Oct 15-Nov 15 "Triathlete's Guide to Training with Power" Book Club (Page 3)

In short, it was a humbling experience.  Here are the logs from TR and the PT

http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/462524

http://www.strava.com/activities/93473913

I was pretty impressed with how close the FTP was for TR.  They suggested a FTP of 221 vs. the PT's 216.  So it's nice to know I can trust the TR's numbers.

Obviously my FTP isn't anywhere near the 260 I thought it was, but I'm taking that as a good thing, since the bike is where I make up the most time currently, so that means my biggest strength can get a lot stronger.

I went all out for the 5 min clearing effort, but TR's protocol doesn't give the amount of rest that you're supposed to take to recover for the 20 min effort (TR gives 5 min, where normal protocol gives 10).  The reason for that is that TR doesn't expect you to go all out for the 5 min effort, but to get a better assessment of your Critical Power, which Skiba covers in the book we're reading, you should go all out for it.  The rest part doesn't bother me as much.  I think that 5 mins more rest would have only given me about 5-10 more watts for my FTP.

A very knowledgeable coach mentioned that after comparing my 5 min effort to my 20 min effort, I could use a lot of work at VO2Max, which probably makes sense with the way my power fades over time.

Edit: BTW the same guy recommended Skiba's Scientific Training for Triathletes and this book, so it looks like we're all looking at some good stuff in this book.  Now if only I could get myself to read it....

AWESOME!

I am pleasantly surprised to hear how close your PT and TR numbers are.

Could you tell us a little bit more about what, specifically, it is about your 5 minute compared to your 20 minute that made the coach say you could use a lot of work at VO2Max?  Maybe I should be able to infer that at this point, but I can't :)

I need to go back and reread the Critical Power section.  My eyes were glazing a bit there.  Actually, I feel like I should revisit long sections of JD for the same reason.  Sometimes I need to read things multiple times to really be able to process the info.  Cluttered, addled brain problem :/

What did you think of TR in general?  Do you think it will be a useful tool for you, or do you need more time to see if you like it?

The guy is actually a pretty big poster on ST (Francois).  Here's what he said when I asked the same question:

So, did he mean 2 sessions/week for VO2Max?  Out of how many sessions total?

Did Jackmott offer any advice? Fleck?  I'll go see if I can find your thread...

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by msteiner

Originally posted by switch

AWESOME!

I am pleasantly surprised to hear how close your PT and TR numbers are.

Could you tell us a little bit more about what, specifically, it is about your 5 minute compared to your 20 minute that made the coach say you could use a lot of work at VO2Max?  Maybe I should be able to infer that at this point, but I can't

I need to go back and reread the Critical Power section.  My eyes were glazing a bit there.  Actually, I feel like I should revisit long sections of JD for the same reason.  Sometimes I need to read things multiple times to really be able to process the info.  Cluttered, addled brain problem :/

What did you think of TR in general?  Do you think it will be a useful tool for you, or do you need more time to see if you like it?

 

The guy is actually a pretty big poster on ST (Francois).  Here's what he said when I asked the same question:

"Because your curve is very flat. There isn't a lot of difference between your power for 5min and power for 20min especially with the recovery time between both being so short. You'd want to have more of a reserve. It's a common issue with triathletes but that can be addressed.

in other words, your test says you're a diesel."

 

I told him that would explain why my sprint distance and olympic bike splits are very similar in speed, despite my efforts to push harder in sprints.  He responded with:

 

"that's rather common...include 2 sessions at VO2max on the bike, and everything else endurance work...3-4 weeks of this will do wonders."

 

I think TR is going to be a useful tool for me.  I'll probably do other workouts, and use its virtual power to watch my progress.

Lol, I know Francois, and I often enjoy his posts. I saw that he's posting again. IIRC, he's half French, half Australian and lives in Texas--how the hell can you not appreciate that on some level?

So, did he mean 2 sessions/week for VO2Max?  Out of how many sessions total?

Did Jackmott offer any advice? Fleck?  I'll go see if I can find your thread...

 

 

Yeah I took it as 2 workouts with VO2 intervals with the rest being easy, which isn't too different from the way my Marathon plan had me building up.

