I was dog meat at last night's spin class. A hard weekend, followed by two days off the bike in favor of upper body and core work- legs are not feeling the love.
never mind - i should read solo's thing before posting on yours... seems he's covered it... and you definitely the heath ledger to his jake gyllenhaal...
Did you anticipate feeling like dog meat or did it come as a complete surprise? This summarizes a lot of great advice, although to me he pulls all the power meter stuff out of left field without supporting it. In your case, this plays into something we discussed before, how to count non-metered efforts and work stress into TSS. TSS is pretty useless if it's only measuring your bike efforts and you're doing all kinds of other stuff. Point #3 is key.
After Wednesday night's crappy spin class, it was evident that last week's "rest" was reversed completely by the 150 miles I did Sat/Sun.. so I rested Thursday and Friday (it's silly to call it "rest" really, on days that you go to work and serve as a punching bag for asshole New England general contractors for 10 hours) Anywho, I did no physical activity Thursday or Friday. Today I felt really fresh (surprise!) slept in and skipped the early morning ride with the locals. Did my own thing at 3:00 instead. Punched it for 2+ hours and now I'm rubbing one out looking at the data as it completely annihilates anything I've done so far this season or up to this point last season. Truth is, I feel some guilt on those days that I'm good to myself and refrain from any type of workouts.. But my agreement that it's better to eliminate fatigue as much as possible, even if a small bit of fitness is lost in the process, has been reinforced.
We usually race the way we train. So if your training is uneven, feast or famine, with unpredictable results, that's probably how your races will turn out. But if you can train with confidence, use your head, learn to listen to your body and measure your efforts and rest accordingly, then you will be able to race confidently as well. That doesn't mean you'll win every week (I certainly don't) but you will at least know what to expect of yourself, what weapons you have at your disposal, and how to use them to your to your best advantage.
Today's workout was intended to be a field test. I really went for it for the first 65 minutes. Average heart rate for 2:09 was 166. My goal was to validate a recent Normalized CP60 that I did because I was having a hard time believing it. Well it was not a mistake and I'm very pleased (this will add confidence). My normalized CP60 (FT) is 30 watts higher than the same 28 day period last year. I hear what you're saying about training/racing and I cannot argue with it. But for about 7-8 weeks I've been on a good improvement curve. Don't be dismissive about my consistency because of one bastard spin class.
I'm not being dismissive. If you were doing a specific test, that's a reason to go hard. What I'm suggesting is under "normal" circumstances it's not advisable to go out and kill it when coming off a rest period, be it a rest week or just a couple of days. That's where the confidence comes in. You don't need to prove yourself every time you get on a bike, especially coming off a rest. And you don't want to do extra (volume nor intensity) just to get it behind you. Ideally you would plan a couple of weeks at a time, with the higher intensity and volume days nearer the end of the block, with manageable and predictable fatigue. Then it's good to taper into your rest a bit, rather than falling off the cliff and needing to recuperate for two days unexpectedly. When it comes to racing season you will have a better feel for when to rest and when to start opening up before race day.
The other observation that I make here is that you're doing big volume (4-5 hours) on the weekends and then short, intense (spin class) efforts during the week. That is all well and good, but when you start doing that kind of volume, usually it will take you longer and longer to warm up. By the middle of the summer it takes me 45-75 minutes of easy riding just to get loose and be able to think about going hard. By that point your spin class is over. You may not be in that situation but I would suggest making some adjustment and starting out every workout very easy, like 20-30 minutes at 100 watts before making a judgment on how you feel that day. You might feel like absolute crap at first and then much better after the warmup. If after 30 minutes of going easy you still want to take a bullet to the head, skip the workout. At least you already did 30 minutes active recovery at that point. Just don't go on a guilt trip and double up the next day. Start the process over the same way, with an easy ramp into it and see how you feel. Your workouts will be even more productive.
Good advice. I don't want to kill it first thing after resting, but when it's time for a field test, you want to do it as fresh as possible. The next 3-4 weeks of workouts will be centered around this value, so it needs to represent the best I can now achieve. As I said, the data is encouraging! With spin calss, it's one hor long and not a minute more- the instructor gets into the program immediately, though we do infact "spin" for the first 5 minutes as some sort of warm up.. THen we're in and out of the saddle regularly for the rest of it. You're right- it can be quite intense and without some solid base fitness, I am sure my knees would not agree with that kind of effort. So far, no problems this year..
