It's killing me but..........

Sillyoldtwit

Well, if that's the case, then I'm more determined to reach 300W FT.
I can't wait to get the century over with and get down to some serious intervals etc.
Btw, one thing I incorporate into my Sunday rides is, I keep telling myself I'm only 40! And do you know, I think the body believes me.

RapDaddyo

So, just what is it that you think you've been doing?

Sillyoldtwit

LOL Sorry RD but serious for me starts at 260Watts!

Sillyoldtwit

Hey Lonnie, great to see I'm not the only one who thinks 1 litre of liquid per 15km is a bit OTT. Drank half a litre today in 57 km and didn't really need that much.

Sillyoldtwit

RD, I've been avidly following your arguments in the power forum, although I don't pretend to understand half of it. I guess I have relied on your wisdom and experience to set my training schedules and calculate the accompanying figures.
However, I'm aware that sooner or later I shall have to leave the nest and make my own decisions and calculations. And to-date your advice has been gratefully accepted and very much appreciated, but my wings are by no means fully fledged as yet, so if you don't mind I shall stay under your wing a little longer.

Today I went to the gym determined to check my FTP. So I started off at 250W, however, it wasn't to be. The heavy leg syndrome soon kicked in. Although I halved my Sunday mileage, I considerably increased the intensity.
So this is what the session looked like.

1x20 @ 250W
1x7 @ 240W
1x3 @ 230W

Then I went bananas.

1x45sec @ 300W
1x45sec @ 320W
2x45sec @ 300W

The heavy legs by now had disappeared, so finished off with 1x10 @ 200W which might just as well have been 130W it felt so easy.

The 300W also felt relatively easy (at 120 cadence)

You'll probably on the above session, but I went purely on how I felt.

Luckily the 2 new bikes in the gym go up to 350Watts. I have a sneaking suspicion I am going to be using them before too long.

TYSON

RapDaddyo

Not at all. You make me laugh and your enthusiasm is contagious.

First of all, a full hour at your max power is a very hard ride mentally. Physically it is demanding, but mentally it is brutal. It's just a very long time to have to concentrate so intensely. So, it takes a very high degree of motivation to ride a full hour at FT. And, if you think that's hard, try a 2 hour hillclimb TT with sweat pouring off your forehead and stinging your eyes and when you look up the road all you see is mountain road rising up to meet the sky, forever it seems. In the last couple of miles, you'd sell your bike for $1. Only then does a 1 hr FT ride seem pleasant and that only lasts for about a month. Then, it's hard as hell again. If you took a poll of those in this forum that ride full hour FT performance tests on a regular basis, I'll bet it's less than 10%. Second, nobody in his right mind rides a full hour at FT unless he is really well rested. Given that you had a hard ride Sunday and it appears you are a little fatigued in general from a couple of hard weeks, you're probably not far off with your estimated FT of 250W. Now, if you couldn't hold it for the first 20min interval, I'd revisit that conclusion. But, I think you could have done 250W for an hour if you had been well rested and highly motivated.

It's getting scary.

To the contrary, I love experimentation and I do it all the time. I play a little pacing game on my favorite hill. This is a 3.5 mile 6% hill with numerous grade changes. Some days I try to ride it with a perfect variable power pacing plan, some days I try to ride it at constant power +/- 5 watts, some days I try to ride it with the worst possible pacing plan (go hard on the flattest sections and back off on the steep sections) and some days I try to ride it without looking at my PM and guess my NP when I get to the top (I'm horrible at guessing, BTW). It makes cycling all the more interesting and so long as you get in some high-intensity minutes, it's all beneficial.

Sillyoldtwit

Firstly, if it's OK with you, I'll pass on the uphill TT. I'm getting to like hills but am not yet in love with them.
Second, I'm sure I could do 250W for 1 hour with aluminium/aluminum legs instead of the usual lead ones.

What's getting scary - not 250W FT surely?

I understand what you're saying about experimentation, but the idea behind raising the bar to 320Watts was to attempt to do some anaerobic work. Too early for that do you say?
One effect of doing the 300/320 watts session was, doing 200W afterwards made the it feel like I was riding a child's tricycle. I had to slow down the legs to stop me falling off because it was so light.