It's not on ST.  The thread is in a facebook group for one of the local tri teams here in central MS.  He's actually moving here eventually.  I don't think my area knows the storm that is coming.

Originally posted by msteiner

Originally posted by switch

Originally posted by msteiner

Originally posted by switch

AWESOME!

I am pleasantly surprised to hear how close your PT and TR numbers are.

Could you tell us a little bit more about what, specifically, it is about your 5 minute compared to your 20 minute that made the coach say you could use a lot of work at VO2Max?  Maybe I should be able to infer that at this point, but I can't

I need to go back and reread the Critical Power section.  My eyes were glazing a bit there.  Actually, I feel like I should revisit long sections of JD for the same reason.  Sometimes I need to read things multiple times to really be able to process the info.  Cluttered, addled brain problem :/

What did you think of TR in general?  Do you think it will be a useful tool for you, or do you need more time to see if you like it?

 

The guy is actually a pretty big poster on ST (Francois).  Here's what he said when I asked the same question:

"Because your curve is very flat. There isn't a lot of difference between your power for 5min and power for 20min especially with the recovery time between both being so short. You'd want to have more of a reserve. It's a common issue with triathletes but that can be addressed.

in other words, your test says you're a diesel."

 

I told him that would explain why my sprint distance and olympic bike splits are very similar in speed, despite my efforts to push harder in sprints.  He responded with:

 

"that's rather common...include 2 sessions at VO2max on the bike, and everything else endurance work...3-4 weeks of this will do wonders."

 

I think TR is going to be a useful tool for me.  I'll probably do other workouts, and use its virtual power to watch my progress.

Lol, I know Francois, and I often enjoy his posts. I saw that he's posting again. IIRC, he's half French, half Australian and lives in Texas--how the hell can you not appreciate that on some level?

So, did he mean 2 sessions/week for VO2Max?  Out of how many sessions total?

Did Jackmott offer any advice? Fleck?  I'll go see if I can find your thread...

 

Yeah I took it as 2 workouts with VO2 intervals with the rest being easy, which isn't too different from the way my Marathon plan had me building up.

It's not on ST.  The thread is in a facebook group for one of the local tri teams here in central MS.  He's actually moving here eventually.  I don't think my area knows the storm that is coming.

Yeah, it would be 2 VO2 sessions per week. The rest can be whatever so long as you can work well up in the VO2 range for those workouts. Most would probably keep that down to an easy level, you especially with all the other work going on! Training load in general tends to come down some when trying to work at higher intensities.

Something I'm still curious about is what goes into the decision of the power curve being too flat? Haven't seen something yet that seems really solid. The book brought in the idea of headroom well enough, but didn't see more specifics on how much.

That chart is interesting.  Something I'm going to do tonight is try to reread the differences between VO2Max, Critical Power, and so on.  I can look at a workout that says spend x time in Z4, but I've never been good at figuring out what the purpose of said workout is.  

That understanding I think is vital to using power to its fullest potential, but it's also really complicated.

I end up going through any of these books several times to really get it. Usually going over a section or two more than once to take everything in.

In one of the sections we just went through he says that threshold is the key marker for development in tri. Threshold and CP are fairly close points. Not quite the same thing, but close enough that development of them is basically the same. Z4 is generally considered to be ~91-105% of threshold. And threshold is at 100% which is right in this zone, so doing work here works threshold most directly. Also look at Table 2 here. I don't know details of every aspect, but just note the trends of the checkmarks. Some things keep on increasing at higher intensity (within aerobic). Some things actually fall off. Crossing from Z4 to Z5 in particular has several. This goes from a threshold focus to a VO2 focus. And then there is a big fall-off of aerobic zone development (1-5) when going up to 6 & 7, which you also know as anaerobic and neuromuscular.

Also note that riding easier does push things up, but much less so per the time spent. Z2 riding does help, but the amount needed to push things up becomes gargantuan rather quickly.

So, Ben and Nicole, what TR workouts do you like for threshold work?  Anybody else have any they're particularly fond of? 

The questions do help give new perspective on things and help to formulate thoughts better, so while I may not ask much, I'm certainly getting something out of it too.

