Just got back onto TR after a 2 year hiatus and 1 year away from cycling. Starting my first week on masters low volume. Finished the workout and saved as normal which is below.
I got some adaptations which is fine and understand the purpose however they are the same no? I checked the stats and they are.
1x30min threshold outside. I managed around 99% of set FTP, had hoped to have improved since last month but I managed the exact same power although was the third workout day in JOINâS 3 on 1 off schedule and I had to slow brake and slow down due to someone suddenly veering left
This was originally scheduled as a rest/recovery week, but given that I have some time off of work, I decided to carry on with the intensity, if not the commutes. I pretty much copied things down from the previous week, but moved them around a bit.
Monday: Iâd had hackberry VO2 1.5, 30/30s, on the calendar, but I looked for a 2.5⌠Found one late last week and alternated upwards⌠Morning of, when I got set up, I looked for the easiest âstretchâ of 30/30s that was 75 minutes in length. Subbed in Taylor -1, 3x15x30/30s with 8 minutes of recovery between sets. A 2.9. Added 2 minutes of cool down. Marked it hard, because again, VO2s workouts donât ever feel moderate, but this was kind of close.
77 minutes, IF 0.85 and 93TSS.
If you look real closely, you can probably figure out which interval I got a phone call during and where I silenced the smart watch⌠missed the power target by 3 whole watts for that interval. Everything else was a hit. Like the last couple of workouts, just for my own edification and self-validation, I ran the last two stupid hot (138% and 150% of FTP rather than the planned 120%). Pretty sure I could have completed a 3.3 or a 3.5 if it was 30/30s.
Showered, rode to the pool for the family stay-cation Iâve been on this week. Rode home. Call it 23 minutes, 15-17 TSS.
Tuesday: Stacking days, Starlight -2 comes around. O/U Threshold 4.0, 3x10, 95%/105%.
Showered and rode to a different pool in town. 1.25 miles each way, 2TSS each way.
Wednesday: 2H07minutes on the road. Mostly endurance avg, IF 0.60. 84TSS.
Thursday: Monitor +2 was back on the schedule, as an achievable SS, 5.1, given that I just completed it about down a week⌠Not trying to make huge SS gains this week., so decided to stay at Monitor +2 for âdiscretion is the better partâ purposesâŚ
Knocked it out of the park. Turned the final two intervals into At/unders⌠Added two minutes of cool down. Marked it Moderate. 77 minutes, 94TSS.
Friday: Staycation ends, in-office early. Commute in and out long way home. 1H19min, 40TSS. 5 day streak.
Saturday: Start of actual vacation. Looked at the week ahead, knowing Iâll be outside and going long, on unfamiliar roads, I dropped a SS off and added a second VO2 workout⌠Let the (Monday) ramp test convert to AI FTP detection⌠another 2.2% and it calculates to 3.74w/kg. When I get back from vacation Iâll have to do an actual assessment before I believe it. Anyway, did a 55 minute/39TSS ride outside testing the new shoes. 6 days streak.
Sunday: 2 Hours, 0 minutes 30 seconds, 74TSS, IF of 0.61.
Weekly: 11hours, 553 TSS, 6 week average up to 455.
Garrowby +8 last night, was tough but not horrendous. Hit FTP detection and TR has decided my numbers have gone down, seems sligthly odd so ignored it.
Was struggling with motivation last night so decided to do some VO2 efforts and see what happened, might bail after the warm-up or could get them all done, kill or cure type thing. 30 minutes either end of Goat Citadel are just noodling along, middle 60 minutes is the workout.
Monday: Outdoors Johnstrup - VO2 4.0 - 30/30s @ 125% - 42 total intervals in the main sets. I missed 6 of them⌠2 were stop-sign and traffic related (semi familiar roads, but timing can be hard). 2 were downhill related, a 40Tx11 just isnât enough to stay at the high power when Iâm already descending at 30+ miles per hour⌠And 2 I think I just missed based on concentration levels. Middle of the third set my hamstring told me it was tight, so I stretched as well as I could on the bike. Avoided actual cramping, but it was in my mind the rest of the ride.
1H59minutes, 121TSS, IF 0.78. 8 day streak. Marked it hard because my hamstring told me to, quads, heart and lungs were barely uncomfortable, though.
