Last weeks hiit at 340w and 120+ rpm felt really tiring. This week I’ve been working on getting better recovery and I postponed / deleted some sessions to make sure my RHR, HRV and body could get back to normal. After 10 hours of sleep last night, I felt much better compared to yesterday.
340w was easy, as was 345w. At 350w the work started, but I was on my 3rd and final set of 6. I’ll have to see how I’m feeling for next session and adjust accordingly. That FTI of 90% eludes me!
Hey folks, don’t really want to do another 5k test right now, but this is what’s going on for me so looking for recommendations here. My pace outdoors is much quicker than indoors on the treadmill. When I did my 5K test, it was on the treadmill (hey it was -30 outside), but as the coldest temperatures on the horizon are -8 I’ve transitioned to running outdoors. Thing is, as my pace is faster outdoors at the same heart rate zones, it’s calculating a much higher load and I’m getting warnings of overtraining, and I’m concerned this will change volumes in upcoming weeks. I have a decent idea of where my 5K pace would be outdoors, if I change the metric and update things, will it start my plan over or will it just adjust pace zones moving forward, and the load associated with the work?
Hey @DaveBoyle … tricky conditions and totally understand concerns as I’m in a similar type environment. The faster pace at same HR is a great sign of adaptation. As discussed elsewhere in the forum don’t look too deep into overtraining warnings as they should be used as a guide only. To your question, when you update your 5k pace and zones it only updates the zones and not the whole plan. In your situation, best if you can do your own calibrations on these known differences between indoor and outdoor pace relative to feel and heart rate (i.e., just know what to expect). Feel and heart rate (internal load/stress) is the important thing here so keep using that as your main training guide as you progress across the different environments. Keep the goal of training consistency as central to your process…
New chain was good today, but it could do with about 3 or 4 extra links removing. I’ll do that on my recovery day.
My wife has had the Lurgi and her first outing on my long rides in a month. Went a bit easier than AI wanted. Told the AI coach why. It’s doubled my tempo intervals tomorrow to keep me on plan, but that’s all good.
Appreciate the feedback. I will adjust the 5K time to around where my last outdoor hard effort was and go with that for now. I just don’t want it reducing a bunch of run volume thinking I’m burning out because that’s not the case. In fact it is the opposite, I haven’t felt this well post sessions in a long time. Thanks again.
Love that… 100%. My gut says that’s right in the sweet spot around hitting the target and moving on to tomorrow’s session. Pioneering here but as Andrea says, need to be guided a bit by combined theory and intuition but that feels right.
Tomorrow’s session happens to be recovery day. It’ll be headset bearing replacement day. That’s provided my call to the LBS confirms they have replacements before I take it all apart. Time for a new rear tyre as well. February tends to be my post depths of winter servicing month.
Agree though, I’m feeling something around 11% to 15% for mWR is in the range to aim for, if I don’t want to impact the quality of subsequent intervals or sessions.
Strength Endurance today, just 3 intervals of 10 mins. Got an event on Sat, the last in a winter series, The AI coach said it was less intense than planned, then went on to say how I was just working below Threshold, which is L3B!
I’d say actual was pretty close to planned. Duration just not as long. Not bad for outdoors.
As much as anything it was a test of the bike, as I serviced the headset bearings yesterday.Steering nice and smooth again after winter had been hard on them.
I’ve started adjusting my SE day cadences because I’ve found that the program really doesn’t carve out a regular cadence L3 workout. I naturally hold 85-90, and as I looked back at my multiple weeks of training, I realized I hadn’t done a single workout in this zone level at that cadence. So I corrected for that.
I’ll still do some intervals on it, but not having any “regular cadence” intervals seemed odd.
@cmaloney and myself get together Wednesday mornings, and I mean she literally gets up and jumps on her bike 6:30am (!) to crank out some 30/30s with me! Today we did 2 sets 8 x 30/30!
I’m on the mid distance duathlon program (no pool at the moment) and Sunday is typically my longish z2 run.
My standard cycling days are:
Monday: SE
Wednesday: Typically defaults to 30/30s
Saturday: Typically z2. Sometimes over/unders
There’s “some” diversity options in the Workout Wizard, but it’s limited (i.e. Monday is always SE low cadence options, Wednesday is mostly under 1 minute intervals).
So I might do some SE intervals at low cadence, others at standard.
Yesterday, for example, I changed the 30/30 at L6 to 1/1 at L5.
So I use the defaults as a template but modify to make sure it’s more well rounded than the original offering.
Using last hiit session as reference i upped the watts for the quality focus portion yet again. I pulled up my big boy pants and accepted that it would be difficult. I got a great night of sleep last night (the herbal tea didn’t hurt!) which I now know leads to better sessions…
9x in a row was tough but doable. I got that copper taste in my mouth for the final 3 intervals, so I know I was right up there. mWR of 1%.
It’s a recovery week, so the next. 3 days are off, but I’ll throw something easy in there for the mental.
@Marjaana Thank you for the awesome write up! It is so much fun to be a part of the Athletica community.
Hey! Are you on base phase? When you move in to build there will also be race pace longer rides. I’m 11 weeks out from IM Texas and I’ve got plenty of race pace targeted work IMO.
SE are wonderful to build leg strength especially us who live in area where there are no hills.
Remember L3 takes a lot more out of you than L2. Build phase brings more race pace/power into your calendar
maybe a little longer warmup next time!
