attack in the drops, dawg!
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Usually do, wasn’t planning that one but the heavens opened up and the front sat up so I had to play my card
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Did 3x20 last night on the trainer after having a big bout of fuckarounditis on the bike for at least a month and not doing much structured stuff. Few vo2 efforts here and there, couple of races and some group rides. Surprise, not doing threshold work for a while makes one suck at it. Targeted 270w in erg mode but adjusted it down as needed, ended up avg 265ish for each. Last one sucked more than I would have liked, had to put in a big mental effort to complete it. HR was lower than I usually hit when I’m struggling though, so maybe the recent intensity has helped that some
I also started these at like 8 PM and it trashed my sleep. Why do I do this to myself?
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How accurate is this Eftp? Is it just software working out your ftp for you without having to do a ramp test?
I am just catching up on this thread - if I’m ok with paying for some kind of workout/training service, are there any strong preferences?
Mostly I want to compete against myself, but I have an outside goal of maybe lining up for a crit next season if I can make the whole work/life balance thing work.
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I’m also in the same boat. I’ve been paying for the premium strava which has a super basic TSS tracker that’s been helpful to sort of start thinking about training load. I totally burned myself out and over trained one month so it’s been good for a low effort/fidelity way to start thinking about that work/life/ride balance
I like trainer road. Do a test or manually enter your FTP and then all workouts are planned around that. There are plans with low/mid/high volume, depending on how much time you have. I don’t really use the plans, but I use it for workouts during the week. You can filter for duration, zones, intensity, what kind of intervals (busts/short/med/long), etc. I don’t really use the in-ride form drills, but some may find those useful to break up the monotony. I like that i can be like, "I want to do vo2 for 1:15 today and have a number of different options to choose from from 1min to 8min intervals at different levels and different kinds of intervals other than 5min @ 115%. Instead it will be like start at 105% and progress to 120% over 2.5min and then back down to 110%.
From what I gather, zwift is good if you want to do “races” and can use them as training and whatnot, but their actual workouts are kinda all over the place and not great. I don’t need the stimulation of a video game to get me through my workouts.
I can probably get you a referral code for TR for a free month. DM me if anyone wants one (I have 3)
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In line with my above comment, I only had about 45min last night b/w getting home and (what was supposed to be) going to dinner with my friends that are headed to Russia for their wedding (they got into town and their AC had gone out in their condo), so I did 4x8’ sst with 2’ of recovery b/w sets. 4min @ 338, 3min @ 324, 1min @ 317. Avgs out to ~330w per set or ~92%. I usually stand up for 1min every 10min to alleviate the perineum and did that during the 4min section. 1.5min shifting up the cassette to get a better out of the saddle gear, 1 min standing while progressing from 60rpm to 85rpm, and then sitting down and spinning 105+rpm for 30sec and then 1min @ 95-100rpm to get my avg cadence to 95 for the entire 4 min interval. The standing increases my HR and with the high cadence, it stays up. I try to breathe from the diaphragm and bring it down over the 3 & 1min intervals, but it still sits in z3 until I am on the rest interval. I want to work on my breathing to get it down quicker.
Why does my heart rate lag my efforts by about more than a minute? From what I’m reading it’s usually 15 - 30 seconds. As I recover my fitness it is lagging more and more.
That is referred to as aerobic decoupling or cardiac drift. Having your heart rate take longer to reach the working zone as you get more fit is normal.
I don’t remember how it’s calculated in software. The general idea is the less your heart rate is coupled to your exertion, the better.
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I understand cardiac drift/aerobic decoupling to be your hr raising for the same effort as time goes on. It is decoupled from the effort.
Has your resting HR increased?
It sounds like it could be possibly be related to overtraining.
That’s a good point, too. I know I’m overtrained if I’m doing threshold intervals, but my HR never gets near the same zone.
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Yeah, I noticed it in myself often before I started with structured training. Just z3/4 every ride every day. After a long stretch of that, I’d notice my hr would take up to an extra 10 minutes to reach where I expected it to be.
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Yeah, my understanding was that cardiac drift was HR rising through a session. Over training can manifest itself in a low HR or a high HR, but it seems like its the low HR one that is the worrying one. I always like to see HR drop away during gaps in intervals, and it always seems like a good sign when it does. If its still high then that might be a sign that you need more recovery. Because I’ve always been old, I err on the side of caution, it can take a long time to recover from burning out. And outside factors are as big an influence as hard training. Maybe even more. Mood is a great indicator that you have overdone it. Learn to read it, it’s easy to think it’s the other person who has the bad attitude!
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No my resting HR has been 52 or 53 all year, as measured by Garmin watch
It’s somewhat easy to measure this phenomenon because I hit a steep but shortish hill immediately outside my house that I have to climb every day. Because I hit it with no warmup, it ups my HR far more than it would say 5 miles in. These days I feel like my heart doesn’t start hammering until after I climb it.
Hopefully this is a good thing and I am not dying
Probably just getting fitter. When I’m going good, an ftp interval will take like 8-10 mins to get me up to my usual threshold HR. When I’m just getting back on it, it’ll be like 2 minutes
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it sounds like you’re increasing your anaerobic work capacity
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Same for me. About half time 20 min test to hit my so called threshold HR, then it ends up slightly above by the end.
If I hit it early, I’m fucked.
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Welp, did a ramp test, FTP estimate is in the ballpark for what I guessed mine is.
I do not recommend starting this test with an FTP estimate that’s 100W under your actual value. It’s a good way to turn the 20 minute test into a 35 minute test.
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