The End of the World workout - Local Hero

Well, after hundreds of years of countdown I was getting ready for the Mayan prophecies to come true and for the World to end today. I thought that, if I was going to die, I may as well choose a hard workout to die to. Sufferfest's Local Hero seemed to fit the bill so I fired up the laptop, The Best of Thin Lizzie and set to work, expecting the World to end sometime during the 80 minute session. It didn't, so I had to complete the whole painful session.

During the second interval (around 25 minutes) I started to feel weak and I was starting to make excuses to give up, but I knuckled down knowing that this would be the last workout for 5 days so I really had to make it count. I didn't want to eat lots of mince pies over Christmas knowing I'd let myself down on a key workout. I did back off completely on the recovery intervals though to make sure I had enough in my legs for the work intervals and I really struggled to achieve the hardest part of the last 4 intervals; legs burning, sweat dripping, head drooping etc.

The Hunted - partial

I like the Sufferfest videos, so when I was struggling for motivation today I thought I'd do the first two thirds of The Hunted as it manages to hide some hard work within an interesting profile. I'm planning a hard session tomorrow so I decided before the start that I wouldn't do it all.

Everything was going well until the very last interval (2.5 mins at 340W) when I got the quits and backed off. I immediately felt like I'd let myself down and kicked in again to complete the interval. If I wasn't saving something for tomorrow I think I would have been able to complete the whole work-out.

Back in the game!

I've been under the weather for the last 2 days, generally feeling listless but not actually ill, no cold-like symptoms despite being close to people with colds. I haven't had a proper cold for 2 years and I seem to get run down rather than properly ill. After my average performance 2 days ago and a night on the sofa yesterday I wasn't expecting much from tonight's turbo session. I planned a longer version of Shorter Harder where I add repeat intervals (in reverse) at the end of the main set. This would allow me to stop if I needed to. But, I didn't need to......

Heart rate (red) was under control throughout, power (black) was always what I needed to do or more and I got to the end of the 90 minute session feeling quite good. Stats: 90 mins (32 in Zone 4) and approx 1250 kCals.

So again I am a little confused how my performance seems to vary so much from day-to-day, but it probably helps to explain why my race results can also be very variable. It's only when you see variable performance in a controlled environment that you can start to work out just how much performance varies.

A bit of a nothing day

As my FTP has only recently increased to 314 and I have decided to use my old FTP as a basis for my workouts for another week or so.

I had planned to do a 2x20 min session at 307W, my FTP until yesterday. I didn't feel very good before the session and decided about 5 minutes into the first 20 with a rapidly rising HR that I decided to bin it and just do a 260W 50 minute session instead. I don't know why I didn't really get on with today but I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I have previously had bad days as well as good days so I'll just wait for the next good one to come along. Hopefully tomorrow.........

Anyway, in the absence of a decent graph, here's the squirrel that lives in my garden. He watches me when I'm on the turbo and I feel that he judges me. He wasn't very impressed with me today!

December's 20 minute power test - weighed and measured!

After 4 weeks of turbo time it was eventually time to complete another 20 minute power test to see if I had made any improvement. I tried to control as many variables as possible; so I used the same bike and powertap on the same turbo, with the same pre-ride calibration and I even used the same kitchen.

Before I started I didn't feel very motivated but I know that it's pointless doing interval sessions to improve power unless I test myself regularly to see if they're actually working. If they aren't I need to know so that I can change my routine.

Anyway, the headline is that my 20 minute power is 331W today compared to 322W 4 weeks ago. This 9W equates to a rise of roughly 2.8% which is well above what I had expected. I was hoping for a 1% improvement per month which would get me to my 345W target by May 2013. This equates to a 14 sec improvement over a 10 mile TT.

Here's the plot from today's power test (Red = HR, Black = power):

After a decent warm-up including a 320W power test to make sure everything was OK, I had a poor start and went off too hard and had to wind myself back, but I was settled in after a minute or so. I noticed that I was continually nudging above my 325W target and after 10 minutes I had averaged 328W. The last 10 minutes were hard and sweaty with a couple of weak periods but not the big crash I had previously experienced around 17 minutes.

Below is a comparison of the 2 power tests showing December's test (Red line) compared to November's (Blue). The obvious differences are the stronger start and the improved performance towards the end when I didn't crash in the Dec version. Dec looks much more under control.

Comparing HR across the 2 sessions looks like this:

The difference between HRs at the start of the session is due to slightly different warm-ups and is maintained until around 12 minutes, but at the end the HR traces are almost identical. This is interesting because I use power to pace myself during 20 minute tests but my limit seems to be HR-related. Without a powermeter I'd certainly start too hard and achieve a lower average power over the 20 min test. Average cadence for the 2 sessions is very similar too at 84 rpm for Nov and 86 rpm for Dec.

So what have I learned?

• At the moment I haven't learned anything. 2 data points are not conclusive but I did feel a lot better on today's test so I'm assuming that the power improvement is genuine; I just need more data to prove it. I have seen how my performance can vary from day to day so it may just be that I was weak on the last test and strong today but that I haven't made any actual improvement. Time will tell.
• My work-outs over the last 4 weeks have targetted power Zones 4 and 5 so I would expect to see some improvement in a Zone 5 power test (which is what a 20 minute test is) and I have purposely avoided harder intervals. However, this doesn't mean that these were the best intervals; I may have showed a higher 20 minute power increase just riding for an hour at 90%FTP for 2 hours a day.
• I will need to increase my work-outs to reflect the increased FTP and to continue to provide an impetus for my body to adapt to the increased stress. Again, this is the reason regular testing is essential.

Back in the saddle

After a frustrating 5 days off I was back in the saddle and on the turbo again this afternoon. I've been working away from home and remembered to take everything I needed to for some hard turbo sessions except my shoes. Last night I had 8 pints at the office Christmas party so I wasn't expecting to achieve much today and I was right.

I'm working on a work-out video that takes real race data from a race I have completed and trying to replicate the effort while watching the video. Here's a still from the video showing a figure relating to the required power output/intensity level:

For me, level 7 equates to 270W and each interval lasts 30 seconds, ranging from 3 (150W) to 10 (360W) according to what happened in the real race. I've used intensity rather than a specified power output so that other riders can use it, even those without a power meter. Below is the plot from today's session showing the short warm-up and then the intervals starting. The dark section is where I was unable to complete the intervals and had to back off and recover (I'm blaming the hangover) before I did some more and then the quits kicked in and I stopped (again, the hangover).

I need to do a bit of tweeking to the video to make it work well and I'm planning to upload it to YouTube once complete in case anybody else wants to use it.

Back on the turbo again tomorrow for a decent session and then a 20 minute power test next week. I'm glad I didn't do a test today, I had considered it on my way home but I now know I would have been very very ill had I tried to go all-out for 20 minutes.

Powermeter Virtual Racing

I have been thinking of ways to create a virtual racing group for riders with powermeters to be able to 'compete' on a level playing field. Full details of the set-up HERE.

If you're interested and don't have a Bike Radar account, drop me a line via this blog and I'll get you involved.

See you on the 'start line'