soreen – Supermurphs Trainer Road Blog

February 10, 2019February 10, 2019

Hunter (Sunday)

Hunter, the working title for one of my all time favourite movies “Predator”.

Having decided against the club ride instead of “getting to the chopper” it was a case of “GET TO THE TURBO ROOM”, no bazooka, or mini guns, it was 3 bottles, 2 rice cakes and 2 banana soreen bars for my longest session yet, 2 hours to be precise.

The workout

Looking at the interval power required I felt totally comfortable this would be done without too much trouble, it ended up being a little harder than I thought. In fact I was so confident that I gave Netflix a go again, I could of course have put Predator on but I’d watched it only last week so I figured I’d give Breaking Bad another run out.

Interval 1

With 250W the target I breezed through the first 20 minute sweet spot interval at 258W average and began the recovery, which at 15 minutes was too long, particularly for the first one. I was fully able to follow Breaking Bad so with a bit more fuel added I began the next one.

Interval 2

A bit of a bump in power needed here, 261W the target. My pedaling remained solid, heart rate remained at around 160BPM until right near the end but again this seemed straight forward. I did toy with upping the target power but that would have made it threshold not sweet spot so I left it alone. Net result, 271W, 10 above target and time for that recovery again.

Having consumed 1 rice cake and 2 soreen bars already I took a bite out of my final rice cake then saw it drop on the floor, would I need those 15g of carbs? Should I climb and fetch something else? I decided not to!

What a waste!

You’ll note the industrial nature of my training room…

Interval 3

First part of the interval was fine but with 10 minutes left I was starting to feel the cumulative effects, I sure could go for that rice cake now! The target here was 251W, naturally I found myself above that but at this point despite the fatigue kicking in I was enjoying the session (and Breaking Bad). Heart rate never went above 160BPM (my max is 196) and the 20 minute lap finished with an average power of 262W, cool down time.

Summary

I binned the club ride off again, mainly because I had a few things to do and didn’t fancy having to rush around all afternoon after 60 miles on the bike, with the weather being poor it helped make the decision. Next week though I’m getting some road miles in!

So week 2 completed, no issues and it’s clear my legs are getting better and better as each session goes by, this is giving me more and more confidence that I’ll put in a good showing at some events in March, as I mentioned though I need some road time.

Current fitness

Week 3 looks like this:

Next Workout: Bluebell (Vo2 max)

February 8, 2019

Pettit & Clark

Wednesday – Pettit

The schedule for Wednesday was an easy hour of aerobic work, skipping this not an option, keeping the momentum going is really important and it all adds up, I’m a firm believer of the “the more you train, the more you can train” so keeping the sessions going should be a real positive approach to maintain.

Thursday – Clark

Starting later on the turbo always requires a bit more mental focus to keep in the zone but to be honest I’m already starting to bounce back fitness wise so the workouts look less daunting now anyway, but 90 minutes is still 90 minutes so you need to be ready.

Again I focused on being fueled up, this is paying massive dividends as I’m no longer starting a workout with a full stomach and needing my body to try and digest a bowl of coco pops eaten 20 minutes before while I’m doing hard efforts. I knew I’d be on the trainer at 6:30pm so at 3pm I ate my now customary rice cakes and soreen which topped me up nicely.

As you can see each sweet spot effort was preceded by a hard effort of 12 seconds just before it, this workout actually fits in quite nicely with racing as you tend to spend a lot of time at sweet spot but have harder efforts coming out the corners. I was a little lower than the target power on the first couple of stomps, mainly due to the lag from the turbo so on the later ones I spun my legs up quicker to hit the power.

Intervals 1,2 and 3.

These were all hit no problem, in fact I was above the power on all of them (full analysis below), mainly because I get into a rhythm and just keep it going, any dips below target on the graphs are momentary lapses of concentration not a weakening of the legs.

More about that concentration…. I’d started with a Trainer Road YouTube podcast but after 10 minutes I finally decided that from now on I’d just look at the numbers for my workout, I cannot do both. For easy recovery stuff it’s not an issue but where you are maintaining a power output that is a little taxing my brain cannot cope.

Intervals 4,5, and 6

I felt good, so I turned up the wick a bit, especially on the last one where I set the target power 6% above required, I even ended up more than that. I figured this was OK as I have a rest day today, Saturday and Sunday look much more challenging so it’ll be interesting to see how I cope with them, I’m hoping to deal with them in the same way.

265 / 255

271 / 261

275 / 266

274 / 261

277 / 255

278 / 263 (original target was 250)

Summary

Another completed workout, fully on track for this week as I move into some threshold and longer sweet spot efforts at the weekend.