Tuesday: Plan was to go out for 3 or 3.25 hours endurance pace⌠Mapped out a course by the vacation rental to include some gravel I havenât hit, or donât remember hitting in previous years. All was going well 2 hours in, until I caught a sidewall puncture in my Donnelly MSOs⌠chunky, chunky gravel got me⌠Iâve been using them for probably 8 years?, 11000miles? on my commuter/CX/#1 bike and this is my first side-of-the-road flat. Tire was installed exactly a week prior, too⌠Aired up, rode a little bit, Stans clearly wasnât holding, so jammed a plug in, topped off and abandoned the route for pavement and direct path home. Rode high endurance pace on the way home. 2 hours, 58 minutes 132 TSS, 0.66 IF. 9 day streak.
Wednesday I had both Blue Bell +2 (Vo2 5.0 1minute on/offs) and Grampians +1 (SS 5.4, 4x14 minutes with micro recoveries) on the calendar. Game day decision lead to Blue Bell +2. I completed it, a handful of the 1 minutes were a few watts short, but almost as many were just over the target range. 2H8min ride time, 137TSS, 0.79 IF 10 day ride streakâŚ
Fixed another flat⌠Note to self, just go ahead and replace the spare tubes youâve been carrying on your tubeless bike BEFORE you go on vacation!..
Thursday: Streak-keeper type recovery day. 60 minutes, 34 TSS 0.58 IF. 11 Day ride streak.
Friday: Got a pinch flat pushing my bike up the stairs⌠Sign from the tire god(s?) to bag it for the day and spend the day on the beach. Thought about how I havenât had a 50-hour month since 2020, and what skipping would do in my quest to get 50 in July⌠Still, took it easy on the last day of vacation. Bloody Maryâs and the beach. Ordered 4 new spare tubes from REI for the house and seat pack.
Saturday pack the car, drive home and back to the real world. Nothing officially on the calendar so I pulled up my Routine Builder. 75 minutes, 51TS, 0.64 IF.
Three easy days in a row leads to a Sunday FTP test. 20 minute protocol. Would have skipped it had any of the last three days been a big ride, but I do want to compare apples to apples, not apples to AI.
Dropped out of the FTP test 5 minutes into the main effort. Excuses are like (turds) they all stink, but Iâm going with being back in the basement, a crappy fan and a very, very humid environment. Had little to do with the week of vacation drinking and outside riding I swear. I moved my FTP setting back to my last validated-by-test number. Completed Selside Endurance a a 1.6, 30 minutes, after my RPE came back to normal.
10H, 24min, 539 TSS, 6 week average 470.
And commencing ârecovery weekâ tomorrow.
Outdoor VO2 yesterday evening, the workout was Caltech -7 and it went well. Missed one sprint element as it kicked in right on a corner. Legs feel empty today so I know I gave it a good nudge.
And commencing ârecovery weekâ tomorrow.
Monday Commute to and from. 54 minutes 27 TSS. Lunchtime: Rowed 1k, lifted light, stretched, 6 minutes of heavy bag 30/30s. (31 extra minutes total of activity).
Tuesday commuted to and from (54minutes, 25TSS, ) . Lunchtime : Rowed 1250m, 8 minutes of heavy bag, stretched. 20+/- minutes of extra activity.
Wednesday: TW day. Totten Key at lunch while watching an Olympic soccer match. Added some time to the end, just like the referee⌠53 minutes, 27 TSS, 0.56 IF.
9 minute ride to and from the brew pub after work. 13 total TSS.
Thursday: commute to and from. 55 total minutes 25 total TSS. Rowed 1500m, lifted light, stretched at lunchtime. 6-day ride streak, but weekly TSS still under 150âŚ
Friday: commuted to and fro. 55 minutes, 29 TSS. Errands and dinner with my 10 year old. 29 minutes. TSS over-estimated at 15. Whatever, moving on. 7-day ride streak.
Saturday: To and from pool with 10 and 8. 8 managed to earn some road rash within the first 250meters. Circle back for bandaids that he immediately removed when we got the sunscreen out. Ride home was uneventful. 26 minutes, TSS overestimated at 16.
Right into Taku -1, an endurance 30 minute, 1.0 when I got home. 16 TSS. Marked easy. 8-day ride streak, even during a recovery week.
Sunday: Olympics all morning. Kristen Faulkner went to Harvard. And with sheer brutalism and timing beat the favorite and the Goat. Otherwise an off day from cycling.
Weekly total: 7H44minutes of riding, 204 TSS (but that includes some HR-only estimates when riding with the kids). 6 Week average down to 467. I feel silly fresh.
Marengo VO2 5.3. coming up tomorrow.
Had bad sleep last week and again last night (woke up at 03:00), so despite two easy days was not up to the task.
