Trying to get to 4w/kg

Well done Joe, I heard something about the rule of thirds on a podcast the other day. Training should feel good 1/3 of the time, meh 1/3 of the time and rubbish 1/3 of the time.
Otherwise you’re likely over or under stressing yourself if you always feel good or always feel bad.

My cunning plan backfired. I had awful heartburn last night and barely slept. Then breakfast set it off again but it was bearable on the bike.
So I set off with the 15mph group on my mtb as planned. And then it rained. And never stopped for the entire 4h45 I was riding!
They stopped at a garden centre earlier than planned so I carried on alone.
But the tiny sip of squash from my bottle I had made my tummy bad again so I ended up riding 70 miles in the pouring rain on nothing but breakfast with no AirPods and no conversation. Needless to say I’ve been fairly drained since I arrived home 🤣
I’ve been slowly sipping water all day to try and rehydrate and had a couple of rounds of toast but I’m certainly not going to ride tomorrow now.

That sounds brutal! Fair shout for grinding through that in the rain, with no company, under fuelled with stomach ache as well 🤮

At least mine I was fuelled ok / comfy / had music with headphones etc. The rain battered down and soaked my feet right at the start of the ride (but not through my top as the coat stayed waterproof) but then it went weirdly warm.

I think I could do with investing in some new coats for biking at some point – want one of those thin emergency style Castili ones that packs down small and I think a Gore Paclite Gtx as a more streamlined road waterproof.

My new bike frame has now arrived and I’m going to get that swapped over during the next few weeks so that’ll be more comfortable with my lower back for distance and is very purple.

Yeah, I was dressed for showers not torrential, continuous rain I must admit! I rarely get dehydrated but even with the rainwater I was inevitably drinking, it’s taken until Sunday evening to get re-hydrated. And I’m better and appeared to have avoided catching anything else.

In hindsight it was such a flawed idea- especially for recovery week. Lesson learned.

Gearing myself up for Tuesday now as I have decided to start a Threshold block. 4×10 coming up but I have no idea what my Threshold actually is 🤣 Just have to make an educated guess for number 1 and then adjust from there for the second third and fourth.

Sounds like a big ride for a recovery week. Mine sounds more appropriate – 1 hour endurance turbo / 45 min sweet spot turbo / 1.5 hour road spin with just one big hill.

Found when I’ve got back that one of my gp4000’s has started to delaminate on one side I think – got a long loop of rubber hanging off it. Have been happy with gp4000s (25c clincher) which I think are nearer to a 28c size. Looking at gp5000 clinchers in 30c (as the new frame is technically a gravel one which I’m building up for road so has loads of tyre clearance) but struggling to get my head round £100 for a pair of road tyres – albeit with free tubes.

Did a Zwift 1:50 race yesterday over Big Foot Hills 67km with instructions to push for breaks as “intervals”. Even with all the coasting and riding in groups I ended up at 3.2wkg, but very tired, then went out MTBing today in the slop for a 90 mins “push”.

Start again with a Zwift race Wednesday, 3 x 20’s sweet spot on Thursday, 12 x 1 min max on Saturday and 3hr Z2 on Sunday. A 7hr week to start the next block.

Awesome well done Kryton 💪🏻 I love that your coach uses Zwift races to simulate hard group rides and C races. It’s such a great motivator for going harder than you can in intervals alone.

Gp5k’s are worth it though Joe 🤩 I love my 32’s and 25’s tubeless on my gravel and race bikes respectively.

Although I call it recovery ‘week’ it’s actually just a few days. If I go easy for all 7 I lose too much fitness. Last recovery week, I did group rides on the Saturday and Sunday for 9h00 total whereas this time I’ve done nothing over Z2 and only 7h30 so I should be freshened up nicely for Tuesday.
If I’d not been ill and actually drunk the fluids and sugar I had with me as well as doing the proper coffee stop (I left them to it as couldn’t face watching them eat cake 🤣) it would have been a perfect easy spin with high Z1 HR, low Z2 power.
Feeling great now I’ve got my appetite back and slowly emptied the cupboards all day 🤣🤣

It’s such a great motivator for going harder than you can in intervals alone.

