Fast Group Ride

Saturday morning I hooked up with a six man group that LL got together to do a fast training ride. I rode about 5 miles from my house and met them as they rolled through Blythewood. We kept a fast paceline for virtually the entire ride and ended up averaging 23.3 mph for the 57 miles that the seven of us were all together...not super fast, but this was a hilly route and a long section of the ride was east into a slight head wind. I feel like a got in some great training, with numerous 3 to 5 minute efforts at or above FTP. I do most of my training solo, even when I'm out on the road, mainly just because I like to set my own pace and sometimes get frustrated sitting in and not getting enough hard work. This ride was different, we had as a stated goal that this was to be fast and steady. Everyone is in great shape and prepping for the State RR in a week. It was nice to see everyone working cohesively all day, using their energy on the front propelling the whole group forward as opposed to surging ahead and slowing the group.

Today, I was spent from yesterday's big effort, and not feeling like training myself into a hole, I just did a nice 2 hour zone 2 ride.

Trainer Week

Looks like tomorrow will be five straight days on the trainer. I usually get out on the road at least once during the work week, but I just haven't made the extra effort to go for a real ride this week. My routine is to wake up, grab some coffee and gatorade, head down to the basement with laptop in hand, crank the a/c to 65, queue up something from my netflix view instant queue and ride. It's not hard to pay attention to what I'm watching while riding at threshold pace or lower. The hardest workout I've done was 2 x 20 on Wednesday at right around my FTP(click on the image to the left). Today I rode SST for 53 minutes at 93% and felt like I could've kept on going if I had time, so maybe I'm getting back the form I had couple of months ago. CTL is at 87 now after peaking at 90 several days ago. For me that's pretty high and should be good for the state RR in a little over a week.

Feelin' Fast

I wasn't able to get away for the sprint tri I was signed up for, but I did manage to get in a hard 2 hour ride solo. I followed that up with a 2 mile tempo run. Felt really fresh after a reduced volume week. Ended up with a 275w NP avg for the whole ride.

Rest Days with Little Rest

I took two complete days off the bike. I did no training of any kind on Wednesday or Thursday - zero riding, not even a run or swim, but it was anything but restful. I got little sleep and basically lived at the hospital for a day and a half. This morning, home and armed with 8 hours of sleep I was able to do some training, so I went down to my basement room and knocked out an hour on the trainer. I decided to do a series of 15 second sprints, followed by a half hour of SST(sweet spot training) at about 90% of FTP wattage. This workout wasn't too hard. The main goal was to just do something at least semi-productive on the bike. I'm signed up for a sprint tri in Greenville Sunday morning, but it is likely that I'll stay home, unless my wife recovers super fast and can get around the house on her own, by that time.

Five Days in a Row

Tuesday morning I got up before 6am to get in a 2 x 20 workout on the trainer before work. I felt pretty good and was able meet my goal of holding FTP wattage without cracking. CTL is up to an alltime high of 90 after a five day block of mostly hard tempo riding. I've been ramping up lately, knowing that I will be cutting back on training to help my wife while she recovers from foot surgery.