This week is an Active Recovery week for the bike performance improvement program. I’ve been kind of looking forward to it. So today was a 45 minute ride at no more than 60% of my CP30 or threshold power. So, yeah, it was pretty easy! My heart rate average was 120 for the ride. Looking forward to a similar ride on thursday morning. The idea behind the easy week is the testing that is to come on the weekend, need to have fresh legs for that.
Weight: 167
Today was another long endurance on the CompuTrainer. Again at the 3 hour mark my legs started to feel tired. Last week when it happened I thought it might be nutrition, but I seems to be taking in plenty of calories. This week though, I tried doubling up the Perpetuem in 2 of the bottles and just plain water in 2 of the bottles. I went through all 4 bottles in 3 hours and refilled one with water at the 3 hour mark. I would have thought that was plenty of fluids, but I weight myself after the ride and I was down 2lbs. My conclusion is that riding inside I’m warmer and not getting the cooling affect of the wind that you get outside so I’m sweating more. Next long ride I will try to consume more water per hour.
This coming week is a recovery week on the bike program and it couldn’t come at a better time. This weekend is the Great Bay half-marathon so it would be good to save my legs a little bit. The bad part is that saturday morning I will be having to do the Critical Power test. I’m not really too worried about my time at the Great Bay, it probably won’t be as fast as last year, should be under 1:50 though.
Weight: 163.2
This morning was another good Session 2 workout. My heart rate slowly made it’s way up to just below 160 for the first 20 minute interval and was pretty much at 160 for the entire second interval. My legs felt pretty good this morning starting out. I noticed that if I make an effort to get my cadence up high right away it is easier to maintain rather than starting out at a lower cadence during the warmup and then trying to rasise it. My average cadence for the ride was 92 and that felt comfortable.
Weight: 166.4
It’s tuesday again, and that means more intervals on the CompuTrainer. Not just intervals, but short high intensity intervals that suck the life out of you. I did ok until that last interval, I just didn’t have anything left in my legs at that point. The beginning of the workout felt pretty good, each interval I could see my heart rate climbing and the second to last it really got up there, but I made it through. Then the last interval, not sure if I just wasn’t mentally ready or my legs were just done. It is about an hour into the ride so I just may have had nothing left. It was better than last week where I only made it to through 3 intervals before my legs had nothing.
Weight: 167.8
The long Sunday ride was three hours and thirty minutes! I fired up the CompuTrainer 3D software and did the Ironman Kona course for this ride. I need a break from the Lake Placid live course, after about 5 weeks of it I need a change. The first half of this ride is pretty much up hill, not very steep but kind of long steps. I did a little over 63 miles during the course of the three and a half hours. My legs felt good for the first 3 hours and I could feel them start to tire toward the end. I think my legs definitely remember the last ride as each ride once I get to the point I was at the week before my legs always start saying hey, time to end the ride!
The snow is pretty much gone, now we just need some global warming and it will be back on the streets. It was tempting with the sun out, but at three and half hours at 32 degrees didn’t sound like much fun.
Weight: 165.6
Thursday morning means either a tempo ride or long intervals depending on what the program calls for. Today it was long intervals. Two 20 minute intervals at 98% of CP30 score. Essentially it is like doing the CP30 test for 20 minutes taking a break for 10 minutes and then continuing on for another 20 min. As you near the end of that second interval I can really feel my legs starting to burn, but I also know that I’m going to be able to finish, I just feel like I have enough. My average heart rate for the ride was 150, but for the intervals it stayed pretty steady between 160-166. Definitely a good solid workout, days like these I feel like I’m making progress toward becoming a faster cyclist. We’ll see!
Weight: 165.6
Just like last week, couldn’t make it through all of the intervals. The program called for me to increase the watts to on the intervals, so I did. I managed to get through the first 3, but then had to rest twice in each of the next 3. Looking at the program it says that this first session should be done on 72 hours rest, of course I think this is designed strictly for a cyclist and not a triathlete. I wish I could get an extra day after the long endurance ride but it just doesn’t fit into the schedule that way. Sunday is the long ride and fortunately monday is a swim day so the legs do get a rest as I don’t kick much when I swim, but my legs still were feeling tired from the 3 hour ride and 15 minute run on Sunday. I tried keeping the cadence high but at 272 watts, I could only do that for so long. I’ll just keep working at it and we’ll see when the next CP30 test comes if there has been any imporovement.
Weight: 165.4
Today was the long endurance ride and it seemed to take forever! I realized early on that it wasn’t going to be a good ride, you can just feel it in your legs. I really need to drink more water after yesterdays 10 mile run, it makes a huge difference. Once you get dehydrated it is very difficult to recover, I drank 3 water bottles during the ride but still ended up weighing 4lbs less than yesterday. I’m trying to lose weight, but not all in one day!!!! I’ll be sure to drink more next saturday after my run to be better prepared for the long ride. I was supposed to do 3 hours 15 minutes but ended up just doing 3 hours followed by a 2 mile run. I actually felt ok during the run, even though it was pretty short.
Weight: 163.4
This morning long Intervals were similar to the ones I did last thursday, with the exception that the break in between the two long intervals was only 5 minutes instead of 10 minutes. Session 2 is definitely easier than Session 1 each week, but not by much. My heart rate for the second interval seemed to be above 160 for the entire time and closer to 165. Definitely a good hard workout.
Weight: 165.6
Getting better, but not quite there yet. Last week when I did this workout I was only able to get through 3 of the intervals before falling apart. This week I managed to make it halfway into the 5th interval before my legs just gave out. I rested for 30 seconds and then finished out the interval. The last interval I had to rest twice as you can seee in the chart. My legs just didn’t have the strength to keep going, of course my heart was up to 166 so maybe that had something to do with it too! Each of the interals was 6 minutes long with a 3 minute rest.
I definitely enjoy doing these even though they hurt. I have to believe that all this will pay off when I finally get outside. I may keep doing these workouts even after the weather gets nice just because they force me to work hard, harder than I can probably push myself outside on the bike. When I get outside I find it far to easy to just coast down a hill 🙂
Weight: 166.6