Yes and seems to be working – although I haven’t reached my 2021 best I’m getting “gold” in my power achievements (e.g. 1m wkg, 2m wkg) on a week on week basis. Saturdays race I recorded a 60m PB of 266w which is a true hour at 3.6wkg for me.

Wow that’s brilliant mate well done 👍🏻

I’m tempted to try a sports dietician 🤔 I just can’t find a way to lose weight anymore. Eating to hunger means my weight stays literally within 1/2 a lb week to week. (Has been consistent since Jan). Eating to a deficit that worked in my early 30’s means I just get hangry and lose performance on the bike (although worked for -10lb when I was just doing easy z2 before Xmas).

I’m really really pleased with my power (which is why I only talk in straight watts 😉🤣 ) but if I could get down even into the 80’s I’d be half handy. (Even my 291np for two hours is only 3.0w/kg 🥴🤣)

85kg/340w would be my best shot at 4w/kg but that’s most likely a pipe dream.

291np for two hours is only 3.0w/kg

Would be about 4.1 for me!! MY FTP is about 280 on a very good day.
I would expect you need need to abandon training for a while to focus on weight which given you are turning the wick up to harder efforts right now is going to be tough…sounds like a job for next winter to me..

Banjo gravel ride next Sat if the weather cheers up?

Oooo that’s a nice idea although I’m adding intensity now, so was going to go for a smash up with the 19’s. Stay in touch and I’ll see what’s occurring 😀
(I don’t have a gravel bike either as the diverge BB threads have smoothed off so it’s in for a warranty replacement frame!)

I’m hoping I’ll naturally get a kg or two drop off as is gets warmer but I’d love for someone to tell me what three meals a day to eat that are going to tidy up my diet and still give me the big fuel supply I need.

I’m guessing cheese, jam and crisp sandwiches aren’t it 🧐 🤣🤣

Looking at gp5000 clinchers in 30c (as the new frame is technically a gravel one which I’m building up for road so has loads of tyre clearance) but struggling to get my head round £100 for a pair of road tyres – albeit with free tubes.

I only buy GP4000s or now 5000s as I trust them. Cost is immaterial, it’s not pleasant on the wallet when you put a hole in one too soon, with how I expect them to perform into downhill corners. Running 32 TLR(?) on my summer road bike and the level of grip is phenomenal cornering. I think they are “slower” on a ride but I’ve no plan to put smaller ones on ever.

Since I last posted about not overdoing it I’ve basically been ill since I did that “one more ride” mind it was such a good ride. Took basically the week off after to recover and not been able to do anything properly hard since then. Some sort of cold/virus that’s just lingering along making me feel just rubbish enough.

Cold sounds horrible – since Covid I’d swear there are more of these things around that linger for ages before suddenly going.

I’ve stumped up for a pair of gp5000s in 30c. Hoping for the next few weeks they fit in my caad12 disc frame but they might not. I need to switch all the stuff across from the caad to the Dolan GXC frame that’s arrived but I’m not relishing the task.

Want to protection tape a few bits first, then cut the carbon steerer down a bit so I can get it all together and then trim more at a later date.

Di2 internal might be fun – looking at the plastic adapter where cables go into the frame it’s drilled for one big brake hose and then to act as a stop for outer with only bare cable continuing through. Will need to drill one of those out to fit di2 cable through.

I’ve got 2 x hope RX4+ caliper to fit onto Shimano hoses / stis and then bleed 🫣

Got to change the rear axle and both wheels worth of end caps on my hunt wheels. Di2 internal battery to fit in a new seat post (can’t remember if I’ve bought the right size wedge thing or not yet.

New tyres onto wheels.

Press fit bb to fit with new Ultegra cranks.

Think those are the main awkward bits.

On the weight loss thing using the ‘lose it’ app has worked well for me. Although at the moment I’m probably allowing myself too many calories so my weight has stagnated between 76.5-77kgs broadly. If I ease off on weight training and cake I could probably get that down to 75kgs but I’m enjoying both of those things at the moment 🍰

I’m tempted to try a sports dietician 🤔 I just can’t find a way to lose weight anymore.

