w up to 289w

Onwards we go

@dirtyrider – nice one. 8W is decent step.

Bashful + 1 for me today.

That’s the first workout I’ve had to ease off. I was doing OK until the third interval in the last block then I decided to skip the next one though I did think about skipping all the remainder. I was able to complete the fifth so I skipped the sixth and did the final one. The actual efforts are doable, it’s the very short recoveries that get to me, 60/60 would be fine, 60/30 not so. Looking at my heart rate there’s a slow rise across the workout – low of 116bpm after the first block, 126bpm after the second. There’s similar rises across the blocks of intervals for my highest HR and from about midpoint in the second block I’d be at 95% of my MHR at the end of each interval.

It was only when loading up the workout on the desktop that I noticed that it had an intensity factor of 0.93 and is an anaerobic workout not VO2 max as I’d thought 😰 My last VO2 max workout was Spencer -2 which also has IF = 0.93 and my notes from that start with:

I think VO2 Max efforts are my weak spot, I found that hard.

So yes, confirmed that I do believe.

sick as a dog since Monday lunchtime so not done anything, so frustrating, 3rd time this year I’ve been ill, been relentless with it being either me the mrs or the kids

anyway,

CAMSUFFERS

gets you a month free Sufferfest if anyone wants a dabble

Does anyone use an android tablet or phone for their sessions? Trying to sort out a split screen display between TR and a racing vid on youtube, say, and can’t figure out how to do it.

I thought you could only do split screens on PCs/Laptops? I looked into it for my iPad and it wasn’t compatible. I just have TR on my phone and Youtube on tablet.

Plodding through SSB1, skipped yesterdays session as didnt have time but otherwise going quite smoothly. I have no desire to ride outside at the moment so am sticking to the plan largely pretty faithfully.

Long time lurker in this thread.. thought I’d get involved after being inspired by other posts.

Signed up to TR 31st Dec last year to help me get my legs up to speed and get some bike time for a upcoming sprint triathlon.

Previously mainly ridden on mountain bikes not road bikes and being quite time poor TR looked like a great way of getting in a 2 sessions a week around all the normal life stuff.

Not really measured FTP before, did the first ramp test and got 166… I was full of a cold at the time which didn’t help but I stared the base phase and stuck to the plan.

Next FTP test recorded a more accurate FTP of 191 which still isn’t massive but was certainly an ok level for me. The plans have been great so far, I really like the instructions about body positions, breathing and all that stuff because having never really ridden on the road for ages it’s all sensible instructions and helpful info.

Just completed the build phase and completed another ramp test, now sitting at a FTP of 205 which I was pleased about. Specialty phase is next up but overall TR is great for me.. just hope it translates to real life when I start on the real roads!

@rmprest – don’t worry about the actual value of FTP, it’s more important that you are training at the right level, workouts like Lamarck are a good indicator as are the over/under interval workouts. Some people find that VO2 max workouts are too hard/easy, these assume your VO2 max is 120% or so of your FTP but that might not be the case so you need to adjust them accordingly – if you start the last interval of a VO2 max workout thinking “I’m not sure I can do this” then that’s the level you should be at.

I did Bashful +1 last Monday and it was the first workout I’d bailed on as I just couldn’t recover in the short 30 second valleys. Yesterday I did Bashful +2 which is supposedly a little harder but I finished it OK with something in the tank.

One thing that’s worth doing while on the trainer is practicing your fuelling strategy and finding out what foods and drinks work for you. For instance I can eat chocolate based snacks when doing endurance workouts but not once the intensity rises towards threshold – I then start to get gut rot or gastric distress as it’s properly known.

If you are really a data geek then sign up to intervals.icu and let it pull in data. It gets data from Strava so you need to have a Strava account and let TR send the data to Strava and then allow intervals to pull it from there.

after last Mondays ramp test, like within 2/3 hours i felt ruined, fever, sore throat, lasted 4/5 days, still got the back end, come on 2020 give us a break!!

so an enforced week off, and playing catch up, picked back up with Carpathian Peak yesterday, tough, needed some motivational music to get me through the 3rd set, but did it, happy days, in the bank, tomorrow should be Mount Goode, but i don’t think i have time to squeeze it in, might do Baxter -2, then Mount Goode on Thursday when i know i can get it done no distractions,

Avalanche Spire +1 Hmm, I’m normally OK with over/unders but this was pushing me a bit. It didn’t help that I’d had a late lunch so had eaten a bit of quiche about half an hour before starting – after 45mins I nearly saw it again 😳 The last set was a case of digging in there and holding on.