And for workouts, I'm in a phase where I'll be trying to build up a solid volume. So I'm working more in the sweet spot to lower threshold areas and doing bigger blocks and more of them. I don't actually have trainer road, but use sufferfest vids and things from Training & Racing with a Powermeter a lot, tweaking them to fit what will work for me at this time. Usually a number of bigger solid intervals. I have the time to ride more volume and the desire to do so, so I use it. Like 2-4 20' around 90% or so. Sometimes switching in say 45' for the last 1 or 2. Or have a strong tempo plus a solid hour in sweet spot. Once in awhile I go up at or over FTP, but not that often. It burns me out and brings the overall volume down.

Someone with less time would raise the 2 x 20 up into 95-100% of FTP. Or add in more 10-15 minute intervals, trying to get say 30-40 minutes of solid work. Also go shorter with 5-8' intervals for 20-30 min of work up around 100% or just over, recovery time maybe 25% or less. There is a decent amount of flexibility in how to break things down, so take a look at how much time you have and how you like to work it. More time gives more freedom.

Nicole, you may be ready for a retest when you get to 2 x 20, but do know that what you're building (in addition to fitness) by going with the shorter intervals first is a sense of pacing and the ability to deal with the more continuous suffering involved in bigger, longer intervals. So it isn't really that fitness needs to be built up as this set can be done out of the box, but rather learning various aspects of how to handle it better as these are certainly not easy for a variety of reasons when you really go for it. You may get that already. I just felt it was a distinction that needed to be made sure of.

I have never played with this before.  hmmm. 

How do you all determine what your TSS for a workout should be or TSS for the week should be?

Nicole, you're getting the hang of things! I look at both the intensity and the TSS for the composition of the ride. In Training & Racing with a Powermeter, they recommend an average of 100-150 per day as a sustainable upper limit for someone doing cycling only for a longer period of time. It's up to the individual to figure out where within that range works best for them. We have swimming and running to contend with as well, so for a heavier cycling focus an average of 70-100 is much more reasonable (and still rather challenging). More work in the other two and this comes down more. They also recommend that somewhere above 100, and certainly as one approaches 150, that the workout will be noticeable the next day and maybe a bit into the following. So with that in mind, I have several days of the week I'll hit somewhere around 150, going over when I have more opportunity to rest. This rationale was part of why I held up on Wednesday's ride as I ended up at 148. I also have a couple other days of easier riding because I like to put in a lot on the bike. Those might be 50-100 depending on how I'm feeling. I want to be strong on the hard days, so adjust accordingly. And yes, what I try for weekly is a lot for many.

For the weekly volume, it takes some experience to get a feel for what you can handle, the composition of the rides, and also depends a lot on how much you're doing in the other two sports. And with the composition of the rides, the intensity also matters towards how you feel. Nicole noted the TSS of her various 1 hr rides, but the intensity also matters quite a bit. If you back-calculate, shes' going from an IF of ~0.78 up to ~0.95. The higher the intensity, the harder it is on you, or the harder it is to absorb. It's harder to repeat the higher intensity on consecutive days. So with Nicole have (roughly) a 1 hr limit, it's rather hard for her to accumulate more TSS as she has to work harder (again) to get it. My Wednesday ride had an IF of 0.875 and consisted of large sections at 0.94, and bit at 1.00. I was still able to accumulate 100 the next day fairly easily because I could ride longer at an IF of 0.71. This is only mid to low Z2, or about Ironman effort for a decent rider. Sometimes a ride like this is still hard to get through if I really go at it up at a higher IF, even if it's quite a bit shorter than the 2 hrs.

Thanks for all of the insight with structuring workouts Ben and Nicole.  I have reread your posts several times now, and find myself thinking about them in my workouts.

I played with the custom TR stuff this weekend, and tried the workout I designed this morning.  That was kinda fun :)

I am so glad I am reading this book.  It is presenting some new ideas and really driving home some others.  I really do feel like the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. 