I did a sports science undergrad degree from 2019-2022 and I’m 2/3 of the way through year 1 of 2 of a MSc Dietetics course, with an eye on registering with SENR post graduation, and I think the problem is you could ask 100 dietitians that question and you’d get 100 different answers

increase protein intake
vary the stimulus
calorie deficit

🤷‍♂️

I’m tempted to try a month of Fascat just so I can download their ‘win in the kitchen’ diet plan.

What I really want is to tell someone my training plan, my likes and dislikes, give them a goal weight (and date) and for them to tell me exactly what to eat 🤣

Bonus if they can cook it and send it to me to heat up 🤣

cancelled todays, I dare say I won’t be feeling up to it tomorrow, had planned 4hrs this week, not a massive issue in the grand scheme of things

deffo wasn’t up to it, binned off Fridays session, cancelled my Friday night shift, spent the entirety of Saturday watching MSR and sleeping, went for a light walk with the kids yesterday, early night, did an early shift today, longer walk with the kids after school, and felt a lot better, Garmin said my RHR was back to normal after a couple of days being elevated, so took that as a sign to get back on, 1hr Z2 @ 185w, bit of drift during, but it was very warm in my room this evening, will leave any intensity until later in the week, still hoping to get 7/8hrs in this week, probably won’t get chance to get outdoors though,

and if they weighed it out and worked out the calories and macros, even better, but then what life is that 🤷‍♂️

take today, I tracked my breakfast, and lunch, because it was off the shelf cereals, milk, bread, meat, tuna, easy, but then at tea, I’ve batched cooked some spag Bol, nights at the weekend, so portioned some up, fed the kids and myself, some more spare, then had a slither of homemade cheesecake short of absolutely obsessing weighing everything and breaking it down in excel then how the hell do you know if your in a deficit

and that in effect is one of the cruxs with tracking apps, because unless you are ultra dedicated and build the recipes you eat, it forces you down the line of eating stuff that has a barcode, for convenience, which isn’t always the best option

Ooof. I lost 10 points off of my fitness score over recovery week (which I guess is the point 🤣) and my legs were definitely aware of it.

I literally haven’t done any threshold work since 31/03/22 either so today’s 4×10 set were going to be interesting if nothing else.

The first one was okay- 333w, but from there they faded in turn until the last one was just 291! Which is bonkers given that if I stay aerobic, I can get within 20w of that for 2h30 🤣

It was fun riding fast at times though. One interval was nicely timed downwind and subtly downhill to give me 9min15 / 4.2 miles at 27.1mph 😎

Let’s hope my body remembers how to go hard and adapts quickly soon 🤞🏻🤞🏻

@crosswind – was this outdoors intervals rather then turbo then?

Where are these fitness points you talking – Strava or intervals.icu or something?

I’m not warning to intervals – it seems a bit ad-hoc when and what it pulls through from Garmin Connect. Think I’m just going to let TR adaptive training rey to manage training tss etc.

Plugged through a 2.4 level V02 session yesterday – only 45 mins long as I didn’t have time for an hour but it was a slightly higher rated session than the hour suggests (both classed as productive). Wasn’t too bad.

I think the sweet spot scheduled for tomorrow or Thursday will be harder – called half dome with some 8 minute sweet spot intervals.

Outdoors mate yes.
“Fitness” is just your rolling 42 day average of your training load. And your “fatigue” score is your rolling 7 day average. “Form” is the first minus the second.

Strava, Training Peaks, Trainerroad, Intervals.icu and other apps all give similar but not identical numbers characterising your “fitness score”.

and my legs were definitely aware of it.

yer, took me a loooong time to get into todays 2hr session, probably through 40 minutes before anything felt normal,

with regards to weightloss, Empirical Podcast more or less echoed my thoughts during the early rambling in their podcast, linked here

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/perspectives-23-weight-loss-diets-for-endurance-performance/id1457497693?i=1000600433287

Plugged through a 2.4 level V02 session yesterday – only 45 mins long as I didn’t have time for an hour but it was a slightly higher rated session than the hour suggests (both classed as productive). Wasn’t too bad.

