Road Hill Repeats

I woke up to a surprisingly mild Yorkshire day so I thought I'd make the most of it and get to a local hill for some intervals. I live about 8 miles from the lovely village of Crayke, which sits above the surrounding flat countryside like a beacon of pain. So my plan was to take a steady ride to the foot of Crayke mountain,completing smashing a Strava segment on the way there, and then do 6x5 minute hill repeats with a target power output of 330W (about 105% FTP), with roughly 4-5 minutes of downhill recovery between. I don't normally do this kind of specific training on the road, preferring to cover a variety of terrain over distance rather than turbo-style intervals.

The ride out went well and I felt good about smashing my previous time on the Strava segment by 36 seconds, getting it down from 6:10 to 5:36 and taking a King of the Mountain in the process. It also served as a good warm-up interval averaging 360W (115% FTP). It felt really good to be out on the bike and getting all the benefit of air-cooling and not having to suffer a stream of sweat dripping off my nose.

After a brief recovery I was into the 6 Crayke intervals. Below is a close-up of the 6th Crayke interval (the grey background shows altitude, red=HR, black = power, green=cadence and blue=current FTP).The altitude profile starts off quite undulating for the first mile or so, gently climbing 100 feet in the first mile and then ramping up another 150 feet in the last half mile. So, it's not exactly steep, but sticking in the big ring at the front means I have to get out of the saddle for the end of each interval. At the end, HR is in the low 170s which, for me, means I'm working quite hard.

The whole ride looks like this (without cadence and altitude)

The 6 Crayke intervals were: 5:21 at 337W, 5:19 at 350W, 5:14 at 341W, 5:11 at 333W, 5:14 at 342W and 5:15 at 344W. So there's not a lot of correlation between average power and time, which I'll have to look into.

On the way home after the intervals I thought I'd throw in another 330W interval on the flat, but 30 seconds in I thought again and backed-off until I got home. The Crakye intervals had done their job and my legs were quite tired which probably shows the limited road mileage I have done over the last couple of months. It's all very good having good 5-8 minute power, but not if you can't finish the 2 hour race!

Looking at the power profile for the ride it's very obvious that there is a big difference between road and turbo sessions. Rather than specific peaks for targeted zones, there's a flatter look and even some Zone 7 in there too. I find it hard to get quality Z6 and Z7 time on the turbo because I'm always seated.

After the ride I went out for a very gentle 5.7 mile run.