Friday Training

Level 5 training is never going to be fun but even at this time of the year I regard it as an essential part of my training and it's importance rises as time passes.  Today I'd scheduled in a 6x3' session at 106-120% of FTP with 3 minute recovery periods.  The majority of the 3 minute effort periods were therefore done in the 340-360W range with levels rising up to 363W, this was never going to be comfortable.

Again the problems associated with doing this type of training using heart rate alone can be clearly seen in the power and heart rate distributions below:

The power distribution clearly shows that 18 minutes of the training time was spent in my L5 power zone, hitting exactly the physiological systems I am targeting with this session. However, looking at the power distribution one would think that essentially no training time had been spent in the zone targeted by the session, such are the problems of heart rate lag when looking at short high intensity training intervals.

The session actually went rather well, my HR was generally lower than when I last did this session and when I last did it my TSB was significantly higher than today. I have clearly lost nothing and almost certainly gained by using the ErgVideo system for a lot of my training for the last couple of weeks, I am very encouraged by this.

Really hoping to be able to get out on the road this weekend even if just for a very steady ride, unfortunately it seems to be very frosty every morning at the moment and I've no intention of riding on ice having avoided it through the worst of the winter, I'll wait a little longer if need be.

To review this session: click here.

ATL: 70.1 CTL: 63.5 TSB

Thursday Training

Hi

VeloTron

Continuing with some higher intensity (L5) work today which I never really look forward to but which I regard as a very important part of my Winter training, I have a session like this scheduled at least every 2 weeks.

The session went well and I ended up doing 6x3 minute efforts at 106-120% of my FTP which is never comfortable but is manageable. I never know whether I prefer to do shorter efforts but more of them or longer efforts with a smaller number, in the end it's about the same volume of suffering!

Anyway, felt fine after the session and it's done and dusted now, little while until the next one of these and tomorrow is a rest day! :-)

To review this session: click here.

ATL: 64.4 CTL: 65.5 TSB: +2

[Uploaded 07/01/2010 22:29:09]

Tuesday Training

Hi

VeloTron

As part of my Winter plan I am ensuring that I continue to do some higher intensity efforts and today it was time to introduce my L5 work into the plan, which I love :-/ I used a file from the appropriate .erg library and did 6x3 minute efforts, each effort with a load varying automatically between 106-120% of FTP.

This sort of training is never comfortable but I got through it in reasonable shape and was never anywhere near my MHR so I was happy with the way the session went. The average wattages for the efforts were around 340W which is where I wanted to be working and I can build on this over time.

I just think it is very important not to neglect this aspect of training over the Winter because if you do, as I have discovered, it comes as too much of a shock come the Spring.

Week 2 of the VTWinterPlan is going just fine, easy day scheduled for tomorrow, just a nice easy walk, we'll see :-)

ATL: 64.5 CTL: 70.1 TSB: 6.6

[Uploaded 08/12/2009 19:29:18]

Thursday Training

Hi

VeloTron

Just 2 more days to go before the Northern Rock Cyclone and I'm still just winding down and maintaining a bit of higher intensity stuff. Rest day planned for tomorrow and will go into town and register for the event and pick up my number etc. No turning back now, looking forward to it!

[Uploaded 12/06/2009 22:33:55]

Wednesday Training

Hi

VeloTron

3 days to go before the Northern Rock Cyclone 100 miler on Saturday so I'm just ticking over at the moment maintaining a bit of higher intensity work but not doing anything too tiring. So, just a short L4/L5 session which seemed to go pretty well.

[Uploaded 12/06/2009 22:30:02]

Monday Training

Hi

VeloTron

More fun and games on the VeloTron with another L4/L5 combination session but considerably shorter today than usual, the complete session was just 45 minutes including the warmup and cool down.

It was nice doing a shorter session and the time just flew by, it seemed to be time to finish really quickly but I must confess that I wasn't remotely tempted to do more ;-)

Pleased to see that the observed fall in my HR is being maintained so it wasn't just a temporary blip, all good stuff.

[Uploaded 08/06/2009 21:46:40]

Thursday Training

Hi

VeloTron

More hard work with another L4/L5 combination session doing 1x15@300W followed by 4x4@350W. As expected I'm carrying some fatigue in my legs most of the time at the moment so the session wasn't comfortable, but actually went surprisingly well.

I continue to be surprised at the sustained drop in my HR when working at L5 and I'm particularly pleased to note that the average HR figures for the 4 L5 efforts are now essentially identical. Rightly or wrongly this suggests to me that I'm coping as well with the last effort as the first and that it's time to raise the bar.