I think the sweet spot scheduled for tomorrow or Thursday will be harder – called half dome with some 8 minute sweet spot intervals.

The TR VO2max stuff is light work in the main, have to get to quite high ratings before it really hits VO2.

Might not be such a bad thing, as true VO2 sessions are very hard and prob shouldn’t be / can’t be done without good reason. If you get close to 4 and are looking for VO2 work to pull you up then you’d see results by switching to something more classic.

@garry_lager

When you say something more classic what do you mean please? Any input gladly received 😊

Most discussion on VO2 max I see emphasises the max part – percent of ftp not really important, you don’t even need a power meter, it’s just max effort over the work interval. Off time should be generous enough to complete the session without the last couple of intervals completely falling apart – some drop in power is to be expected.

Max power doesn’t mean starting at 500W and desperately trying to hold it for as long as you can – it means there’s a theoretical max power you’re capable of over the interval time, that is what you are aiming for. The strongmen can do 5 x 5 but prob 4 x 4 is a better starting point.

These sessions are hard AF – ie feelings of trepidation ahead of time, breathing like a fish on dry land during. So I wouldn’t be going out of my way to do them. But 4 Wkg isn’t easy (so I hear) – it’s going to involve some hard VO2max work at some point for most people.

VO2max is the maximum oxygen uptake, not maximum power.

(I don’t even know what you mean by maximum power, you can do a lot more power for 30 secs than 30 mins.)

These sessions are hard AF – ie feelings of trepidation ahead of time, breathing like a fish on dry land during

Had to lol at this. I still haven’t had the guts to try The Gorby on Zwift, as I know its going to be a horrendous hour.

I had a bad day yesterday. I had ample time to ride but was totally disinterested and couldn’t even bargain with myself to get started (which normally results in a good session).
Then today was dreaded 5×3 Vo2 max intervals on the plan but the weather was making being cheery about the prospect impossible again. But, I guess I had recovered that little bit more and I found the motivation to at least get on the Turbo bike.
I had a few podcasts lined up so told myself hour one was just to ride and listen. No watt targets high or low. And by the end, I felt quite good.

I have to say, with a bit of thought, Zwift is actually a mint platform for self-styled training now (aside from the plans, pace partners and workout creator) so I went to the original little KOM to do hill reps 🤣 But even better, they have added that KOM shortcut round the back so you can session it as loops for added interest.

I had to start at the tunnel under the bridge where it loops around, then complete the KOM segment and do about 20 more seconds at the top to get my 3 mins in.
Power was 360, 370, 378, 380 and 393w for the work efforts but the main reason why I was able to pace them like that is because of the Segment Ghost feature which gives you a ghost of your best effort to chase! That was awesome as I could ignore everything other than just staying in front of grey me 👻

I cooled down for the rest of the second hour and then finally jumped on to a dead easy 150w pace partner for a final hour.

It sounds a bit of a whan-key Trainerroad Podcast Amber or Jonathon thing to say but I ‘checked in’ with myself during my interval set and I have to say- I felt incredible! Which was a massive contrast to Tuesday.
Hopefully I’ve shocked my system back to life and we can actually do some good work in the next three weeks.

I have sprints pencilled in tomorrow (5x10s but will spread them out over 90 mins) and then Saturday I am just praying the weather cheers up because I want to go and treat the fast shop ride as a C race. Proper full on smashfest.
If they choose a hilly route then nobody will even notice, and I’ll be smashing whether I like it or not 🤣 but if they go longer and flatter then I’m hoping to dish out some hurt.

Sounds like you got through a decent session in the end even if you weren’t in the mood for it to start with. Nice!

I bottled the half done 1 hour sweet spot because I just couldn’t scrape myself out of bed early enough this morning. Did a 45 minute alternative which still felt fairly hard – 5x6min sweet spot intervals at 88-94% of my new ftp from a few weeks back. On the last set I’d ridden myself into the session so banged the power up from the 240 required to about 300w for the last 2 mins. Felt hard but do-able.

