What a breakout week training wise, particularly with the Powercranks. After nearly 60 hours of use I finally feel fully acclimated to the blasted things. I can readily hop on the PC equipped bike and ride almost like my road bike except for very high end efforts such as sprinting.
Monday – Since today was a recovery day, I decided to get out the fixie. I rode the track bike around the neighborhood for about 40 minutes, just taking it easy.
Tuesday – A fantastic tempo workout. 90+ minutes of tempo riding on the PCs with an average power of 232 watts and normalized of 239 watts. I must admit that I did have a short 4-5 minute break after an hour. I was alternating my time between the road bars and the clip on aerobars. On the way back home I was getting a nasty left side hip cramp. I never cramp, so this felt really odd. I can only think that it was due to using the PCs under load in a relatively aggressive position (i.e., the aerobars). Nonetheless, I recovered enough to make the final 25+ minutes at 241 watts normalized. Altogether the 2 hour ride netted a normalized power of 230 watts and intensity factor of 0.84. A real solid ride.
Wednesday – I put some road bars and a front brake on the track bike and decided to take it out for a spin again for an hour. I just wanted to stay off the PCs to make sure I was getting good recovery before the Thursday workout. I was still getting some hip pain.
Thursday – I could feel the hip hurting off and on while at work. I was really unsure if I’d be able to ride, and if so, at what intensity. I was feeling guilty, so I felt I had to get out and try something. I decided to switch my training plan and shorten the workout with some threshold work. I figured a few short intervals would be a good substitute for the planned 1:45 of L3 riding. I’m glad I switched. I totally blitzed the threshold workout. Previously on Powercranks I have managed about 7 minutes of continuous threshold riding. Since I feel I’m adapted now, I shouldn’t have been surprised at the outcome of today’s workout. After the warmup, I cranked out my first 20 minute interval at 278 watts. After a 5 minute rest I started on the second and backed it up with a 275 watt effort. I even uncorked another 267 effort for 11 minutes on the way home. Over 50 minutes of L4 work with the PCs. And this wasn’t lower end L4 riding but right at IF=1.0. A great 80 minute PC workout. The 20 minute intervals were on par with my good performances this year with regular cranks.
Friday – no riding
Saturday – Group ride today, so back to the regular crank race bike. I got out before the ride for about 10 miles of solo riding at an endurance pace. Once I hooked up with the gang, we rode steady but hard. I made an effort to be in L5 on my pulls and make them at least 3 minutes in duration. I was feeling strong, and I averaged 220 watts and 248 watts normalized for 50+ miles over 2:13. We had a nice average speed as well – nearly 23 mph including warmup and cooldown at the halfway break point. Not bad for a very small group (around 8 guys).
Sunday – Back to the PCs on a “casual” Sunday group ride. 2:10 of riding with a normalized power of 194 watts. A little harder than I wanted since I’d like to go long Monday (Columbus day, no work).
PC time this week – 5 hours 30 minutes
PC time to date – 69 hours 46 minutes
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment