Well, I landed in Mumbai last Friday after a week of slacking off and trying to keep off the bike. I was eager to get back on the trainer and get back to a more structured program rather than the ad-hoc lake front, group rides and races that I have been doing...OK, I miss the crits a lot. I find them challenging and I'm always learning something new.
So after getting to bed at around 2am I awoke Saturday morning and enthusiastically assembled my Ritchey Breakaway. It's a terrific bike to travel with. It fits into a smaller suitcase than a standard bike case so I can take it anywhere without paying the additional baggage fees that the airlines are so fond of. Mine is an old one that I got off Craigslist from a guy out in San Francisco. I flew in for the weekend, picked up the bike and imediately went on a 50 mile group ride in Monterey the next morning. More on that some other time. Beautiful riding out in Monterey. They are blessed.
My last serious intervals were done in May 13th where I managed 2 sets of 3x2 minutes at 305W average. So, given that my racing has come down to crits only, I thought this would be a good place to start again.
So I jumped on the bike thinking I could definitely do 2x4 @ 300W but I ended up doing only 5 intervals during the workout. I chalked it up to the jet lag.
The next day I woke up with a very bad sore throat which would not go away no matter what I did. Eventually, on Monday, I tapped into the beauty of Mumbai and walked into a chemist who gave me a couple of Amoxycillin anti-biotics for about $1. By the next day my sore throat was gone and I was getting stronger so I tried to get back on the bike that morning. I dialed it back to 2x3 @ 300W but this time I only managed 4 of these and noticed that my heart rate was way above where it normally is for these kinds of efforts. So with this in mind I decided to quit the effort and try again the next day.
Wednesday saw me dialing it back further to try 2x3 @ 290W which was far more successful (I think I was just getting over the illness) and I managed to get through the workout:
Thursday saw me up the power by 10W to 300W and get a better warm up in. Also, I am trying to do 30s all out efforts at the end of these workouts. My thinking here is that I need to raise my sustained power output 30 seconds after my initial sprint jump. I feel if I can maintain a target of 600W after jumping at about 1,000W then I think I have a better chance of finishing in the top 10 if I can get into a good position. Here's what I mean by that. The graph below is my final sprint in the Monsters of Midway Cat 5 race where I placed 8th:
Here I jumped at 850W and sustained about 550-600W to the line. The dip in the middle is another rider forcing me to hit the brakes as he squeezed me into the sidewalk.
Friday saw another 2 sets of 3x2 @ 300W and I got a better warm up in and managed the 300W intervals without too much drama.
On the weekends I try to go for longer trainer rides because I have more time. I had planned two 1:30 2x20 SST rides to raise FTP. I set the power for 220 - 230 W and completed the 20 min efforts without much of an issue. I also threw in a 10 min, low cadence effort at the end which had me out of the saddle. While I'm not sure this helps for crits, the pedal force is higher and allows me to develop more force....I think. What do you think? I quite enjoyed this exercise but was VERY surprised to see how difficult this was. I thought I could do 20 mins like this but actually 10 mins was very tough at about 230W.
Today I did another 2x20 SST ride and watched a movie. That kept me entertained. I hope that 2-3 more weeks like this will keep me in touch with enough fitness to be competitive in Cat 4 back home. I plan on racing the Glencoe Grand Prix on 8/14. So I have some time to prepare.
Weekly Summary:
I'm trying to get at least 6 hours in every week. While I know this is paltry compared to my fellow competitors, I feel I am getting the right intensity and my anerobic capacity is decent enough to keep me in the game. But who knows? Note that this is ALL trainer time so I think it is the equivalent of about 9 hrs on the road. I don't think I'm about to be dropped by any Cat 4 rides but I'm interested to see where 4-6 weeks of concentrated training like this will put me.
Next week I'm thinking of mixing the Power Intervals with 30 second efforts and 2 min efforts and get 2 (2x20) SST rides in.
My critical power plot is now looking like this:
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