I think based on the above that what I should now do is move to 1x10@L4 followed by 5x4@L5 which would give me a full 20 minutes of L5 work for the session, which has been my target. However, next week is not the right time for me to be doing this as I don't want to tip the "fatigue scales" so I'll hold off on this increase for a couple of weeks before moving on.

Steady as she goes, L2/L3 on the road tomorrow, unfortunately rain is forecast :-(

[Uploaded 04/06/2009 21:30:27]

Thursday Training

Hi

VeloTron

The second L4/L5 combination session of the week. Given recent experiences I had decided to modify the session and I reduced the length of the L4 effort from 20 minutes to 15 minutes and added in an extra 4 minute L5 effort to the second block to increase the % of the session done at L5 but to maintain the total TSS of the session at around the same level.

The session went well. Again the L4 section @ 300W felt fine and this is a very effective warmup for the L5 work, I then managed to complete the 4 L5 efforts @ 350W without any more distress than might be expected.

I'm pleased with how this work is going and the % of the time spent in the L5 HR zone for this session dropped further to the point where virtually no time at all was in L5, my HR for these efforts has fallen significantly and consistently. I'm not concerned about this and am happy to work away knowing I'm working in the middle of my L5 power zone (I'm above 110% of FTP). I don't want to blast away and overdo things, I'd rather keep making small adjustments to the session until I reach a full 20 minutes of L5 work during the session, this will be 1x10@L4 followed by 5x4@L5.

Once I have that session well established I'll start raising the wattages for the L5 efforts and see where that takes me. My plan is to persist with this work until such time as my MAP tests indicate that my progress in developing my VO2 Max is stalling and then I'll back off again.

Anyway, I'm making progress at the moment, even based on feel and my HR data things are looking positive, the forthcoming MAP test will reveal all! It is interesting to look back and remember sometimes, my data show that back in March 2008 I was trying to do these efforts at 320W and struggling, and that was without a long L4 effort beforehand - progress!

[Uploaded 28/05/2009 18:10:40]

Tuesday Training

Hi

VeloTron

Didn't really feel like training today after all the gardening but at the back of my mind I knew that once L5 type training has begun it really needs to continue if at all possible. These gains are made quite quickly but they evaporate just as quickly.

So, another L/L5 combination session with the usual 1x20 L4 (300W) effort followed by 3x4 L5 (350W) efforts was in my plan so that's exactly what I did. Felt rotten at first and thought I was going to struggle but I ploughed on and in the end the session went really quite well. It was a bit weird that during some parts of the 20 minute 300W effort it actually felt reasonably comfortable, long may that continue!

The HR profiles for the L5 efforts were very similar and there was no sign of excess strain in the third effort again so I've decided on Thursday to try reducing the L4 effort to 15 minutes but at 305W and then increasing the number of 350W efforts to 4 and we'll see how that goes. The theory behind this is that I'll be increasing my time in my target training zone by this approach whilst maintaining a very similar TSS for the session.

Comparing the time spent in my L5 HR zone for the last 3 identical sessions there has been a distinct change. The problem is that HR is very variable but it's been interesting to see how things have altered even over 3 of these sessions. The percentages of the total session time spent in my L5 HR zone for the recent sessions are as follows:

19.05.2009 - 11%
21.05.2009 - 5.8%
26.05.2009 - 2.2%

On the face of it this appears to at least suggest (everything else being unchanged) that the CV stress of the sessions has declined and it's time to change things, hence my decision to alter the session.

I'll be continuing with this L4/L5 work for a while yet and have scheduled in a provisional MAP (RAMP) test for around Tuesday 9th of June, nice to have that to look forward to! At least, if nothing else, I seem to be coping with this intensity of training better than I have previously, almost certainly as a result of my approach over the Winter. Onwards and upwards!

[Uploaded 26/05/2009 21:19:17]

Thursday Training

Hi

VeloTron

Another mixed L4/L5 session scheduled for today as I try to make some VO2 Max gains and hopefully continue to make small FTP gains over the next little while. The session was identical to Tuesday's effort with a 20 minute L4 effort @ 300W followed by 3 four minute L5 efforts @ 350W, it wasn't going to be fun!

Looking back at past records I don't think I have previously been sufficiently persistent with this type of training and I think it's going to be 3-4 weeks before I see or feel real benefits. What's happened in the past is that I think I've gone at them like a bull in a china shop, got very tired, and then pretty much given up on them.

The reason for my split session arrangement is to introduce them steadily but to try to do them twice per week and hope that I'm able to keep this up. I plan to introduce a 4th L5 effort when I feel I'm on top of this session and counterbalance this by dropping the length of the L4 effort down to 15 minutes, then add a fifth L5 effort and reduce the L4 section to 10 minutes.

