SBR "U" (Page 22)

Yep, taking on the ToS madness again -- glad you're doing it too!  I've serious contemplated just skipping Stage 8!  I know I won't, but it's not gonna be pretty.  Sprints are not my thing (attacks are not my thing either!).  I don't think I have any of those three videos and no plans to buy them either....I'll suffer with music or a tv show or something instead!

What are these mountains you speak of???

Quick check in - Chris, sorry to see that another injury is plaguing you again.  Sucks, and I think we can all relate to the impact on each of us mentally (some seem much more capabale of handling it than others - I fall into the "doesn't handle it well" group"). 

Struggling to stay motivated at the moment as training is very sporadic, life with two little kids (one pretty active) has taken a toll, and this is the biggest pressure on me mentally at the moment.  I struggle to get in workouts after a full day and the clock shows 9pm and I'm facing an hour on the bike and then straight into bed and rinse and repeat - more often than not I find myself bagging the workout and just spending the hour decompressing from the day so I can start again the next day.  I used to be so so for morning workouts but have hit 0% of them as I can't get up in the morning the past few months.  Keep telling myself I'm just facing a temporary block at the moment and I'll get past it, but when the time crunch hits I throw in the towel too often and can't get past it, and then feel the guilt for missing a day/workout.  C'est la vie at the moment. [/whine]

Drawbridges?

Confirming talking about the hamstring.....    I did not go to any treatment for it as (IMO) it is a pretty standard grade 1 hamstring strain.  Just treated with ice, compression, rolling etc.

I do get some sort of injury every Dec through Jan it seems, as I concentrate on running.   Don't believe it's overuse as I am following Shane's mileage, or at least it's not ramping up too much as an issue.   I don't ever seem to get injured during triathlon season though, when the sports are more evenly balanced.

Marc,

Can you briefly explain to me again what the "calibration" or zero offset numbers mean again.  I haven't been good at doing offset before each ride, but much better about back pedaling several times in the middle of the ride.  It seems though the times I do check, the offset number is growing.  When I first changed my chainrings (older 975 quarq), it read in the -560 range.  Then it started creeping up to the -590 range.  I figured it was settling in...and a few weeks later it was around -660 to -680.  Yesterday I checked in the middle of a ride because I felt like it was under reporting and saw -717.  Not sure what to make of all this.  Maybe I just need to check the bolts to see if they are tightened properly? 

Sounds dirty. 

Marc, can you remind me what the drift means?  I know that the difference between the starting reading and the final reading divided by three is the number of watts difference, but I can't remember which way it works.  For example, on one of my last rides, the initial reading was 50 and the final reading war 65.  That's a differential of 15, which equates to 5W.

Now does that mean that what I stared reading at 200W at the start of my ride is equivalent to 205W or 195W (when still reading 200W) at the end of the ride?

I think (can't remember for sure) that in summer temperatures, my drift is the other way (e.g. would start at 65 and end at 50).

And if you back pedal throughout the ride, does this negate the need to worry about the drift (i.e. 200W at the start would be 200W at the end)? 

I don't know of a way to set the grid in 10w increments but you can adjust the scale.  Along the left where it shows the units for watts, if you just click on it it will isolate the graph to just watts and a slider should appear at the top and bottom and you can slide it up and down to narrow down what you are seeing.

For the intervals - while that ride plot is up do you have the sidebar open on the left (see attached pic)?  It should show rides, intervals etc.  If not, click View then show left sidebar.  Then, along the bottom of the left sidebar are a few small buttons - one of them is for intervals, click that to show interval data in the sidebar (if it wasn't there already).  That should show you all of your laps.  You can either click on them in the list or as you hover your mouse over them in the ride plot they will show the data.  To change what data is displayed there, click Tools - Options then select metrics along the top and then the intervals tab.  You can adjust the fields there.  There is also the Summary tab there that lets you change what you see on the ride summary screen (the other screenshot you posted with the lap data).

(GC-sidebar.JPG)

For the purposes of training, FTP and CP are essentially the same thing.  They have slightly different definitions (I might not get this quite right, correct me if I'm wrong).  FTP is the power that you could sustain for an hour while CP is the power that you could sustain for a long time (and thus Marc's comment that it is a few watts lower than FTP).  

If your workout says 90% of FTP, you can do 90% of CP.

There is so much GC can do if you go digging around.  It's unfortunate that you have to and some things aren't obvious at all but they are probably there somewhere.  If you find yourself wishing it would do X, it probably can!  

I've learned a lot about it just by subscribing to their email list.  https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/golden-cheetah-users

If Shane gives me a VO2max workout like that, the WU will never have 30s hard efforts in it but rather something like 5' @ 90% - so 10 ez, 5' @ 90%, 5' ez then the main set.  For a threshold type workout, it will be the opposite.  10 ez, 5x30s hard/30s ez, 5' ez and then the main set.

James, from what you post, you sound a lot like me -- you want to analyze everything and make sure your FTP is exact to the watt.  Sometimes you just can't do that.  

From some of the workouts you've posted (like the one the other day where you did 70' of riding, accumulated 110 TSS, and did 4x8' VO2 intervals with only 2' rest), I suspect your FTP is set too low.  Long(er) intervals with short(ish) rest are typically more in the threshold range....VO2 intervals tend to have rest intervals closer to 50-100% of the working interval (for an 8' VO2 interval, I would think 4' rest would be more appropriate).  

Honestly, my bet is that your FTP is probably in the 300-310W range.  If I were you, I'd probably artificially bump up my FTP (without retesting) until you start feeling like that 2x20' feels more threshold and less tempo....and an 8' VO2 interval makes you want to cry and take 4' of recovery (less than 225W!).  

Just my $0.02....and if Marc/Ben/Arend/Chris/Rusty/whoever disagrees, listen to them over me -- they have more experience training and racing with power than I do, but I've worked hard to understand what makes sense and what doesn't.