SBR Utopia - OPEN (Page 27)

The naming is all in fun for motivation.  It's quite possible to push yourself more on the bike than in running, so you kind of have to in order to keep up as others will do so. By the way, the Hell Hath No Fury vid uses the (in)famous 2 x 20 workout, and the footage used is all from the women's pro tour. And if someone still hasn't put it together, the rest of the expression is "...like a woman scorned". They have all kinds of easy to take jabs in there that really spark the effort level.

Sufferfest videos love to put the emphasis on the suffering theme. In running terms, they make you do a lot of 10k pace efforts and yes, they hurt. But they are the most efficient way to raise your ability to produce power.

You don't do this much 10k pace efforts in running because you would injur yourself. But in cycling you can and it's a very time efficient way of developing fitness. Time efficiency is important because it's so friggin boring on a trainer you need to get it over with fast.

Yes, it's rather hard to actually hurt yourself riding. You just get tired and can't make the intensity level. The last sentence is true (haha!), but it's also because the volume of riding needed to improve at lower intensity goes up quite a bit. We brought up that the stress score is based on time and intensity, but I don't remember if we said that intensity (IF) is squared. TSS = IF^2 x Duration x 100.  (Duration is in hrs)

ETA: cycling doesn't have the pounding to worry about. There isn't really body weight support or the eccentric loading from the foot landing (where the load is applied while the muscle is lengthening).

Nice job

I would bet that many people doing 4hrs of bike a week are doing at 70% of FTP.This would give a TSS score of less than 200 for the week and I'm not sure how much improvement they will see. Some intensity is required to make improvements.

Input re the above:  I'm doing Jorge's program and it's currently about 5hrs/week. Am using the 30 min HR test as outlined. FWIW, my LTHR for the bike (165 as I tested it) was about 15 bpm less than my LTHR for my run (180 bpm determined at an "all out" 5k). There are intervals at 105+% but a great deal of the w/o's are at 70-100%. I am rarely as "spent" doing these sessions than if I were following a Sufferfest video. My first suspicion is that I didn't push hard enough on the 30 min test to set HR. The second is I may be overthinking things and should just ride, ride more. Ride harder. But since it's on the trainer, some of this actually entertains me. Outside, I never even look at my watch. Often forget to start it.  I just ride.

Should I redo the 30 min test (not due for another couple weeks, I think)? Or, what I'm currently considering which is just ride the sessions as outlined but with more intensity and quit looking at the garmin. FWIW< I do more or less ignore the lower end of the HR intensity recommendations. I just don't recover that fast. I've resisted signing up for TR thinking I could do this just on HR, but if I'm going to put the time in on the trainer want to get the most of it.  

It's normal to not be as spent on a Jorge workout than a Sufferfest. I could not do 5hrs of sufferfest at full tilt every week

What kind of trainer do you have ?

I found Jorge's program really hard to do by HR.  I had to use RPE.  HR just lags too much, especially for those shorter sessions.  Was the LTHR test you did the one in Jorge's program and was it the first one you have done?  If so odds are you probably do need another test but I would just switch to RPE for now and do the test when it falls into the schedule.  OR, you could do the virtual power test with TrainerRoad now that you got your sensor on and switch to power.  If you do it from TrainerRoad it will also do your LTHR as well.

CycleOps Fluid2

I am essentially ignoring HR on the recovery sets. The LTHR was the one in Jorge's and my first so I do think I may not have really pushed hard enough. Will take another look at TR tonight. Will also re-read the RPE doc you sent me. Thanks.

Do you keep your Garmin files ?

If you want, and this would be little effort, send me the Garmin file of your 30' test and I'll send you your power levels to do the power version of Jorge. it would be 105% = x mph, 100% = y mph, 95% = z mph..... (you cannot just do it as a % of mph).

You would then just need to keep a little chart next to the trainer.

This will take me 5' so I don't mind doing it for any group member on a Kinetic or Fluid 2.

Thanks! I will need to redo the test before sending. I've started uploading to Garmin Connect but didn't have the sensor on the bike when I did it, so nothing more than HR info on that session.  

Jorge's is a program that balances out the workload and recovery within the workout and across a number of workouts. Sufferfest is just a bunch of workouts. It's up to the user to figure out how to put things together across several workouts. I can't remember doing more than 2 a week hard. Yesterday had 3, but I only pushed into moderately hard at most. It makes quite a difference in how much you can do.

And thanks! Does the typical budget go up to 200? I've been looking into back-calculating power for the events some and it seems the focus is more on IM with this.

That would be a great way to do it if you choose not to use TR.

Agree with Kim that doing the program by HR is a little tricky and you need to be more in tune with RPE.  When I did the HR program a few years ago it essentially was just an RPE program because HR lags so much.  Even on the longer interval sessions I found myself using RPE coupled with gear and cadence as my guide (which I was really in tune with)...rarely my HR.

As a point of example..when using power..some days I will hit my power targets at a HR 5-10 beats lower than a previous day...but RPE felt the same.

Muskoka I did 194 and ran well. I think it depends on the course as well. TSS is based off NP so a hilly course will generate more TSS for me because I'm heavy. As well it's easier to get to 200 on a 3hr course than 2.5hr

Doing 180TSS on a 2.5hr course is 85% of FTP.  200TSS on that same course is getting close to 90% which is too much for me anyways.

Little trick. Set up your trainer, but pump your tires to a given pressure, say 90 or 100PSI. And from this point NEVER adjust your tension. If you need to remove or put the bike back on, deflate the tire and reinflate.

Then on every ride, top the pressure up to the 90 PSI. This will keep the tension very consistent and the power measurement very consistent. 

The consistency of the Speed/Power on these units depends on the pressure of the roller. This trick will keep it very consistent

oh good, you'll get some of the 20's I'm skipping

Just had a crazy good bike/run session.  The bike main set was 2x20' and 1x10' (5') and was able to hold 97%FTP for all three intervals.  The legs felt really good today.  The TR files are linked in my log if you are interested. 

Bricked a 30' steady run to save some time and felt really good.  I think I may drag a little at the hockey game tonight ha!

Long-winded question for you cycling gurus:

So I've been working through Jorge's program on TrainerRoad (it's the seven week version....seems somewhat different than the one he has posted on BT).  I did the 8 minute FTP test for my first ride and based my following rides on that.  I re-tested today and made very little improvement (3W).  I'm feeling pretty disappointed that I didn't see any real results from this, but I guess I don't know if a) I'm just being hard on myself, b) if maybe the TR program isn't as good at the BT one, or c) if seven weeks is just not enough to see significant improvements.

I'm not sure how accurate TR's virtual power is to what my actual power would be (also, I'm somewhat convinced that the power I see on the trainer is less than what I'd see on the street as a 15mph average on the trainer feels like it's kicking my , but 20mph average on the street feels okay....).

Anyways, enough rambling from me -- just curious what others' thoughts are.  Thanks!

Nicole

I think someone needs to raise his FTP :-)

Great job.

Do you use TR with Virtual Power or a PT ?