Cycling Program v3.0 - 2010 - 2011 (Page 12)

I have my HM next weekend.  I was noticing that my legs were shot for my run workouts after a hard session on the trainer, so I stopped (will start Jorge's program over in a couple of weeks).  Legs feel much better and run performance back to normal, so I think it was a good decision.  

Everyone's different I guess, but my advice ba?s?e?d? ?o?n? ?m?y? ?e?x?p?e?r?i?e?n?c?e ?????????(as you seem to be serious about your run)??  ?w?o?u?l?d? ?b?e? ?t?o? ?d?e?l?a?y? ?t?h?e? ?t?r?a?i?n?e?r? ?p?r?o?g?r?a?m? ?u?n?t?i?l? ?a?f?t?e? ?r? ?y?o?u?r? ??H?M?.

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?Just my $0.02?
?? ? 

Week 2, day 1 is in the books.

Jorge,

Question about how to regulate your power when riding on rolling terrain.  I did a 2 hour ride on the weekend with the plan to follow the structure you laid out for the optional ride.  HR was nice and low (lower than I ever see it on an outdoor ride), but I screwed up the watts big time.  CP is 220, but you can from the interval numbers (approx 30 min each) that I was way off.

Interval 1 - 181 Watts, 144 HR, NP 199
Interval 2 - 183 Watts, 143 HR, NP 196
Interval 3 - 185 Watts, 148 HR, NP 198
Interval 4 - 183 Watts, 152 HR, NP 195

I'm sure this was because there is nowhere really flat for me to ride, I'm either going up or down.  Nothing big, just rolling.  When there are flatter sections I'm trying to keep the numbers in the target range, but for the total interval I couldn't make it happen.  Suggestions?

One other question.  I added in the Normalized power, cause that made the intervals at approx 90% CP rather than the 85% CP from the ride watts.  Should I pay a lot of attention to the NP numbers (considering I can't see them while riding)?

Thanks.

It depends on your goals, what you can handle in terms of load, your current fitness, ability to recover, etc. I have had athletes who have done tri training using a very similar approach to what this program suggest and still have them run 5-6x week. Others need a less aggressive cycling approach if runnign is our focus or just run less.

In this case it depends on your specific needs. If following this program makes your run training tougher, then either do less of it or wait until you can follow it. Cycling more in triathlons can benefit your running for sure, not necessarily because you'll run faster, but your greater specific cycling fitness will allow you to use less energy on the bike while cycling faster and use it that energy on the run; those together will make you faster.

It is the HM is the main goal right now so focus on that.

Ye we are ramping the plan to do more and more each week, because it is based under the assumption than most are coming off-season and we are not in top shape at the moment. Also, unless you have a big race early in the season IMO doing too much right now can cause burning out later in the season or plateaus unless you can manage to double your load later on (for many that is not possible).

Also, you can certainly change some of the workouts to match your needs, but notice that doing a the 5x1 sets @ <100% instead of 120% of CP are maximizing different adaptations. Not that is a bad thing but the progression was settled in a way to follow a patter addressing and maximizing certain adaptations to make the next block a bit easier to handle and not just because.

If you want to add more, I would start adding a longer ride or just a steady ride (<80% of CP) and see how your legs respond. There is balance between managing load and since it = volume + intensity, usually when you increase one the other one decrease. If you feel you can do more, try it but pay attention as to how yuor body responds and adjust accordingly.

As you know riding outdoors makes it difficult to keep your watts steady as you can do indoors due to the changing terrain, wind, turns, etc. Still, even when I am doing sets outdoors on a loop that includes all this variables I can usually have avg watts and NP around 1 (VI 1.0) and that's because you pace your effort in a way that you keep the power as constant as possible. That is, I barely stop pedaling, I put up a bit more power going up hill while keeping it within a range to not spike it too much but then, when downhill I know my power will be a tad lower so the difference evens it out.

NP is good as it estimates the metabolic cost of on your muscles of the variability of your ride. Hence, if you are constabntly spiking your power, the NP will be higher because every time you spike the power above your CP it is work that will cost you down the road as your muscles deplete and become fatigued.

Still, avg watts (AP) are telling you in real time what's happening (slowing down, stopping at lights, uphill, etc) so I still pay the most attention to it when riding. I can tell if my ride has been to variable as I know I am constantly spiking my power above my session's ranges (like group rides).

Use the info from this outdoor rides as a way to teach you how to pace more evenly (avoid too many power spikes burning matches) and see if you can eventually bring AP and NP closer to VI 1.0.

Question on the bolded section - how do you know if you are doing too much.  I'm in the process of adding volume since I'm trying to focus on swimming and cycling at the same time.  My volume now is higher than most of the year (thought not high compared to many others), and I was planning to keep it high during the winter to try and come out stronger in the Spring. 

Bad idea?

I was doing the 5x1 sets at 98% of my 3' power, or about 140% of my CP.  In doing some additional research, it seems that you don't get into VO2max oxygen consumption until 1 - 3 minutes into an interval, so most try to do such intervals with a length of 3' - 5'.   I'm thinking the way for me to do "more" for these intervals is probably to drop the power level back to more like 120% and add duration.  

I don't have any real early season events, but am working on raising my FTP this winter through your program (I'm probably 10% off the best I had last year, and would like to get beyond that if I can).  In the spring, I'll be adding volume when I can get outside.  