One more workout (Galena +1) then it’s recovery week 😊

Made time, did Mount Goode – that sucker is tough, cracked 6 minutes into interval 3 – paused for a minute and completed it

Winning

First workout failure on Galena +1 today 😰

Held power for the first two intervals OK but starting the last interval my legs just felt dead. Got seven minutes or so into the interval and had to back pedal which is the first time I’ve had to do that. Then did another minute and a half or so but just struggled so dropped down to the recovery target power for a minute then rather than completely quit I tried again but after a minute called it a day and just rode easily for five or six minutes to cool down.

Not sure what was going on as this is the type of effort that should suit me. There was just nothing in my legs and HR was way up. Sounds like my FTP is about right.

Starting again tonight after being tired and ill since early December. Couple of false starts already this year although one of those was due to an event at the end of Feb.
Ramp Test tonight which won’t be pretty and back into SSB2 which officially I started on Tuesday :0)

Finished SSB2 back in December and the Tuesday V02 max sessions I enjoy more than others. Hopefully get outside for a decent ride most weekends too.

@whitestone thanks for all the info I’ve never really thought about things in that way before !

Great shout on the fuelling as well – normally just sip on water so I’m going to experiment with some snacks soon.

Did carter+3 last night and found it quite tough.. those 45 mins flat out efforts are hard! Completed it but had to dig deep in the middle

Did an outside workout via Garmin 530.
Works well although with 6minute threshold intervals I was expecting to have to manually start each interval but limited rest between them probably means they are all in the same “set”.
Mind you I didn’t pick a suitable route. More one I wanted to ride. Too many steep downhills.

Looks like all early season TTs will be cancelled following the government statement yesterday, at the minimum probably. (Don’t think CTT have made an official statement yet, but hard to see how they can proceed). Reckon I’ll park the powerbuild then.

Might look at zwift tbh. Sounds like a bit of a Ted-fest but we live in interesting times.

@Garry_Lager – realistically is there going to be any racing this year? They are talking about indefinite lockdown till a vaccine is ready and that is optimistically 18mo away. Just in week 6 of SSB1, guess I’ll move onto SSB2 as I may as well do something but I am unsure whether I’ll have the motivation to be rigourous with the thought there may well not be a cx season coming up!

I have been struggling with motivation now that stuff has been cancelled. Going to look to maintain fitness I think rather than try and push the envelope.

@Garry_Lager – realistically is there going to be any racing this year? They are talking about indefinite lockdown till a vaccine is ready and that is optimistically 18mo away. Just in week 6 of SSB1, guess I’ll move onto SSB2 as I may as well do something but I am unsure whether I’ll have the motivation to be rigourous with the thought there may well not be a cx season coming up!

No cyclocross season? These are truly the last days.

Indefinite lockdown sounds extreme – is anyone seriously suggesting that? Be like McCarthy’s The Road.

It’s what I saw on the BBC! Fingers crossed not.

Having missed my first event of the year due to breaking my collarbone it is now looking increasingly likely that my next event, The Dales Dive, at Easter will also be called off as well as a possible ITT of the HT550 in mid May. The Dales Divide is almost suited to gravel bikes but the HT is definitely MTB terrain so concerns about injury and unnecessary strain on health services do apply. The one year I actually plan out what I want to do and work towards it, look what happens …

I’m currently halfway through Sustained Power Build Low Volume which will end with the recovery week in the week before Easter. I was then going to start on the Cross Country Marathon Speciality plan which just fits in the gap before the HT but not sure now – I might drop on to one of the maintenance plans and mix it up with some steady road rides. All depends on what sort of “lock down” we end up having.

On a slightly more positive note – I did a Ramp Test yesterday and saw my FTP rise by 12 Watts 👍 I’m now at 3.1W/kg, OK I might as well blow my own trumpet – 3.13W/kg😊 🎉 The downside is that the next set of workouts are going to be bloody tough!