Doing this my theory is that I'll end up doing effectively a 10 minute L4 warmup followed by a total of 20 minutes of L5 work in the session which is my target over the next few weeks. The last time I did a RAMP test was back in early March and at that time my MAP was 419W and my 5 minute power during that test was 369W. On this basis I now feel that 350W is a sensible starting point for my L5 work (it's in the middle of my L5 power range) and that seems to be borne out by the sessions. When I've been doing these sessions for a few weeks I'll repeat the RAMP test (oh joy) and will know once and for all, for me at least, whether this works.

All went well today. If anything I felt very slightly less uncomfortable today than I did on Tuesday, certainly no worse, and I am encouraged by this. It will be interesting to see how well, or otherwise, I recover from this as I really want to be able to keep doing these twice a week if at all possible. I have quite a challenging ride planned for Saturday so I'm hoping to be Ok for that. In the end this work has to be done if I'm going to optimise my performance and now I've started it I'm going to stick at it.

Data from tonight's session below:


Onwards and upwards!

[Uploaded 21/05/2009 21:48:23]

Tuesday Training

Hi

VeloTron

Ok, time to kick-start the training with a bit of higher intensity stuff without going too mad. I'm working on the theory that my BPV will be back up now after some L3 work and my muscle enzymes will have started to work properly again. On top of this I should be reasonably well over the inevitable muscle fatigue from the Tour of Ireland.

With all this is mind I set myself a reasonably challenging combination session. After my usual warm-up I did a 20 minute effort @ L4 (300W) and followed this up with 3 four minute efforts in L5, at 350W.

Interestingly the initial L5 efforts felt Ok after plenty of time at around my threshold and it was only during the last effort that it started to tell as general fatigue set in, I think I may also have been a touch short of CHO by the end, that's how it felt anyway.

So, a very satisfactory introduction of my L5 work which, having started it, I now have to continue with as the training benefits of it evaporate like puddles in the breeze and I don't want the discomfort to have been wasted!

I think I'm going to try to do a session like this twice a week for the next little while adding an extra L5 effort in due course and then a fifth effort whilst also reducing the length of the L4 effort at the start from 20 minutes to 15, I don't want these sessions to become too long or to end up doing low quality efforts :-)

So, that's the plan, the real suffering is now starting but I'm feeling positive about it. The TSS for this session was 88 including the warm-up, with an IF of 0.88.

[Uploaded 19/05/2009 21:55:09]

Friday Training

Hi

Computrainer
Just 2 L5 efforts today in a workout lasting only 35 minutes, excluding my 10 minute warmup. Still just doing a bit of higher intensity work without overdoing it. These 2 L5 efforts actually felt reasonably Ok, well as reasonable as these sort of efforts can! I felt I could definitely have continued which is how I wanted to end this session, on a positive note rather than hanging over the handlebars having gone some curious shade of blue.

So, a TSS so far this week of just 188 but all that will change on Sunday. I'd intended not to overdo things this week and I haven't (apart from all the extra gardening) and I still have an easy day to go tomorrow. Looking at my PMC my CTL on Sunday will be about 75TSS/d and my TSB will be 9.1 so in theory I should have brought on a mini peak for the day, if these numbers mean anything!

Am continuing with my experiments with "live" GPS tracking on my weblog and it seems to be going well, hopefully it will work Ok on Sunday!

[Uploaded 29/08/2008 21:14:05]

Wednesday Training

Hi

Computrainer
Just maintaining some reasonable intensity training without going over the top by doing 3x4 minute efforts at L5. Managed to forget to reduce the load from the level I had it for the last of these sessions where I struggled but I managed to get through the 3x4 without too much trouble but with the usual considerable discomfort that working at this intensity brings!

Just one more of this type of session now before the weekend and then we'll see how we go. Just hoping for a half decent ride to end the season, it's not going to be brilliant after all that has gone before but as long as I get round in decent shape I'll be happy.

Interesting to look at the power and heart rate zone times for this session, good indication of what a bad indicator of effort HR is when intervals are short and intense. I spent 12:52 (28.6% of the time) in my VO2 max power training zone, but only 2:59 (6.6% of the time) in my VO2 max HR zone. I reckon VO2 max interval training is one of the best uses for a power meter or turbo with accurate power data. It's just too easy to get them quite badly wrong just going on HR alone, I think anyway, others will differ!

To check out the details of the workout click here. Quite pleased with how my HR comes down these days after these efforts.

[Uploaded 27/08/2008 22:25:46]

Tuesday Training

Computrainer
This session did not go well and I bailed out midway through the 3rd effort, just unable to turn the cranks, breathing Ok but legs gone. Probably still not fully rested after the weekend and yesterday's day off the turbo was also replaced by a morning walk and then on top of that an hour in the pool with Lorena, Rebecca, and Francesca. Hydration and nutrition also probably a bit below ideal so never mind, such is life, just learn from it and move on.