Not got a session scheduled tomorrow but I think I might pick a random endurance 1 hour ride to do on the turbo straight after work whilst I watch Bosch on the iPad.

Saturday morning I’m taking the hardtail out round the local easy trails that hopefully won’t be too muddy (Ashton Court / Leigh Woods / 50 Acre Wood).

Sunday will be a rest day.

Well done mate! I’ve got massive respect for anyone who trains in the morning 💪🏻 👍🏻

They mentioned that (sticking an extra endurance ride in) on the Matchbox podcast today- and how over the course of a week, month and then season, they have a huge cumulative effect on your volume. So I’d say that’s a good plan.

How do you activate the ghost segment feature?

Just re-ride the same segment again in the same ride I believe @john_l

It may even do it on the next ride if it’s within 30 days I can’t remember. It does it on any of the official zwift segments I think- sprints, koms, routes etc.

Each of the 5 times I rode the climb it had the latest fastest version. I know it was a feature people asked for from day 1 and fair play- they’ve implemented it well.

Oooo you can customise it.

All About Zwift’s HoloReplay Feature

I am curious about Zwift but can’t bring myself to pay for that as well as Trainer Road and I’m ticking along nicely on TR at the moment. Maybe over the summer I might pause my TR membership and try Zwift out for a month or so. I tend to still turbo over the summer as it keeps my calorie burn going better than trying to get out on the bike for a quick blip.

Going to try and stick in an extra endurance session as often as I can – only issue is I’m on season 7 of Bosch which is the last 1. Think there’s a spin off but only 1 season made so far – so will have to find something else decent to watch on Prime!

The TR VO2max stuff is light work in the main, have to get to quite high ratings before it really hits VO2.

Might not be such a bad thing, as true VO2 sessions are very hard and prob shouldn’t be / can’t be done without good reason. If you get close to 4 and are looking for VO2 work to pull you up then you’d see results by switching to something more classic.

Most of TR’s VO2 sessions used to be closer to ‘classic’ – 4 or 5 min intervals etc. I seem to remember they changed them a couple of years back after seeing some studies showing similar adaptations from the same time at high power but shorter intervals/rests. I can’t remember the details but it was something like the same effect on 5 min power whether you did 5×5 or 5 sets of 10x30s. I think they see much better completion rates with the shorter intervals, and I’ve certainly used them on the path to 4 w/kg in the past.

I do quite like a ‘classic’ VO2 max session every once in a while too though.

I am curious about Zwift but can’t bring myself to pay for that as well as Trainer Road and I’m ticking along nicely on TR at the moment.

Why not just try the free month for a session and see if you prefer it ? I don’t watch anything when Zwifting as i’m too involved in it.

@weeksy – I do t think I’d found a free month option when I looked a few months back. Maybe 2 weeks or something like that.

I’ll have another look at it and see over the next few weeks. Not quite sure how I’ll fit in a race – they’re all at set timed starts aren’t they? Guess it will be get my daughter to bed and try to get out and ready for one about 7.30-8pm or something like that.

they have set start times, but they’re literally almost every 15 mins throughout most days/nights. If you have time for a TR session you have time for a race/event. It’s rare to find a window where there’s not an event of some description you can enter.

Seems like as good a place as any to ask this question, rather than start a new thread.

Just checked my ICU Intervals account for the 1st time in ages and noticed that only my Garmin Connect rides are uploading, nothing’s uploading from Strava so none of my Zwift rides which get uploaded to Strava (and Garmin) not any or my runs which I capture straight into Strava.

Permissions all look ok. Any ideas?

Ok, think I’ve found the answer. ICU are limiting data from Strava to subscribers and Garmin only passes directly recorded activities, not pass through (i.e. Zwift to Strava to Garmin).

Is that right, so I’d need to support ICU to start seeing Strava activities again?

I wondered why my trainer road rides weren’t pulling through from Connect into intervals. I think I’m just going to use trainer road for checking on training stress etc

I thought I read on intervals icu that you have to pay now to be able to get Strava data.