Since starting up again with TR in October and actually following the plans all the way through my FTP has risen by just under 11%. I’d an initial target of 3W/kg and a long term goal of 3.5W/kg. According to TR’s figures on their users (see this post on their forums – https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/t/the-bell-curve-of-cylists-how-fast-are-the-average-tr-users/5840/123) that would put me somewhere around the 95th percentile for my age group (60-80).

My limiter in the test seems to be oxygen uptake, I’m gasping and my vision’s going blurred towards the end 😳 but there’s still something, maybe a minute, left in my legs and my HR is nowhere near my maximum – I think it got to 164bpm yesterday whereas I know I can get it to mid 170s. So maybe a plan that targets VO2max and/or anaerobic is in order, my power curve is sadly lacking at the sprint end of things – my 5sec power is only 2.4 times my FTP for example. Might just be an age thing, the Morton analysis of power distribution seems to be based on young racers. I’ve mentioned Intervals.icu before. Looking at my (age specific) power distribution on there shows I’m in the 40% percentile range for my 5s & 60s power but 70% for 5mins, 50% for 20mins and 61% for FTP.

Where you looking to cane the HT550 (minimal sleep etc), and set a good time whitestone? Probably right to shelve that in the current climate. Going steady on it, OTOH, might be an option if you wanted to.

I’ve done a five day HT550 so was wanting to do a better time, you don’t have to blast the technical sections to do so: less haste and more speed and all that. Better to be cautious and keep moving – you need to look at the end goal rather than the individual sections.

I’m not going to break Neil Beltchenko’s time but comparing his riding and stopped times with mine there’s a big difference – he stopped for a total of ten hours, I stopped for 42hrs! I think you can see where I can make up time 😉 Obviously minimal sleep comes at a price of lessened awareness and while in normal times that risk is acceptable it’s less so at the mo.

My motivation has ebbed rapidly as the day has gone one. Can’t even face doing the planned Pettit today!

The only reason I can see to do Pettit is to check cardiac drift since you need a long steady state workout. Otherwise it’s just an old skool turbo session and BORING.

cancelled, nothing to train for, so might as well do more unstructured fun stuff

I’ve been trying out the TrainerRoad ride oustide function a bit in the nice weather. It’s really good, the workout gets pushed to your Garmin and wven with my old edge 500 it works pretty well. SCreen is a bit small to see the required watts avoe your power reading but so long as you are familiar with what is expected it’s no issue.

Nice to feel like I’m doing proper training and not wasting sunshine. Still with the weather chaning It’s back indoors now.

However, I see that both the scottish and central CX leagues have already cancelled seasons so motivation is lacking as I expect all leagues may follow suit.

Question is what training strategy for a season that starts in 18 months!!!

Question is what training strategy for a season that starts in 18 months!!!

Either:

– take a break from structure

or

– take the time to work on something you usually wouldn’t. I’m planning on working on sustained power so I can do some self-timed TTs in the autumn

Question is what training strategy for a season that starts in 18 months!!!

If you have a look at the TR forums https://www.trainerroad.com/forum/ there’s lots of threads about this (and lots of variations). Quelle surprise!

I’m currently doing one of the speciality plans, Climbing Road Race, as the last times I did a winter’s TR the weather had improved by the end of Build so I never got to do Speciality.

My thought is to have a go at the various plans I’d never normally do, probably the Low Volume which leaves plenty of time for outdoor rides at the weekends.

Surprisingly given my last post on this thread I did Pettit today. Mind you it makes up for Huxley+1 yesterday which required giving myself a good talking to to get through the last set!

I have increased to SSB Medium Volume. Almost at the end of Base 1 and then onto Base 2. I am using the time to build a strong base. Working from home has allowed me to do that but I also think I can do more volume when/if things get back to normal(ish).

I am also using the time to understand my training better and tracking in intervals.icu. Fitness had gone from 34 to 49 over the space of the last month. I have been better able to add volume and I have currently ridden 14 days in a row and still feeling pretty good. Some days this has just been a taku 30 mins spin but it all helps to build and maintain the base. It currently predicts that I will be at 59 fitness for the middle of June which is about 2 weeks before the Jennride was due to start. Cant see that going ahead but I am hopeful that restrictions would have been lifted enough so that I can consider a big day out to do something with the fitness I have trained.

