Category: Triathlon

This is week 9 of the Performance Improvement Guarantee program and I’m definitely seeing steady gains. These interval sessions are killing me though. I really think that when I did my last test to set the CP30 (Critical Power over 30 minutes) for these past couple of weeks I didn’t have the trainer calibrated right. Today again I wasn’t able to complete the intervals, so it will be interesting to see next week how I do on the test. This week I was supposed to hold 108% of my CP30 score for 10 minutes, I can do it for a bout 5 minutes, at that point I rest for 15 seconds and then go again for another minute until the interval is over. I know my legs are getting stronger because I can see the results in the Tempo ride and the Endurance ride. I’ve also loaded all the data into TrainingPeaks software so I can also see the steady improvement there as well.

On a side note my weight was way up this morning. I know that it will drop back down in the next day or so, but it certainly is interesting to see the effects of eating out. Last night we went to the 99 and I had the Buffalo wings and the Turkey tips, the salt content must be through the roof on that stuff. This is why I weight myself every day, I like to know the effects different foods have on my body weight and eating out seems to have a huge impact.

Weight: 171

The rides are starting to get long for the sunday endurance ride on the CompuTrainer. Today was 2.5 hours. I felt pretty good and was able to hold 195 watts for the ride average 18.5 mph. My heart rate stayed mostly in the 140s except for the hill when it went to the 150s. Julie was on the fluid trainer doing the Spinnervals video for Lake Placid at the same time. Coach Troy is definitely riding faster than me at this point, I’m hoping by the time we are back out on the road I can average 19 or better for the ride.

Weight: 166.8

Looking back over the last few weeks and months of training I am beginning to see a slow but steady increase in the wattage I’m able to hold, especially for longer periods of time. In the last 6 weeks I’ve climbed from 198 to 223 watts for a 60 minute effort. Hopefully the trend continues!

This morning I was back on the CompuTrainer for the Thursday morning Tempo ride. I was supposed to hold an average of 186 watts for the first 15 minutes and then 224 for the next 45 minutes. I warmed up the trainer like I normally do and calibrated. Started the ride and was averaging about 190 for the first 5 or 6 minutes and felt good. So I picked up the pace a little and was sitting at 202 average watts for the first 15 minutes. Usually they have you reset and do the next 45 minutes, but I just keep going and pick up the effort. The next 45 minutes are supposed to be at an average of 224 watts. I finished the hour long ride at just under that, 223 watts. The immediate wattage reading flunctuates quite a bit, probably because my pedal stroke is not very smooth, but I felt like I could keep it between 230-240 without having to kill myself.

Weight: 166.4

The title of this post should really be something like “A man has got to know his limitations” – Clint Eastwood. It was another tough session on the CompuTrainer. The performance improvement program had me increase the load this week on the intervals. The peaks are now 16 watts over what I tested at and it was a similar ride to the one I had a couple of weeks ago. I managed to keep pace through the first 10 minutes, but could only get 5 minutes into the second interval before I started to break down. I managed to keep pedaling for another minute before I had to stop. That is one of the frustrating things about the coaching software and the load based training. The trainer is continually trying to keep the load constant so if you don’t keep the cadence up it just gets really hard to pedal. If you stop and start again then you have a chance to get the cadence back up before. Once I failed I did a similar thing to a couple weeks ago. I would rest 30 seconds and then hit it hard for 1 minute and rest again. The last interval was even worse and I only managed 3 minutes before having to resort to my shorter intervals.

I haven’t looked at what the program has in store for next week. Maybe I will do this one again until I can finish it. I don’t much like failing, but they say that this is where the real gains are made, when you are pushing the limits. My heart rate was up to 170 again, so I guess I was pushing the limits.

Weight: 167.6