Steven’s View Point

I have not posted in a couple of days, life has been very busy. My son has the flu, work has been a bit busy, the extra curricular activities my kids are involved in are taking up lots of time, and we have had a slew of doctors appointments the last couple of days. Even with all thats going on, I have still been able to work in my rides.

I was suppose to do an over/under ride today, but I must have loaded the wrong CTS podcast because the workout was a power interval ladder (2×3, 3×2, 3×1) similar to the ones I did on Tuesday. My motivation was not there to do a full all out power interval ride so I decided to set wattage targets of 340, 360, 380 for the different intervals. It turned out to be a good workout that averaged 255 watts over 75 minutes.

Today’s workout was going to test my mental toughness. 3×1′ fast pedals, followed by 3×6 max climbing repeat intervals, and finally 3×2 power intervals. The hard part of this workout was the recovery time between the intervals; 30″ for the fast pedals, 1′ for the climbing repeats, and 1′ for the power intervals. I did this same workout a couple weeks ago, but the recovery times were 4x what they are this time. I started out a bit timid, pushing the very lower limits of the wattage ranges. After I finished the second climbing repeat interval, my legs were still feeling good and my mental attitude was along the lines of “hey this isn’t so bad”. So, I hammered the third climbing repeat. Focused on staying relaxed, holding good smooth pedaling form, and not watching the PowerTap. The rest of the workout was a breeze!

Climbing Repeat Interval 3:
Duration:      6:03
Work:          124 kJ
TSS:           11.5 (intensity factor 1.07)
Norm Power:    342
VI:            1
Pw:HR:          1.47%
Pa:HR:          1.67%
Distance:      2.694 mi
Min    Max    Avg
Power:           285    395    343     watts
Heart Rate:      151    176    169     bpm
Cadence:         83    100    89     rpm
Speed:           22.7    28.8    26.7     mph

I needed a confidence booster. I struggled with the last couple of CTS workouts.
Today I choose to complete: 2×5 2×6 at 310+ The plan was 10′ WU, 5′@310, 4′ R, 6′@310, 5′ R, 5′@320, 4′ R, 6′@330, 5′ CD

Great workout! I was mentally tough and met all my goals for the session.

My latest CTS field test went great! Round one I averaged 380 watts and round two was 382. I did the test on my rollers set at resistance level 3.

I learned an important lesson near the end of this CTS field test. Rollers are not your friend. Let me explain how I came to this realization. Around the 6 minute mark of the second round things were getting really tough my concentration was starting to stray, heart rate was at the limit, respiration was not in control and I was fighting the bike to stay upright. Finally, the timer went off and I was done. The timer was not the only thing that went off, the bike went off the rollers! I had jumped right over the little wheel on the side meant to keep the front wheel on the rollers. I have had some less than spectacular crashes riding the roller, but his must have been a good one. The bike was ok, I was ok, the cat was a little peaved

I am very happy with the results and am looking forward to the next block of training. I finally get to start working on the upper end of my steady state training range.

My wife gave me Robbie V’s video “Race Day” for Christmas. This morning I set up my rollers and settled in to watch the video. WOW did I have fun following Robbie around the course. I easily match his intensity levels for the whole 40 minutes, but…….. and a big but it is……… is the gap between his wattage numbers and my wattage numbers

I really liked the 1st person perspective and Robbie’s narration during the race.  The on screen stats (hr, effort, wattage) is a great gut check to make sure your working hard.

Here is a link to a great review of the dvd http://cyclocosm.com

I was looking for a dvd to watch while riding today and my son pulled the move “Wind” off the shelf. Today was supposed to be a 20 minute warm up, 40 minutes at 270 watts, and 30 minute cool down. During the sailing scenes I kept finding myself at 300+ watts.

What movies, tv shows, entertainment do you like to watch while riding in doors?