Been quite busy lately, what with Easter, work, training, and now nightly rehearsals for the next show at the theater. So here’s a little update on the training routine…

After some disappointment at the Canal TT (the competition was the strongest I’ve seen in a M30+ TT, but I still think I could have gone better than I did), I have had some stellar training days the past week and a half. We’ve begun our weekly Wednesday group ride, which generally consists of strong 1-2min pulls and a few 2-5min VO2 efforts on the longer hills. I have also been doing the 1min bridging efforts and 2min “hill attacks”(similar to the bookends from the plan), and of course continuing the FTP work as well.

Some significant power numbers from training during this period:

Best 1min power: 617 W. This is 23 W off my all-time best, but on 0.1 w/kg lower.
Best 2min power: 440 W. About 10 W below my best, which was 350 W in March.
Best 5min power: 392 W. 3 watts off my best, but probably higher in w/kg.
Best 20min power: 348 W. New all-time best. Further confirms my FTP estimate of 325W, which was based on 60-min NP.

I’ve hit 4 out of my 10 best 60-min NP markers in the past 10 days as well. So while the TT biking is going okay, the road biking seems to really be taking off.

The final two “stages” of my Spring Break week were comprised of some solid LT work indoors on Friday on the TT bike, to simulate a 50-minute time trial effort, and then a full-on 200km ride on Saturday. The summary:

• Stage 7: 45km TT, 277 W, 117 TSS (including warm-up)
• Stage 8: 200km, 213 W, 322 TSS

Friday’s workout was nothing that spectacular, other than being hard but fortunately much shorter than the 3-4 hour rides I had been doing. Fatigue from the rest of the week was definitely setting in, and the rain forced me indoors. So much for that sweet weather and mountain stage I had planned. It wasn’t worth driving out there if the weather wasn’t going to cooperate.

Saturday was a tour of four or five surrounding counties with my buddy Rodney. The weather was cool & overcast, the roads damp from Friday’s rains, but it didn’t rain on us during the ride. On the whole we kept it pretty easy-going, just getting in the miles and burning some major calories. The nicest parts of the ride were a section of closed road crossing an old steel bridge, badly in need of repair, but completely passable by bike. Then had a wonderful fast, flat section travelling north from Clover to Phenix. When I got to Farmville, it was a quick stop at the cafe for a coffee and pastry celebration, then home for a shower and a whole lot of rest! My Epic Week was done! Grand total was about 875 kilometers (about 545 miles) and 28.5 hours of riding for 8 days straight.

Stage 5 and 6 of my epic week brought a change of scenery, as I drove down to coastal NC to visit the folks. First the summary, and then the details:

• Stage 5: 102 km, 267 W, 204 TSS
• Stage 6 (YMCA class): 1 hour, 290 W, 80.9 TSS (IF and TSS estimated using TRIMPs)

Stage 5 was a (rain-free) 3-hour tour of the area surrounding Hampstead, NC. I have yet to discover the “perfect” longer loop in the area, but I got closer this time. After a 15-minute warm-up, I put in 50 minutes of low L4, starting in the lower end of the range and building up, with the last 10 minutes at FTP. Then took 20 minutes of L2, then 50 minutes L3, another 30 minutes L2 (which felt a lot more like upper L3), then the final 10 minutes in upper L3 (I was pretty worn out by this point). Took a 10-minute cool down and called it a good day.

Stage 6 was a criterium simulation on the indoor cycle. Since the weather was crappy, and I spent most of the day driving, I decided to make it a short stage day, in hopes of resting up a bit for a big finish this weekend. I wasn’t content to take a rest day, or treat it like a transition stage and do lower intensity, so I opted to build the ride around my advanced cycling class at the YMCA. After a brief warm-up, we kicked into 10 minutes of L3 with brief 5-6 second accelerations every 30 seconds (to simulate corners). Then it was 4 x 1-minute maximal efforts, followed by 3 x 1-minute leadouts. After class was finished, I rode L3 to finish out the hour.