I live just outside Derby so a 80 -100 mile mtb route around the solstice from my house is an option. Also the base fitness I am acquiring will stand me in good stead for future years.

I have also been doing Weeksys group rides on Zwift to maintain some non-structured fun and setting PBs in them for sprints and also being able to hold on to the power a lot longer (and the group) than previously possible.

As I have a zwift subscription at the moment as well when I do a TR workout I also run Zwift and I am working my way through the route badges.

I’m going to finish ssb2 (three more weeks left) and then think, but good suggestion to try something different in the plans. I am finding the structured plan good for sanity in lockdown as it marksthe weeks!!

Intervals.icu is great for data geeks. Not me honest, errm …

I’ve been using intervals.icu for a while and it’s taken me a while to get my head around everything but read up on things and it starts to make sense. A good example is the fitness graph you allude to and “form”.

On a couple of occasions my “form” has touched or dipped below the -30 level.

The first time was the Saturday before the Covid-19 lockdown started when I did a 80km MTB ride which was mostly into a headwind and riding through mud and felt really hard. Hard enough that I didn’t go for a ride on the Sunday. There’s another dip at -28 just after this which is when I did Washington+4 and Fish-2 on successive days, my comments for the latter begin “That was hard work!”

The second time was last weekend, on Saturday I did North Twin +2 in the morning and then went for a steady, mostly Z1, ride with my wife in the evening. On the Sunday I should have done Antelope+2 but felt tired so subbed it for Carter. It was only when I looked at the fitness graph that I noticed a few red pixels.

I’m certainly pushing things too much when my form gets to -30 but I haven’t yet worked out what is the lowest value I could maintain, -25 sort of feels right but might be a little on the conservative side.

My fitness has gone from 10 to 52 since last October (a bit of a break (sic) in Jan/Feb when I broke my collarbone) but it’s not something I’ve specifically targeted, it’s just a consequence of actually tracking what I’m doing. My FTP has gone from 241W to 266W and I’m now at 3.1W/kg, a long term goal is 3.5W/kg but it’s not the sole focus of my training.

@ferrals – the real variety is in the Build and Speciality plans so I just look through them and pick one that I either like the look of or I think it will help with any weaknesses, of which there are many! I did Sustained Power Build last time but next time I do Build I’ll probably do General Build as it targets the short explosive power a bit more.

From the TR blog and podcasts they recommend to match the speciality plan to the demands of your main event rather than go on what it’s called or which group it’s in. So for the JennRide, Climbing Road Race might be a better fit than Cross Country Marathon for example.

In a way the lockdown is an opportunity to actually focus on training in a manner similar to how pro riders can approach it. We’ve time to train hard and more importantly recover properly.

Yeh I have managed to keep it mostly in the optimal training area. If anything I could possibly add a bit more volume but I have a 6 year old and still working from home so still needs to be balanced. It is not doing the other stuff that has given me more time (after school clubs, beavers etc).

Whatever I do my fitness for Jennride this year will be a lot better. Last year I did some structured training doing zwift plans and when I look back my fitness was poor but I was also knackered as what I was doing wasn’t beneficial. I think you overtook me a couple of times whitestone on the ride last year. It is a shame that the hard work wont pay off this year (but small issue in the greater scheme of things) but I believe that I am setting my base to a new level that I can maintain and grow for future years so has been good to get this opportunity

In a way the lockdown is an opportunity to actually focus on training in a manner similar to how pro riders can approach it. We’ve time to train hard and more importantly recover properly

Ha! speak for yourself! I have way less time than previously. Two adults both needing to work and a toddler needing looking after/entertaining/ ‘educating’ so not proving the most relaxing!

I’ll have a look at intervals.icu as I do like data.

@ferrals – fair enough!

intervals.icu is one of the programs/sites that uses your Strava data so you’ll need your rides/workouts to be logged there and be public.

@robbo1234biking – I think I remember you correctly, saw you heading over to Seathwaite on the Saturday and coming out of Coniston on the Sunday.