I’m spending a lot of my spare time reading up on lot’s of different training methodologies so I may look to tinker a little with some of the interval sessions, especially if the ones on the plan are being hit so easily. I’ll caveat that by saying as a wider experiment it may just be best to leave things as they are then experiment when this 6 week plan is done.

Current fitness

On the rise, this should see a nice bump over the weekend.

Next Workout: Donner (hard)

February 3, 2019February 3, 2019

Geiger + 2

So onto Sunday, I’d actually been tempted to skip this workout in favour of the club group ride but with temps at -4 it was an easier decision to make to stay on track and get this workout done. I am going to get out next weekend though as it does make it easier to stay motivated when indoors. After a busy morning of dog walking, food shopping and cleaning I hopped on the turbo at just after 12pm to get my 90 minutes done.

Description

Geiger +2 is 5×12-minute efforts spent in the Sweet Spot, 88-94% FTP, with short, 4-minute recoveries between efforts.

Goals

Sweet Spot intervals are all about furthering muscular endurance and enhancing aerobic efficiency.

Additional, related benefits include improved sugar storage in the muscles, better utilization of fat for fuel, a higher capacity for more intense workouts later on, and increased power output at moderate , largely aerobic intensities.

This is what it looks like:

How I do it

Normally when I am training I don’t need the distraction of music or netflix etc but today I thought I’d give it try, 30 minutes in I turned it off. I find it off putting when I’m zoning in on hitting my power targets at sweet spot and above. Earlier in the week I did Kaweah which on paper was harder than Geiger+2, but that did not prove to be the case today, it felt hard, very hard.

It was one of those days, probably due to a bit of fatigue building up, but I was fidgeting around quite a bit on the turbo and the 12 minute intervals of which you can see there are 5 really seemed to drag on. Having had my breakfast at 6:30am and only a cookie in between I perhaps was a bit under fueled as well, Sweet spot training is bloody hard, it’s not one of those “just hop on the trainer” sessions, for me personally you need your brain in gear and some quality calories in your system.

No danger

There was never any issue with me completing this session it just felt harder than it should, the fidgeting around was affecting my pedaling no doubt but with a few grimaces the first two 12 minute intervals were hit just above target.

Intervals done: 2 / Food consumed: 1 x banana soreen.

Three more to go

Looking at the above you can see that intervals 3 & 4 were solid, (with the help of one more soreen bar and a gel) the final interval was a bit more up and down as the fidgeting got worse, anyhow, final session of the week done.

Summary

A very hard session completed, felt much tougher than I thought and I’ve been pretty knackered since I climbed off the bike about 2pm. The fridge and snack cupboard has also taken a bit of a beating.

So to recap, 5 sessions to do, 5 sessions done.

Next workout: Taylor-2 (grim)

February 2, 2019February 2, 2019

Kaweah

Having shuffled around my plan for this week, Friday night was the workout called Kaweah, I’ll let coach Chad give you the low down:

Description

Kaweah is 5×10-minute intervals between 96-99% FTP with 5-minute recoveries between intervals.

By spending time very close to lactate threshold while remaining just below it, riders can improve their sustainable power and muscle endurance by teaching their muscles to process high levels of lactate and tolerate the discomfort of acidic buildup without slowing down.

Cold in the Outhouse

Having consumed come caffeine and a gel the warm up passed by quickly and I was soon into the first interval. With temps down to 6 degrees Celsius it was a bit cold to start with, I could see the effort going into my legs by the visible air coming out of my mouth, but 10 minutes later the fan was back down to 1, first interval done.

After 5 minutes recovery I cranked out another 10 minutes at just below FTP, treating myself to a strawberry soreen bar at the end to top up on carbohydrates, then onto the next interval.

All 5 intervals were targeted at close to my FTP of 284W, the 3rd one being the closest at 281w and this one proved the toughest. On completion I reached for another gel and was slightly concerned I might need something else as I started to feel the cumulative effect.

Although my heart rate was increasing I soon had interval 4 out the way, recovered well then pushed out the final interval, that previous gel had just about lasted me but I was thankful it was over.

I’ve not got my heart rate monitor (HRM) connected with Trainer Road so this is the shot from my Training Peaks account. You can see the red line for my HRM drifting above the power line as each interval goes by, this is known as cardiac drift and is why measuring by power is much more effective for this type of training.

The full set

Recovery

After my workout I took on board a protein gel which was pretty rank then hoovered up some chicken, rice and peas (if you didn’t say that in a Jamaican accent then read it again!). Job done.

Next workout: Pettit (easy)