Pouring sweat on 2x10min threshold intervals I just thought âwhy am I doing this to myself?â 
And switched to an endurance rideâŚ
Most convenient place for me to do a workout is on a tar-&-gravel sealed forestry track, where I can fit in 5-minute threshold or 6-minute sweetspot intervals. So on Tuesday it was Garrowby +4. Had a few days off beforehand & hit all my interval targets without a lot of trouble. Hardest was 4th-last at 94%.
Yesterday (Wednesday) was a tour.
Then this morning I was back to the forestry track, got some retribution on Tweed +9, despite being on day three in a row. I kept the cadence a little lower today. 95rpm felt about right.
Toyed with tacking some more endurance on the end so I extended & bumped the power target to chase ~60%, but on my lap around the estate immediately afterwards the rain started so called it done.
Monday: Commuted to and fro: 54 minutes, 37TSS. Got home, basement was hot and humid and wasnât committed to 75 more minutes⌠Alternated Marengo (5.3, 3x12 50/50s @ 125%) down to Thimble. Its 2x7x50/50s but with a 10 second ramp from recovery power up to 127%⌠and THEN the 50 seconds of work. So its kind a 55/50, but it takes the inclination to start too hard off the table. I missed 1 interval by about 7 watts, but the surrounding intervals overshot by an equivalent or more number⌠Had a side stitch and took about an extra 30 seconds backpedaling with the workout paused late in the second set⌠Missed a few of the spinups, just having a hard time judging how to turn it up smoothly, but got credit for the workout. Marked it Hard because the legs felt like VO2 should. HR was funny to watch after a recovery week, going sky high.
Tuesday: Ducked the predicted thunderstorms to commute in and out⌠Skipped the long way home for thunderstorms that never came. 53 minutes, 26TSS
Wednesday: Seneca Rocks , SS 3.6. Got a little bored late, but not enough to do more than play around a little bit. Marked it Hard, but considered moderate. 75minutes, 82TSS.
Thursday commute in. 26 minutes, 12 TSS. 1750meters on the rower (1:58/500 +/- 215 watts). 16 sets of various lifts (mostly warmup weight) and gym movements. Long way home 81 minutes; 44 TSS. Roughly 120 minutes of actual activity (not including time between lifting sets).
Friday: planned to commute, but wasnât feeling it when I woke up, especially with the DOMS from doing back squats the day before (first time squatting in a couple of months, even though it was low volume and low weight).
Saturday: Lifted chest in the garage. Then eventually Owsley, a 90 minute , Threshold 2.8, with O/u at the core surrounded by some high endurance riding. Was watching the end of the olympic 5k during the first interval⌠Wonder why I went a little over? Marked it hard, still feeling hamstring and quad DOMS from the squats on Thursday.
Sunday: Two best riding buddies are out, one with covid and one on a fishing trip. Got #2 dropped off at hockey (yes, in August! 
) and headed out for a road ride. Good news, DOMS is gone.
2H41min, 125 TSS, IF 0.65. Marked it moderate. (only 600+/- FEET in elevation gain).
Weekly: 10H03min, 498TSS, 6wk Avg 471.
Managed to find some time this afternoon between rain showers that I could sneak a one-hour workout in, today was yellow, but 
I thought of the weather forecast, got a bit cocky, threw caution to the wind, & loaded up Santiago.
Legs & emotions gave me my mind the finger in the 4th interval.
So, dissatisfied with just 22 minutes on the bike I immediately jumped into Train Now for a 45 minute endurance, & Mediane came up (which is about what I shouldâve done to start with!). I thought, simple workout structure, easy targets, perfect for scooting around the suburb in traffic, thatâll do, & continued at a more sedate pace. Though I did bump it to 107%, the peaks were still at a very manageable 71% of FTP. Got back to the house during the cooldown & just let the timer run out.
Breakaway bingo
Fun workout, in a Type II sort of way. Sort of a kitchen-sink with 40-20 VO2, 2x10 min sweet spot, VO2-threshold-sweet spot progression, and a final sub-threshold-to-sprint finish.
After a week vacation with no cycling, Iâm starting to feel like Iâve recovered most of my fitness. HR is back down where it should be. Rain is forecasted for this weekend, so no outside ride. Hoping to make a few more Hammerfests in the coming weeks.
This week was supposed to be a recovery week, according to the original plan, but since Iâd pushed the most recent recovery week 2 whole weeks, I decided to keep riding (seems silly to go two weeks long, recover 1 week, train 1 week, recover for a week again). I just copied last weekâs midweek workouts down so:
Monday Commute to; Lunch workout, including row 2k 7:43 and 4x6 of back squats at the same weight as last week (fingers crossed for less DOMS?). 33 minutes in the gym, total.
