Tag: CompuTrainer

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Ironman Lake Placid

Recovery day

After the 12 mile run yesterday and the CompuTrainer ride the day before my legs were feeling a bit heavy and tired so I made today a recovery day. I tried to work on keeping my cadence up and also my Spinscan numbers to keep my pedal stroke more efficient. I did ride for 1 hour and 15 minutes, but kept my heart rate under 140 and averaged 128 for the ride. Cadence was 91 for the ride, right around where I want to be. At least that seems to be the cadence where I feel most efficient right now.

Weight: 165

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Ironman Lake Placid

CompuTrainer – IM Kona ride

Woke up a little late this morning so I changed the plan from doing the intervals that I normally do to just riding the IM Kona bike course. I managed to hold 200 watts for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Felt better than I expected at the end, my legs were still a little sore from the yard work this weekend and the fast pace bike ride, but by the end of the ride they didn’t bother me at all.

I’m going to start to jot down nutritional intake here on the blog for the longer rides. I’ve been making adjustments to my nutrition and feeling better on the rides, but I think a more detailed account of how much I’ve actually taken in calories and electrolytes will help dial in what I’m going to need for race day. I’ve come to realize that I need a lot more electrolytes than I have been getting because even though I have been drinking a lot on the bike my legs had been hurting after about 3 hours. I would have attributed this to fitness level except that the efforts were not extremely hard and after 3 long rides like that my fitness level should have improved. The last couple of long rides have been better though I’ve added a SaltStick to the bike and that has definitely helped.

Weight: 163.2

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Ironman Lake Placid

CompuTrainer Tuesday

Another Tuesday and another day of Interval training on the CompuTrainer. It really feels like doing a series of hills outside.

Week 19 Session 1

Weight: 165.5

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

New tires and Intervals

Put new tires on the bike the other night and jumped on the trainer this morning. Apparently there is some coating on new tires that came off on the trainer wheel. Had to stop 3 minutes into the ride to clean it off, everything was good after that. I’m glad it started making the funny noise before I made it into the interval sets. It would have really sucked to have stop then and restart.

Weight: 165

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Late day trainer ride

Decided to sleep in this morning and do my ride after work. I should have got up and did it in the morning. By the time I get home from work I never feel like doing anything like that, but I went and got it done. Felt pretty good really once I got warmed up and going. I was really kind of hoping that it wasn’t raining and dry so I could go out on the road. Oh well, maybe Thursday.

Weight: 165.2

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

More Long Intervals

Yep, just another Thursday morning on the CompuTrainer. Today was the same workout as last thursday. Two 20 minute intervals at 98% of FTP with 5 minutes of recovery. Heart rate ranged from 155-158 for the first one and from 157-163 for the second one. Each recovery my heart rate went back down to mid 130s.

It’s looking like a nice day to be outside on the bike! 60s and sunny, too bad it isn’t like that at 5am!!!!

Weight: 164.4

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Getting warm in the garage

Spent another Tuesday morning in the garage on the CompuTrainer. This session was another set of short intervals. I felt pretty good this morning, heart rate was going between 160-163 for the last few minutes of each interval and would quickly recover to 130s before the next interval. Intervals were 6 minutes long, so not too bad, but the last couple the legs were starting to really feel it.

Still kind of debating whether to keep training on the CompuTrainer during the week or to try to get outside. The CompuTrainer is nice because I can start early, if I go out, it is still dark of 5am. I don’t mind running in the dark, but riding in the dark doesn’t sound too appealing to me.

Weight: 163.8

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Back to Intervals

After a nice relaxing active recovery week last week it is back to killing my legs with short hard intervals. The next 4 weeks training has been set with the results of the CP30 test I did Saturday morning. This first session is supposed to be at 108% effort of the CP30 score, but because my legs are still sore from the half-marathon on Sunday so I setup the workout to 104%. There were 6 intervals of 6 minutes each with a 3 minute rest in between. The first one always seems so easy, after that they all seem to be the longest 6 minutes of my life. Definitely a killer workout.

Week 16 Session 1

Weight: 166

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Small Gains

This morning was my CP30 test and was the 4th test I’ve taken. I was able to eek out another gain in watts, but a small one. I guess a gain is a gain and I shouldn’t complain. My last three tests have been 248,254 and 259, gaining about 5 watts per every 4 weeks of training. It doesn’t seem like much, but over the course of 10 miles it is about 30 seconds. Ok, so that really isn’t a whole lot, but it is something. I guess one way to look at it is that it is kind of like bench pressing your max. The gains start to come much slower the stronger you get.

Over the course of the next 4 weeks of training I’m going to try to incorporate more leg exercises in my weight routine to build some strength in my legs. The hard part will be figuring out which day or days to do that. The best option may be to to do it after my rides on Tuesday and Thursday. I’m going to have to put some more thought into that.

Weight: 166.6

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Spacely Sprockets and Cogswell Cogs

My bike came with an 11-28 cassette and it seemed fine to me, never really paid much attention to the numbers. I just figured bigger one is easier smaller one is harder, let’s ride!  Well, for sometime now I’ve noticed that when I would shift from the middle of the cassette up I would lose quite a bit of speed/power. At one point I even thought I was skipping over a gear and would take a look down to see what was going on. It is kind of a weird feeling when you shift from what seems like just a little too much effort in the legs to quickly spinning crazy fast and losing speed. I took a look at my old bike and noticed that I had a 12-25 cassette on that one and that bike always felt pretty good shifting through the gears.

I ordered up a 11-25 and put it on the bike last night before my morning ride. I can say that it made a big difference and the shifting is more smooth, my legs don’t spin out of control when I shift up from 19 to 21 or 21 to 23. Granted this won’t make me faster, but it should help keep my cadence more even when going through the gears.

In other gear news, I checked with Quarq yesterday on my order and the new crank with the power meter should be in next week. Looking forward to riding with power outside to keep my effort at a more steady pace. Many times I don’t realize I’m pushing as hard as I am until my heart rate goes way up and by then it is too late. That is something I really want to try to avoid on the long rides and at Ironman.

Today was another active recovery ride, so not much to report on there.

Weight: 166.6