I think I grew up in a time with coaches, and certainly in the military, when athletes were congratulated when they did more, harder, longer.  Have a little injury? Be tough!  Suck it up! Push through! Ate up that workout yesterday? Today's going to be even bigger, even harder! I hadn't really realized how ingrained in my psyche that is, and how much it is really undermining my training. I can find myself in a workout--especially a run--still fighting those little voices.  I'm reminded of the saying "fast, cheap, good--you can have two, but it's almost impossible to get all three".  With training it's: frequency, intensity, duration--can have two, but three is going to bury you. More is not better.  Rest.  So simple, yet I really seem to fight it. Silly.

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Things that I really feel I'm finally learning with the help of this book and some very patient mentoring on this site:

More is not always more--you should do just enough to realize the specific training benefit of a workout.  JD talks about this too.

The difference between how much the fitness and fatigue change with training is specific to an athlete (p72)

There is almost no crossover between fitness in one sport to fitness in the other sports.  VO2 Max and threshold are sport specific. (p77)

Need to monitor each sport independently, but with the understanding that there are negative repercussions from totally shelling yourself in one sport on your performance in other sports. (p78)

Hope you all are getting something out of the book :)

LIttle VO2 max workout, 5 x 3' @115-117%, 2' recovery, done to Local Hero. Oof, these are always such gutbusters.

Matt, yours coming along ok? Can't find it, but thought one of yours would have been similar, but up at 120-125%. Curious if you asked Francois why it was that high instead of somewhere in the 110-120% with (maybe) more reps?

ETA: I forgot to mention this earlier, but noticed that Francois had Matt doing 1-2 VO2 workouts a week. Maybe even just one by the looks of the pair given (if I'm remembering them correctly). That also coincides with what Skiba said about the number to do. Improvements were found by doing 1 and/or 2 per week. A 3rd did not add anything. It may have even hindered things some, but would have to check that.

Yes, pg 42 discussion seems to suggest just one a week.

This page also discusses Dr. Billat's VO2 max training.  I hadn't registered that name, but ended up doing a "Billats" workout from TR the other day as I searched for VO2 max workouts, and one of the ones it suggested was Lafaytte.  Here's the description from TR:

6 sets of 8x15/15 Reduced Amplitude Billats (15s @ 125% FTP/15s floats @ 88% FTP) with extended 30-second floats after every set of 2 Billats offer a crack at 12 minutes spent at/near pVO2max. 5 minutes of recovery separate each set.

Goals

The goal of any Billat workout is to improve both your aerobic efficiency and aerobic power. By working very hard for brief intervals but only recovering for very short periods of time, these microintervals are extremely effective at improving your ability to sustain and repeat efforts well above FTP. This improved aerobic capacity & power will also raise your sustainable power and gradually increase your FTP.

Anybody else doing these shorter reps?  Is there an advantage of one over the other or is VO2 max work VO2 max work?

I'm waiting for Ben to chime in on this...

A while back, I was asking in the SBR Utopia mentor group about how to structure VO2max workouts.  I was doing something like 15-20 x 1min @ 120% and I believe the general consensus was that it would be better to do longer intervals (say 3-8 minutes) at a manageable power output, but ensuring that it's still within VO2max zone (so 106-120%).  Lately, I've been targeting 4min intervals @ 110%, which have gone well but are painful!  For my next VO2max workout, I'll probably try to do 4:30 or 5 minute intervals at 110% -- basically working my way up in time as I'm able to complete them successfully.  

I know I posted this link before (probably in this thread!), but I found it quite useful: http://rundynamics2.webs.com/DRFintervals.pdf

Also, those Billats intervals seem to be more geared toward anaerobic power than VO2max.  Personally, I don't do a lot (any, really) anaerobic-type workouts as it's not something I really feel like I gain much from.  If I were road racing, I certainly would, as I know sprinting is not a strength of mine.  But for triathlons, anaerobic power output doesn't seem entirely important to me.  I'd rather spend my time working on increasing my FTP and ability to ride for long periods without fatiguing myself (so stuff like sweet spot, endurance, tempo type rides).  I do work VO2max as there comes a point when you have to "raise the roof (VO2max) to raise the ceiling (FTP)" and I'm kind of in that region with respect to my 5min power vs 20min power.