Scott

Want this in my threads so I can read.  That is all carry on

I've got a quick question: 120% of my CP is about 311 W, and 97-98% of my 3MP is ~345 W (which is about 133% CP).  I did a 5 min test in Sept to calculate CP and got 324 W (and my CP has dropped about 5 W since then, not unexpectedly).  So what should I target for the 1' intervals?  Obviously, one will be much harder than the other and I'd err towards the higher W target, but you mentioned HIIT before and that it wasn't useful and I didn't know if this may fall into that category.

Thanks.

Edit to fix math.

Edited a second time for more bad math...

Edited by jsiegs 2010-11-09 7:01 AM

As a general rule obviously listen to your body, add load gradually and you'll eventually find when you are near the "too much" line.

But in terms of setting an annual periodirized plan and setting up goals to peak at multiple events (like most AGers do) then I tend to plan how much load I add early in the year, based on the athlete's fitness, needs, goals and main distance.

You have to remember that your body adapts to the stimulus we expose it to and to keep improving our fitness we have to constantly push it to further adapt. Also you have to consider what are the specific adaptations for your main race. If you are doing an IM and you do a lot of volume now, later on the specific phase for the race you might need to do much more volume to further increase your fitness, otherwise you might plateau or even lose fitness later even when adding intensity. The other risk is that while you might need more load to adapt, who knows if your body will be ready to handle it.

It is hard for me to tell you how much is too much or whether your plan is a wise or not. I am not sure what your main race(es) are, how many, what's your current fitness and how much load you can handle.

For someone focusing on Oly and sprints, it might work to do more volume now as later in the year there should be a switch to more intensity which will be specific for the race. Someone doing an HIM might or might not be a good idea. For someone doing an IM might not but then again depends how much training you can do later in the year.

Add to that you have other life priorities to take care of (unless you train full time) and you have to be ready for those as well hence the mental toll might be higher than the physical one.

Anyway, maybe try doing a Google search on block periodization, there are some good review papers comparing the different periodization models, that way you can learn and give you a better idea how to apply it. That or hire a good knowledgeable coach to help you out.

These sets will certainly have you target adaptations to improve your VO2max even though the duration is around 1 min because you are doing it at an specific intensity; that and the compound effect of that technically you are riding around 5 min at that intensity. The key is that every week you increase that intensity a little even though the duration remains the same, so do get adaptations to maximize your VO2max (or more precisely your power at VO2).

You are welcome to modify the plan anyway you want, you can certainly do more duration at lower intensities, but notice all this can have different effects on your load, ability to recover, etc...

Start with 120% of CP and see how it goes, if you can complete all sets with relatively ease then go higher next time.

A question regarding the 20MP note in the Biking File spreadsheet:  when should we be doing the "sets 1 - 5 at most recent 20MP and 3 - 5 watts harder on the last set".  Would this be an alternative to week 2 day 2 which is described as a 4x10' at 80 and 85%?  

Also, week 2 day 3 has 30" intervals at 110 - 115%.  Is this another place where the 5MP note would apply and we might do these at our 3MP - a few percent? 

I'm finding these power notes confusing! 

You are getting ahead of yourself - if you downloaded the guide or check the program outline you can see when we'll be addressing what. Right now, we are working towards increasing power at VO2 max and later will move to increase 20 min power (20MP). Not until then the 20MP notes will become relevant.

The 5MP notes only apply to the Day1 from wk 2 to 4. Day 3 (same weeks) also focus to improve power at VO2max in a different format to keep things a bit more varied/interesting as most are doing this on the trainer.

Next week I'll add a note when the session is focused on 5MP or later on 20MP to make it less confusing. Still, if you keep trying to change the plan, it will for certain become confusing because you are changing in a way I don't know if makes sense to you or not. Also keep in mind that I won't be doing an individualized program for you every week.

If you want to alter the plan, you can do so in anyway you prefer, however, *if* you want to follow this program as suggested, then you'll have to be patient

Understood.  Just trying to understand how the notes for power users are meant to be used with the plan.   

I just finished Day week 2 and need some reassurance that I'm following the right times. I'm on the heart rate monitor plan.

WU was #2 at minutes
Main session was a total of 10 minutes alternating hard to recovery effort every 1 minute
Then 15 minutes @ 83 to 87%
CD = 5 minutes 
Total time = 50 minutes

If I'm not reading the plan correctly it's still kicking my butt.

Darrell

It is very cool to see so many of you following the program and entering your data on the Google docs spreadsheet. Now it will be easier for me to harass check on you and keep you pushing to get those numbers higher!

Mornin!  I am water skiing behind most of you (one week behind) and just did my 30 Min TT this morning (HR Based) and I was really surprised to see my HR so low for the test, avg 143.  I went all out and negative split the 30 min, so should I take this # for what it is and base the remainder off a THR of 139? I don't know, but I feel it should have been higher.  Any thoughts?

I have a question about zeroing the torque on my Powertap.  I know I should do it before every ride but I haven't gotten into the habit of doing it yet.  *After* my workout last night, it occurred to me to check it and when I did it was at 2 instead of 0 which I then reset.  Is 2 a significant number in this case - ie. would the numbers I was looking at during (and after I guess) be inaccurate by a large amount?

try it out and see how it goes for coming workouts. If after completing some sessions it indeed feels too easy then add 3-5 bpm to your THR and try again!

It could. If you set up your trainer usually in the same way (same resistance, same tire psi, etc) then you can check your avg watts and mph when doing a steady effort vs some file where the powermeter was calibrated. If the mph are off then you could estimate how much off your power was.

From experience, when my torque is off significantly I can 'feel' my watts are not were they ought to be, otherwise I would barely notice the difference.