Status Report - 6x5'x'1 Efficacy Update

I haven't done an official 20 minute FTP test in a long time.  The last couple of times in previous seasons went so badly.  Had I set my training zones based on those numbers I'd be doing VO2 workouts at base.  Therefore, I traditionally used NP for hour long hard group rides to estimate my zones.

Well, after several weeks of 6x5s it looks like my ability to TT is actually beginning to match my VO2 capacity.  After an easy weekend with only an hour of racing I felt a little flat today but after 15 minutes of warmup decided to try a 20 minute all out effort just for the hell of it.  My previous 20 minute best was 3 seasons ago and only 278 watts.  Here is today's workout.

Negative split 288/296 and still felt like I had a lot to give.  Probably should have kept going as long as I could, but for now I'm still surprised I was able to hit my first real goal of 290 Watts.  This puts my FTP at greater than 275, which puts my power to weight at the 4 W/kg mark!

I also like the fact that I averaged 23.9 MPH on a windy day on a road bike.  I really hope this transfers to the time trial bike, I have some stage races to go to this year.

I'm beginning to think a 315 Watt 20 minute (and 300 Watt FTP) is completely achievable this season.

Hurray 6x5s!!

Fulton Category 3/4 Race Report

Taken from my club forum:

A couple of us - Jeff Erler, Luis, Brian Meadowcroft, and myself - went up to "Peach Bottom" PA this weekend to race in the cat 3/4 road race.  With a name like Peach Bottom it was hard to resist.  What I thought was going to be a rolling, mellow course ended up being one of the hardest road race courses I've done.

As usual, we spent some time talking about cassette choices, the course profile, strategy, and tactics.  Little did we know that a lot of that would go out the window once we saw the course!  We showed up almost 2 hours early to see the start of the women's open and the 4/5 race.  I'm still not sure whether the decision to pre-drive the course after the 4/5s was a good idea, but off we went to check it out.  At this point the 4/5 race had 7-8 minutes on us and we knew we'd catch them and pass any stragglers.  Barely 2-3 miles into the course, the carnage was already becoming apparent as we were seeing popped riders hanging off the back of the pack and unable to catch back on.  Long story short, probably 25% of the 4/5s were dropped on the first lap.  This course was muuuuch harder than the course profile suggested.  It was very intimidating just to drive the damn thing, riding it was going to suck big time!  There was one great part of the ride, which was at the top of one of the climbs - as one of the dropped riders was suffering off the back, a group of dogs came up and started nipping at his heels while he was in the red zone!  Awesome image, you had to be there to get the full hilariousness of the situation.  I was tempted to bark out the window as we drove by the poor guy.

As we lined up for the race, the self deprecating excuses starts in earnest - no one was very confident they will be finishing this one.  It seemed like it would be a race of attrition and as we rolled off, mood was great but confidence was not particularly high.

The race starts on some nice rollers and I begin paying attention to who is in the race.  The main person I was marking was Jeremy who now rides for Haymarket, so I was trying to stay near the front and near his wheel.  Although I can't really follow him if he really wants to go, he does not always get tactics right and it's possible to stay close.  The four of us, Luis, Jeff, Brian, and I were all pretty much together for the first part of the lap, but in short order the center line rule was ignored and people were shooting up the far left side of the course and all came around me.  I did not want to be at the back of the pack up the climbs but looks like I would be.

After the doing the first lap it was very clear that the course is as hard as we thought!  I put down personal best 2 minute power pretty much each time up the main climb.  The other climb wasn't a slouch either, I actually think it did more damage because if you were close to the rivet the false flat that followed would pop you.

A couple more laps into the race, and I was sure that the next time up a climb would be my last.  As I looked around, the group was shrinking each lap but somehow managed to stay with it.  Overall the pace of the race was not fast, with a couple of moves going off the front here and there.  I did not have the confidence to try and bridge and one time Luis went off the front and I at least went to the front and controlled the pace of the race.  I would rotate into the front and just ride tempo, when people came around I let them gap me so that others were forced to move around me.  Yeah, a little cheap but the point was to let a break get established and not just have the regular old race.  Jeremy tried to "bridge" up to about 5 different small groups but instead dragged the whole pack with him... sigh.