10 comments:
have you read this?
never mind - i should read solo's thing before posting on yours... seems he's covered it... and you definitely the heath ledger to his jake gyllenhaal...
What is it about Heath and Jake's preference to eat their corn the long way, which fascinates you so?
Did you anticipate feeling like dog meat or did it come as a complete surprise? This summarizes a lot of great advice, although to me he pulls all the power meter stuff out of left field without supporting it. In your case, this plays into something we discussed before, how to count non-metered efforts and work stress into TSS. TSS is pretty useless if it's only measuring your bike efforts and you're doing all kinds of other stuff. Point #3 is key.
It was unexpected but not any kind of shock. My ride Saturday was 413 TSS, then another 185 on Sunday.
After Wednesday night's crappy spin class, it was evident that last week's "rest" was reversed completely by the 150 miles I did Sat/Sun.. so I rested Thursday and Friday (it's silly to call it "rest" really, on days that you go to work and serve as a punching bag for asshole New England general contractors for 10 hours) Anywho, I did no physical activity Thursday or Friday. Today I felt really fresh (surprise!) slept in and skipped the early morning ride with the locals. Did my own thing at 3:00 instead. Punched it for 2+ hours and now I'm rubbing one out looking at the data as it completely annihilates anything I've done so far this season or up to this point last season.
Truth is, I feel some guilt on those days that I'm good to myself and refrain from any type of workouts.. But my agreement that it's better to eliminate fatigue as much as possible, even if a small bit of fitness is lost in the process, has been reinforced.
We usually race the way we train. So if your training is uneven, feast or famine, with unpredictable results, that's probably how your races will turn out. But if you can train with confidence, use your head, learn to listen to your body and measure your efforts and rest accordingly, then you will be able to race confidently as well. That doesn't mean you'll win every week (I certainly don't) but you will at least know what to expect of yourself, what weapons you have at your disposal, and how to use them to your to your best advantage.
So what are you going to do tomorrow?
Today's workout was intended to be a field test. I really went for it for the first 65 minutes. Average heart rate for 2:09 was 166. My goal was to validate a recent Normalized CP60 that I did because I was having a hard time believing it. Well it was not a mistake and I'm very pleased (this will add confidence). My normalized CP60 (FT) is 30 watts higher than the same 28 day period last year.
I hear what you're saying about training/racing and I cannot argue with it. But for about 7-8 weeks I've been on a good improvement curve. Don't be dismissive about my consistency because of one bastard spin class.
I'm not being dismissive. If you were doing a specific test, that's a reason to go hard. What I'm suggesting is under "normal" circumstances it's not advisable to go out and kill it when coming off a rest period, be it a rest week or just a couple of days. That's where the confidence comes in. You don't need to prove yourself every time you get on a bike, especially coming off a rest. And you don't want to do extra (volume nor intensity) just to get it behind you. Ideally you would plan a couple of weeks at a time, with the higher intensity and volume days nearer the end of the block, with manageable and predictable fatigue. Then it's good to taper into your rest a bit, rather than falling off the cliff and needing to recuperate for two days unexpectedly. When it comes to racing season you will have a better feel for when to rest and when to start opening up before race day.
The other observation that I make here is that you're doing big volume (4-5 hours) on the weekends and then short, intense (spin class) efforts during the week. That is all well and good, but when you start doing that kind of volume, usually it will take you longer and longer to warm up. By the middle of the summer it takes me 45-75 minutes of easy riding just to get loose and be able to think about going hard. By that point your spin class is over. You may not be in that situation but I would suggest making some adjustment and starting out every workout very easy, like 20-30 minutes at 100 watts before making a judgment on how you feel that day. You might feel like absolute crap at first and then much better after the warmup. If after 30 minutes of going easy you still want to take a bullet to the head, skip the workout. At least you already did 30 minutes active recovery at that point. Just don't go on a guilt trip and double up the next day. Start the process over the same way, with an easy ramp into it and see how you feel. Your workouts will be even more productive.
Good advice.
I don't want to kill it first thing after resting, but when it's time for a field test, you want to do it as fresh as possible. The next 3-4 weeks of workouts will be centered around this value, so it needs to represent the best I can now achieve. As I said, the data is encouraging!
With spin calss, it's one hor long and not a minute more- the instructor gets into the program immediately, though we do infact "spin" for the first 5 minutes as some sort of warm up.. THen we're in and out of the saddle regularly for the rest of it. You're right- it can be quite intense and without some solid base fitness, I am sure my knees would not agree with that kind of effort. So far, no problems this year..
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