I'm finding these L5 efforts very challenging and it's still early days with them and I'm wondering if in trying to do them at 115% of FTP I'm setting the bar a bit high. As the VO2 max range is given as 106-120% of FTP I wonder if I should drop the target wattage by 10W which would still have me working at 112% of FTP and in the middle of the suggested L5 range. I reckon if I do this I'll have a better chance of consistently completing the sessions, dread them less, and therefore spend a greater total training time in L5 which is the objective. I might also be able to increase the length or number of the efforts sooner and get a greater overall training benefit.

Yes, that's what I'll do, drop these down to about 330W and see how I go for a couple of sessions, then think again.

[Uploaded 19/08/2008 10:56:46]

Thursday Training

Hi

Computrainer
Four L5 efforts and pretty uncomfortable they were too. Felt a bit better when I last did this session but there is always going to be considerable variability because of fatigue, mental factors, hydration, nutrition etc. etc. so I'm not going to worry about it. Certainly feel that doing these at 340W is stretching me, more than is comfortable for sure.

Main thing is I got to the end and it's in the bag! Walking scheduled for later on today :-)

[Uploaded 14/08/2008 12:48:28]

Tuesday Training

Hi

Computrainer
So, build week one again and some higher intensity stuff begins, I had been dreading this L5 session rather. In the end I followed the plan I developed last week (based on the wisdom of RapDaddyO) and having in readiness established my maximum 5 minute power I planned to ride my L5 efforts at the same power (340W) but for a minute less, 4 minutes. My plan was to initially try to ride 4x4 minutes @ 340W (4 minute recoveries) and see if I could get to the end.

I went for broke and set up a .erg file so that the CompuTrainer did all the thinking and timing and I was either going to get to the end and make it or just grind to a halt, once one of these files it's started you either make it or you don't, no half measures.

I MADE IT!

I'm confident that the load and timings were just right, this was extremely challenging and just manageable, something to build on but I was pleased, especially after all the walking I've been doing, I walked over 6 miles this morning. I could tell I was working at VO2 max level because I was getting generally hypoxic, I know the feeling from my running days when the system is generally starved of oxygen and I get a characteristic aching in my arms as available oxygen is consumed by my working leg muscles and unavailable for other muscles, hence the aching.

So, more of these sessions to follow, I think the trick is as soon as the session is over to try to forget it as quickly as possible, I think if you think about it too much there would be a considerable temptation not to do it again! ;-)

If you would like to see the details of this extravaganza click here.
[Uploaded 05/08/2008 18:32:05]

Sunday Training

Hi

Computrainer
Ok, so build week 3 comes to an end and it's gone pretty well, a lower volume week coming up to allow a little recuperation. I'll maintain the L4 work but drop off the long hilly ride next Saturday so that I come back into build 1 fresher and hopefully well recovered with 3 non training days coming up in the forthcoming week.

I was pretty fatigued tonight after yesterday's hilly 316 TSS effort but that is all part of the plan. The main objective tonight was to establish a starting intensity for my forthcoming L5 work and I wanted to see what sort of power I could maintain for 5 minutes a), when not fully recovered and b). having already done a warmup and at least 30 minutes at 80% of MHR or at about 255W. This was to ensure that I was testing myself in a "real world" rather than well rested state.

My plan for my L5 training, as suggested many moons ago by the famous and well respected RapDaddyO, is to take the 5 minute power and then initially do 4 minute efforts at that power and as I get fitter build up the power slowly. In this way, theoretically, I will be working at the right intensity to stimulate the physiological adaptations I seek but for slightly less time per effort than I know I can manage. This should make the sessions repeatable and not things of dread, that's the theory!

Given the training so far this week and particularly given yesterday and the work prior to tonight's 5 minute effort I was quite happy with my 5 minute power average of 340W (see above) and that will be the power I will do my L5 efforts at. I'll start with 4x4 @ 340W and build from there as fitness allows, that will give me an initial 16 minutes of VO2 max level training per session which is a good starting point. Reviewing my theoretical VO2 max power training zone (L5) based on an FTP of 296W the zone is between 314-357W so the results from this evening fit very well with that so I'll go with it and see how it goes. My first session will be in just over a week's time.

Looking back at my training I strongly suspect that I have NEVER, for a consistent period, trained at the right intensity to bring about significant improvements in my VO2 max, time will tell whether I will this time. I have also made another decision, I am ditching the concept of recovery rides. I'm going to adopt an approach of I'm either training or resting, I don't think recovery rides achieve either for me, they just make you more tired than you would be if you had your feet up instead, sound good?

Adaptation here I come!
[Uploaded 27/07/2008 23:11:23]