By the time the last lap came around, though, I was getting more confident and moved to the front and began to really watch my position.  On the last climb there was three off the front that we probably wouldn't catch and the chase group split into 3 different groups.  I ended up in the 2nd group and accelerated out of it after recovering a bit, making sure not to let anyone sit on my wheel.  I reached the front chase group and started to position myself for the sprint.  I knew people would go too early, and when everyone jumped out of the saddle I stayed seated and in their drafts until the last 50m or so and sprinted for 5th in the group, 8th in the race.  Pretty happy with that result given my winter training and how much more season is in front of us.  One place out of the points but $30 richer!  Luis bagged 18th and although he was disappointed, I think he's doing awesome this season and will have his podium finishes really soon.

Overall, this is a great race, highly recommended.  Next year I'll play around in some of the breaks of the front for sure.

Boom #2

Today's workout was a repeat of the last several weeks, a 5x5'x'5 set @ 115%-118% FTP.  This means that if my FTP is set correctly, I should be doing them at around 305-312 watts.  My latest thing is to definitely value quality over quantity, and this was another instance of following that philosophy.

The first interval was lower than I'd hoped but still on target @ 310 watts.  Last week I started with one at 310 as well, so things looks ok.

Just to compare, this was last week's workout:

310/315/315/308/312 Watts

Well, this week, 2 minutes into my second interval, the lights just went out.  It could have been mental at that moment, but my legs were just screaming and I could not get the wattage above 300 for any period of time.  After 2 mins, I lost my willpower and bailed.  After looking at the power for the first 2 min it wasn't terrible at 303 watts, but I knew I was going to blow up.  I rode home and actually struggled to maintain 160-180 watts and rode at more like 125 for the remainder of the ride, 30 minutes or so.

Last week I went into this workout with much less fatigue in the legs, and most likely that made the difference.  While I had 3 days off the bike completely last week, I have been on the bike since Friday, making that 7 days in a row.  Time to recover again according to my new technique and avoidance of junk miles.  No scheduled rest weeks, just reacting to my ability to complete my exercises.  Last season and every season before that, I would have stayed out for another hour or so and probably ridden harder even though my legs were sore.  This way I hope tomorrow's opener goes well and I am fresher for Fulton RR up in "Peach Bottom" PA.  Love that name.

So, boom #2 in my new training philosophy happened today, hopefully I can slowly learn how to adjust my workouts and intensity to manage this well.  I assume that as I continue to train and recover sufficiently, I will be able to take on more and more TSS per week. Right now I'm averaging what looks like 650 TSS per week, my CTL has gone up from 32 to 81 in 6 weeks and it's still climbing.  Last season when I got to 100 CTL I blew up, so I'm wondering if I can hold that this season.  Either way, I'm not going to force TSS down my throat for the sake of TSS.  This week will likely be light since I missed most of today's workout, tomorrow is just an opener, and I'm not riding Sunday.

Junk Miles

One of the nice things about a power meter is it's very good at telling you when you are wasting time on the bike.  By wasting time, I just mean not enough adaptation for either the time or the effort.  For instance, you are wasting the limited training time you have on miles that won't make you stronger.  Even worse, you are leaving enough residual fatigue in your legs that you don't recover from the previous workout and then can't do your "hard" workout the following day either.  I first read about this from Friel a few years ago, but like most self coached cyclists I didn't truly follow my own advice.  Most published coaches, as far as I can tell, refer to tempo or Z3 as the junk miles zone.  This is where I think it's an oversimplification for the sake of the reader.  Using the definition I gave above, there is nothing wrong with a 2-3 hour tempo ride if you make it hard enough.  Some people call the upper tempo training zones as Sweet Spot Training and as long as you are going hard enough for long enough it could be an appropriate training zone.  I'm not going to talk to SST here since there is plenty of good literature on that by the FasCat guys.

