Tuesday – Today was a bit of a “the dog ate my homework” day. I am focusing on threshold during November, and today was the first threshold workout of the month. I had a great threshold effort a week or two ago on the PCs, but now things begin in earnest. Since I feel I’m fully adapted to PCs, I decided to check my heart rate on the ride. I never do that, but I figured it would be interesting data. Now I’ve got to Powertap CPUs. One just doesn’t pick up my Polar strap and the other does. The rub is that the one that does read it can get flaky, as in the battery shorts and things reset (date goes back to the default, memory wiped out, etc).
Knowing the risks I headed out the door with the flaky CPU. A 5 minute interval at the low end of L4 was a nice warmup. About 8.5 minutes of rest and then the first interval. I was on fire. I was riding in the 280-290+ W range and decided to push the duration up. 30 minutes for the first interval and I was thumping it. I knew I was hitting some yearly bests. 5 minute rest period and then another interval. Unfortunately after 10 minutes I was getting a horrible side stitch, so I had to cut it short. Another 5 minute rest and into another interval which again was cut short at 10 minutes due to a side stitch. So the good news is that I was really hitting it, but the bad news were these side stitches. After a brief rest, I went into some L3 riding to close out the workout.
Then the unthinkable. 2:05 into the workout the CPU resets. I was TOTALLY BUMMED about this. All that great data lost. Oh well. The important thing wasn’t the actual numbers but the total time (55+ minutes) spent in my L4 zone and a great threshold workout.
Ended up with 2:15 of PC riding, and I estimated my TSS for the ride at 165 points, which is comparable to other rides of this structure.
Wednesday – Easy L2 day of 75 minutes on the PCs
Thursday – I went a little longer Wednesday than desired. I saw a friend on the road and just had to socialize. I wasn’t sure how I’d respond today, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted threshold or tempo. After a 5 minute L4 prep interval I was feeling pretty good so I decided to make this another L4 workout, though I convinced myself to go with a straight 2x20 workout.
The first interval was going like gangbusters. My power wasn’t quite as high as Tuesday, but it still was higher than I’ve been seeing lately. In the first 18 minutes of the interval I was at a nice 284 W average. I’m out in the middle of nowhere on a country road and a school bus decided to pass me. Then a few hundred feet later it puts its lights on to let kids off. Being as Texas law says vehicles have to stop and a bike is considered a vehicle, by great interval was interrupted late in the game. I tell myself I’ll make the most of the interval by pushing out of the stop to keep the TSS up. I get cranking at 350+ W and 35 seconds later the bus stops again. Another sprint to the 20 minute mark. Ended up with 279 W average and 282 W normalized for the first interval. The plot below shows my 2 stops and starts pretty clearly. The horizontal dashed line is drawn through 280 W.
After a 5 minute rest interval I hit it again. Depleted a little from the first interval, I was able to push 271 W average/272 W NP. A great 1:55 workout on the PCs.
Friday – Felt lazy and didn’t ride.
Saturday – Return to regular cranks on the weekly hammerfest, but I think Frank Day jinxed me. He said I should ride PCs on a group ride. No thanks. I need this one day a week for testing and such in a race setting. Things were going well in the start as I just rolled off the front during warmup (the guys must have been having an ice cream social back there). I was away for about 11 minutes riding at 97% of threshold. As soon as everyone was on my wheel, I kicked it up to VO2 effort. I did a pull at 116% of threshold or 4+ minutes immediately after that threshold effort. Good stuff. I was on.
Then disaster struck. Flat tire. Fixed it and got going. A few miles later the tube is getting soft again. I tell the guys to go on but leave tube behind. I inspect carefully but don’t see anything. That tube goes belly up. Now I’m 15 miles from home with a flat and no more tubes. The tire holds pressure for a few minutes, so every mile or so I dismount, pump up the tire, and get on my way. My power file shows I did this some 16 times on the way home. As soon as I make it home I switch to the PC equipped bike and get an hour of PC riding in. I still got 2.5+ hours of riding in, just not the way I wanted.
Sunday – Pissed from yesterday, I was pushing early in the ride. One pal said he would be doing 8 minute intervals. Stayed in the draft while he was doing that and when he was done I’d take over and keep the pace high. I actually pulled out a 4 minute VO2 effort at 320 W on the PCs. Had another effort of 270 W for nearly 10 minutes as he was taking a break. Got to the turnaround point and saw a few other pals going the other way. I decided to break off and follow knowing it would give me an extra hour+ of riding. Ended up just being a real mix of L2, L3, L4, and L5 that day. 3 hours of PC riding with a normalized power of 216 W.
PC time this week – 9 hours 25 minutes
PC time to date – 97 hours
Weekly status of power progression – this week was a mixed week. I lost valuable data on Tuesday, and Saturday was a real bust in terms of pushing myself. I don’t expect much deviation, and the graph shows it. A yearly best for 20 minute power this week by 4 W, and just 4 W below my best 5 minute power in the last year. 707 TSS points this week (592 on PCs) which comes out to a IF of 0.8.
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