One quick question RD, 2 different people somewhere in these forums recently said long distance rides were a waste of time, even when preparing for a century. Now, this Sunday's forecast is for rain so I planned to do a 110km ride on my tough mountain course next Monday, then ease off for the century next weekend. Any thoughts/advice here.
Oh, and also intend to do 1 more VO2MAX session this week. (before the century)

RapDaddyo

Hills and wind and winding roads are the greatest things for cycling. Can you imagine riding where the roads were flat as far as you can see in all directions and a major curve in the road is a 10 degree bend? I grew up in a place like that, West Texas. It's not nearly as interesting as climbs and curves and rivers, trees and oceans. At least we had wind.

No, the numbers that start with "3."

No, it's never too early. I just figured you had your hands full with the VO2MAX efforts. I thought you might want to learn to love those first before going to 125+%FT stuff. I love L6 intervals. One day I did 47 of them IIRC. It was about a 3 hour ride of L6-recovery-L6-recovery-L6, ad nauseum. I had sore glutes and couldn't do seated efforts >200W. I couldn't ride off the saddle for too long, so I had to increase the intensity.

That is definitely one benefit of the shorter, higher-intensity intervals. They make the other stuff seem tame by comparison. I think there's also a real (vs. placebo) effect, specifically that you learn to relax at such intensities whereas initially there's a sort of panic reaction and you get all tense.

I think long rides are good for endurance, I just don't think they result in an increase in power. To be clear, what I'm talking about is long rides at L1-L2-lowL3 pace. Long rides that are a mix of high-intensity time and recovery time are very beneficial and is how I prefer to ride long rides, as a string of high-intensity time and recovery time.

Sillyoldtwit

[QUOTE=

I think long rides are good for endurance, I just don't think they result in an increase in power. To be clear, what I'm talking about is long rides at L1-L2-lowL3 pace. Long rides that are a mix of high-intensity time and recovery time are very beneficial and is how I prefer to ride long rides, as a string of high-intensity time and recovery time.[/QUOTE]
So IOW you don't think a long ride on Monday is too close to the century?

RapDaddyo

No, just ride at an easy pace. Try my leg-weight only pedaling style. I try to see if I can ride without actually pushing down on the pedals with my legs. I try to simply let my leg weight alone (gravity) push the pedal down. It's sort of amazing, but I ride at ~150W like that and make pretty good speed. I'm sure I must be pushing down somewhat, but I sure try hard to simply drop my leg on the crank with no pushing force. That's my, "I'm dead and just want to get home." pedaling style.

Sillyoldtwit

Sounds like a good idea, but I couldn't do it. I could set out with the intention of taking it easy, but remember I only get out on the bike once a week, and when I hear the first whirrrrrrrr of the tyres all good intentions go out the window -I'm off. And this is true even more so now that I have my new toy to play with -POWER!

RapDaddyo

Then have at it. You have plenty of time to recover. Frankly, I think just 2-3 light days before your event is sufficient. I trashed myself last week and was just drained on Sunday. I took one day off and today just finished a 2 hr TTT practice ride at ~85%FT with 120%FT pulls ad infinitum. Felt fine.

Sillyoldtwit

As I'm starting to taper now in preparation for the century next week, I thought I'd do a little bit of experimentation as RD phrased it.

So today in the gym went like this.

warm up
1 minute @ 100,110,120,130,140 Watts then 1x10 @ 200w

After a 5 minute spin @ 100W again, attempted to see how long I could hold 300W, so did:

1x2mins @300W (cadence started to drop off) then with a minutes rest between intervals did 3x1min @300W

Then
1x5 @ 240W
1x5 @ 230W
1x5 @ 220W
1x5 @ 210W

After a 5 minute spin, imagined I was coming to the last minute of a race which was a 15% climb to the finish. So once again banged it up to 300W,
stood up in the saddle and sprinted the last minute @ 120 plus cadence.

What did the session achieve? It has certainly given me confidence to hammer the last minute of a climb at 300Watts plus and know I'm not going to blow up.

The young guy (60 year old) on the bike next to mine chugging away at 105 Watts said, you'll damage your heart, you know.

RapDaddyo

LOL. Tell him they come with a warranty and yours has another 60 years to go before the warranty is up.

It's fun to experiment, isn't it? Here's another good one. If your bike has a memory feature or averaging function, cover up the display and just ride at what feels like a comfortable, all day pace. Not necessarily recovery, but more like an all day ride (e.g., 10-12 hours). At the end of the ride, take a look at the average watts and I'll bet it is surprisingly high. The more fit you become, a pace that you once found taxing begins to feel like nothing.

You're ready. Have an awesome ride and enjoy the scenery. I look forward to your ride report.