Slornow's and Wannabefaster's Summer Mentor Group - CLOSED (Page 48)

Back from another rainy weekend at the beach. Was able to get a workout done this morning.....kind of a monster brick in prep for my next race which is an olympic distance. All paces/watts at what I hope will be my race pace.

30 min warm up build on bike then 6 X10 min interval @250-260 watts. After each interval transition quickly to 1 mile run @ 7min/mile pace.  I made it though 5 intervals making the numbers and may have been able to get close on the 6th but had doubts that I would be able to participate in planned family activities if I tried. I did the 6th at a moderate pace and was totally whipped in the end. Temps in the mid 80s with high humidity certainly didn't help.

Jason-any update on the neck?

Michael-how is the recovery coming from the bike crash? 

New stuff is great...new bike even better. Post a picture when you get it? Details?

last week I lived in a very hot humid climate with temps nearing 105F.  I had a long training day which included a 2 hour run at 3pm. I took a cooler full of ice to my start spot and ran loops to get some of it every 30'.  Threw it down my sports bra and carried it rubbing it on my wrists and neck.  Made it much more bearable, until it melted

Jason-thought about your streak when you had to take a few days off. Quite a streak but remember the big picture. Better to start a new streak than to be out of commission for awhile.

Suzy-that is some serious heat. Good idea on the ice.  It does make a difference.  

Good morning! Hope everyone is doing well. Really busy week of work for me so have not been able to check in as much as I would like. Seems like we are in the Summer doldrums as the group has been a bit quiet lately.

Early morning swim done since I won't have time at lunch. Track intervals this evening.

Can I tap into everyone's brain power once again?  I've decided I need some sort of rear mount device for my bike.  I think during long training days it would help me with hydration, but overall I really want it so that I can carry a tubular tire for IM.

Do you have any advice on which one might be best?  I've heard (and seen) flying bottles as a result of hitting bumps and would love to avoid it.

thanks!!!!

PS.  I did my longest swim today, 3700y.  Oh to be a faster swimmer.  I would have far fewer goggle indents on my face and wouldn't look like a prune coming out of the H20.

Thought I would post this beauty.... we don't have nearly enough pics on this mentor group!

This is the first photo I have of me in full swim gear -- from the Vancouver Oly.  Gorgeous mountain backdrop.   Also note the complete lack of other swimmers photobombing me -- see, I planned ahead, yessirree I did.  

Scott.

(Vancouver 2013 swim.jpg)

What beautiful scenery!  So much of Canada is breathtaking!

We're off to our house in Northern Wi for the rest of the week.  Scheduled highs on Saturday are 59F.  Brrrrrr!  I think it might be a little chilly in the lake!

Scott-great picture. Would love to get out that way someday.

Suzy-that weather forecast sounds really good right now. Hopefully it will be nice when I head up to Milwaukee in a couple of weeks.

Rachel-my opinion on the bike workouts is very similar to Jason as we have the same Coach so our training is similar. As I've moved from HIM training to olympic/sprint distance training my workouts have become shorter but with more intensity. Almost all of my workout intervals are for specific watts but certainly you could do intervals based on HR or RPE. For the HIM training my staple workout was longish intervals at about 10 watts above planned race watts. Eventually these built up to 5 X 30 minutes on about 5 min easy between intervals. These were really hard and i was weak in the knees when I finished.

Now with olympic races on the schedule my week will include a VO2 workout like Jason described with lots of hard short intervals. Tonight the main set is 15 X 90 seconds @ 315-320 watts on 90 seconds recovery. So, I'm not going all out but it will be hard to maintain that power through multiple 90 second efforts. The longer workouts now will typically have numerous 10-15 minute intervals at greater than race power on 3-5 minutes of rest. With other workouts there will be hard intervals for say 3 minutes on 2 minutes easy. From what I have seen with my bike training the theme seems to be to build workouts up to the point where I am doing a total amount of time longer than my projected bike split at greater power/harder effort than what I will do in the race. These workouts hurt and other than an occasional easy spin for active recovery each workout is tough.

I think to become a strong cyclist you have to learn to suffer on the bike. Pushing beyond what you think you are capable of. Every workout should not be an attempt to beat the last but there needs to be a main set that is taxing both mentally and physically. We certainly cannot do that all the time with our run training due to the impact and risk of injury but we recover much more quickly from hard bike workouts without the same risk of injury.

For hills building leg strength is important. I will sometimes do a LOW BRO workout....low cadence (below 70rpm) big ring only to help build strength and simulate hill work. You may want to look into www.trainerroad.com  Its a great resource with tons of different types of workouts you follow along on the computer. Its a subsription of $7/month but I believe there is a free trial. If I didn't have someone planning my workouts I would be doing alot of TrainerRoad workouts. Look at the site and see what it offers...its a great resource. 

Hope this helps.