Commute home. 54 minutes riding, 33TSS from the commute.
Marengo was on tap again and I waffled about 75 minutes, again. This time, I decided to go with it, but made sure I primed the pump with Gatorade during the commute home. Couple of cliff chews when swapping from commute shoes to trainer shoes and turned on some bike YouTube. I was within about 45 seconds of quitting, just on the first interval, but then decided to try another, and another.
Eventually I made it through the workout, but if you go by target power, I actually only completed 4 of the 24 intervals⌠Most âmissesâ were definitely in the range, even within the range of the margin of error, but everything was SO hard. I missed a couple because I started late (Lifetime Productions Leadville on YouTube distracted me more than once). Added 5 minutes, spun about 3 of it at a high zone 2, cooled down a full 5 minutes.
80 minutes, 99 TSS, IF of 0.86. Marked it very hard. Got credit from AI for a VO2 Max bump of 0.1, so Iâm sitting at 5.3 right now. I consider it a success, given what else I put my legs and heart through today.
Tuesday: Commute in early; commute home with some errands a little out of the way. 64 minutes, 34TSS. No squat related DOMS so thatâs good.
Wednesday: Telework day. Worked on the laptop all day, couldnât even take 15 minutes to get in a lift. After the workday was done jumped into Eclipse -1, 75 minutes, SS 5.1, stretch (1.5 PL bump). It was harder than I expected. Added two minutes of cool down, marked it hard and moved on. Glad I stayed with âstretchâ though.
Townie ride to a brewpub/charity meeting and home. 17 minutes total.
Thursday: Commute in with a detour/errands. Row 2k at lunch, lift, including some squats. Commute home. 69 minutes ride time, 18TSS.
Friday: commute in early. Commute home. 57 minutes, 23 TSS. 7-day streak
Saturday: hot and muggy and then rainy and then hot again⌠Rode to those fields, got caught in an absolute downpour mid-game, rode home, rode back because #3 (8) left his backpack at the fields⌠+/- 25 minutes of riding, TSS overestimated at 24TSSâŚ
Lost some motivation and decided not to do an FTP test. Plugged in my 75 minute routine builder, turned on the second half of AC Milan game and spun. Game ended, turned on LTdFF extended highlights on YouTube and kept spinning. Added 10 minutes of Zone 2 (the beauty of the Kurt fluid trainer is I just had to hit +10, and ride where I felt like it). Marked it moderate. 85 minutes, IF 0.65, 60TSS, 8-day streak.
Sunday: No riding. Busy with youth sports equipment distribution. And thatâs ok.
Weekly: 8H57min. 398 TSS. 6 week average @475TSS. 68 additional minutes in the gym, 16 of it rowing, the rest lifting.
First indoor workout for a while. TR passed me but I wasnt impressed with my performance, I failed to get my HR up for starters, I think I still have the 161 Sunday miles in my legs and today was a long work day and I think I push a little too much on the new office commute as the roads around it are less friendly.
Olâ faithful, Tray Mountain was the intention, but because I have about half an hour of endurance each side to get to/from a closed circuit, I did the +2, with an extended warmup.
Struggled a bit on the last SS interval. Endurance after was moderate. Rated very hard.
I did the over-under workout below which I stole from Evoq. This is
1 min @115% FTP
3 mins @98%
1 min @115%
3 mins @98%
1 min @115%
Then repeat a few times. Any thoughts on this one? It felt productive, definitely a challenge to complete. Last year I tried to do this and I exploded after one interval. I am thinking I would be better off extending each interval to progress.
I had South Twin in my calendar tonight. I kinda expected it to adapt out after the bank holiday ramps but my soon to be replaced HR strap probably made it seem like less of an effort than it was, so it never. I couldnât get my cadence up feeling bloated but mentally after Saturdayâs off I wasnât 100% right so I put it down to that. I was also putting it down to the decision to stay indoors which was too hot, rather than going out on a group ride 
I could tell when the sub threshold warm up felt over it 
I struggled through though and despite marking it âall outâ and not hitting targets on average, I somehow passed,
Lol, after I found out why I couldnât get the cadence up, I was full of gas, its a good job I live alone; oh the joys of being a bowel cancer survivor 
Planned out my whole days workouts and nutrition in advance, the day before.
Completely ignored it, barely ate all day and crammed in a reverse brick session - run to bike - at the end of the day.
