Weight program: Core Exercises Only
Monday: Off
Tuesday: 2:15h Z2 Ride 235W Avg/232W xPower
Wednesday: 1:15hmin Z2 ride 240W Avg/236W xPower (TT bike) (ROCK SOLID position)
Thursday: ~3:00h Z2 ride 240W Avg/227W xPower (Garmin ran out of batteries halfway….)
Friday: Core Exercises
Saturday: 5x5min Z5 VO2 max intervals (TT bike)
20min warmup, 3min medium intensity, 6min easy, 5x(5min Z5+2:45min rest), 10min cooldown.
Interval 1: 364W Avg (testing the waters…)
Interval 2: 377W Avg
Interval 3: 377W Avg
Interval 4: 365W Avg
Interval 5: 378W Avg
Total Bikescore: 422
Total Training Time: 8:25h bike + 0:45h Core Exercises
Weekly Summary
4 Weeks To Go Means Business
In about 4 weeks I will have my biggest race of the season – The Bulgarian National Road Championships. It is always a good idea to take 4-5 weeks for specific training or in my case – ride my TT bike more and more under race power.
In addition after a season of racing, you should rebuild your aerobic (base) fitness. “Why?” you may ask. The reasons are simple:
- As your hard workouts get harder, your easy ones should get easier. Otherwise you are simply not recovering enough from the rigors of racing/high intensity training, so you are digging yourself into a hole. Easy workouts = not a lot of progress if any.
- Racing criteria and other shorter events simply does not push your body hard enough for long enough. I am oversimplifying here, however, to get training adaptations you need to push your body harder for longer than it wants aka “Get out of your comfort zone.” In shorter, high-intensity efforts you do get that tiny bit of top form, however, at some point you start to lose your general condition; not a problem in itself, just be aware and spend a week or two doing some longer Z2 rides as you are gearing up for priority events mid-season.
That being said, I put quite some Z2 hours and keeping into the high(er) end of Z2 (~240W) was easy. My form can only get better from here, a very good sign.
Losing My Mind
The fact that after 6 years, I’ll be permanently leaving The Netherlands, in 3 days is certainly not helping my case. Putting all my life into boxes and finalizing stuff (and petty breaucracy) can drive you nuts…
Thankfully, I managed to fix my Garmin Edge so I was not training blind, however, I missed one simple fact – you need to charge it. I mean, it completely escaped my mind. So halfway during my 3h mid-week ride out of the blue I got a low battery warning and shortly after I had no data, so I rode 1.5h ‘by feel.’ As they say a bad workout is the one that didn’t happen hehe.
Forgetting to charge my Garmin was the cherry on top in a week full of literally tens of things (some of which important) that simply slipped my mind…and am not the one to forget.
Anyhow….
Finding Power
While rebuilding my aerobic condition with Z2 rides, it is highly advised to peak it by doing VO2 max intervals. Conveniently 5x5min intervals is one of my all time favorite workouts. During last week’s high-intensity session, I bested my all time best power records for this workout. Only on Inteval #4 I had some trouble getting into rhythm. Even in my very aggressive aero position I had plenty of power!
Conclusion
The wider the base, the more sustained and higher the peak
-Joe Friel
All the training I have put since October 2012, is starting to really pay off. For a second week I have been able to comfortably sustain 400+ Bikescore in terms of training stress, while before I was left sore and VERY fatigued when approcahing 350/week. I am very excited to see where my form would develop!
Picture: Source
You can find explanations of the terms here together with explanations of the Training Zones.
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