http://www.fascatcoaching.com/?site_id=1060&page_id=34778&id_sub=34778
http://www.fascatcoaching.com/?site_id=1060&page_id=34129&id_sub=34129

You can define and scope the definition of junk miles even further than this, though.  Depending on the build period you are on and when your A races are happening, a lot of miles that would otherwise be appropriate training become junk miles.  For instance, doing anaerobic work in November is worthless unless you are racing cross.  That's not to say you shouldn't do any intensity, but targeted VO2 work would be wasted 4 months from your first race of the season.  Same goes for endurance riding like Z2.  If you have 10 hours a week of training, Z2, even during base season, is a complete waste of time.  A lot of people will disagree with me, but I would argue that the mainstream coaching community is coming around to this realization as well.  If you have 10 hours a week and you want to raise your endurance, right high tempo steady state SST rides as much as you can.  You simply do not get enough fatigue from riding Z2 10 hours a week to maximize your time on the bike.  It's similar to the whole "fat burning zone" argument.  Sure, if you jog slow for an hour you will burn more fat proportionally to carbohydrates, however if you run really hard for an hour you will burn so many more calories that you will actual burn more fat too!  You can get endurance based adaptation without riding Z2 is the bottom line.

The reason I'm posting about this is because I can very accurately determine how many miles a week I ride that don't contribute to my intended fitness goals.  The power meter, combined with WKO+, allows a detailed analysis of your rides throughout a build period.  I'm riding many less hours this year but my junk mile ratio has gone down significantly.  Hopefully I can carry this through the whole season, but so far so good, less TSS per week, better fitness gains, and overall less fatigue and therefore less chance of burnout.  I think my biggest contributor to burnout was all the junk miles I spent commuting, thinking that the "intervals" I was doing were helping.  This whole premise actually fits in rather nicely with my previous post "Anatomy of a Failed Interval" in which I explain my philosophy for this season (that I borrowed) of using a failed workout as a barometer for the need for rest.  I'm sure I will be adapting this as the season progresses and my legs make up my mind for me.

VO2 Interval Progression

I’ve been seeing very solid steady improvement during my VO2 sets lately.  My weapon of choice for the last build cycle was 5x5’x5’ at 112-115%.  Although I’m sure not all of the gains are from actual fitness, I’m surprised by how much they have gone up 3 weeks in a row.  Here is the progression:

March 17^th: 283W/283W/280W/286W/283W = 283W Average

March 25^th: 303W/302W/299W/305W/303W = 302.4 Average

April 1^st: 310W/315W/314W/308W/312W = 311.8 Average

That’s almost 10 Watts per week gain on these.  Although the first round on March 17^th was slightly under estimated (I came out of doing these a little too fresh I think) the next two rounds were very painful.  I could barely make it home after the 2^nd one and the 3^rd one really hurt as well.

This week will be a true test since I’m coming off 3 days of rest last week, totally of the bike Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Although this weekend’s workouts were quite hard (SST and 2x20’ FTP work) I’m still thinking I’m more rested this week and ready to really go hard on the 5x5’x5’s.  I thought about switching up to another VO2 workout I’m curious what kind of gains I can see this week.  If I hit 320 watts average for the 5 intervals I know I’m onto something good.

Here's how a 5x5'x5' looks in WKO+.

Not commuting to work on the bike is really lowering my junk miles significantly.  It’s most likely the reason I’m able to get a quality 10-12 hours a week and see such gains.

On a side note, this weekend was the first successful set of 2x20’s in over a season.  I hate steady state intervals and I was able to complete both @ exactly FTP.  I will shoot for 102-105% FTP next time for maximum adaptation, but just doing them @ FTP is putting a smile on my face for now.