Power Mentor Group with Shane & Marc - Closed. (Page 68)

This is the mental negotiation I went through with myself for Week 12 VO2-1 on Wednesday night. 

The first 3 intervals were bearable, but by the middle of the 4th my legs were screaming.

I told myself that if I get through the 4th at or close to target wattage, then I can take it easy for the 5th.

Once the 5th started, my plan was to do at least 1/3 at the target and then I wouldn't feel as guilty about dropping down 10 watts or so.

After finishing a 1/3, I figured I could hold on for another minute which would take me roughly to the half way point.

I kept this mental negotiation going until I had less than a minute left and then it was the home stretch.  The 5th interval ending up being one of the highest for the entire workout. 

I also like the breaking down of the 20 minute interval into smaller chunks....I do it somewhat differently though.

For the first 5 minutes, I try to ignore the clock as much as possible.  Once it's below 15 minutes, it somehow becomes a little better....but I then try to ignore the next 5 minutes as much as possible.  The time between 10' and 8' seems to go by reasonbaly quickly for me every time -- no idea what that's about, but it's quite consistent.  The moment I have less than 8' to go, I realize I can do it.

Once I get down to 5', I start relating the time to swimming for some reason. 

"5 minutes -- 300 meters, you can do this"

"4 minutes -- that's just a 250"

"3 minutes -- reasonably fast 200....you're fine, you've got this"

"2 minutes -- easy 100 recovery"

"1:30 -- solid effort for a 100"

"1:20 -- fast 100"

"1:10 -- faster than you can ever hope to do a 100....it's really not a long period of time.  You can do this"

"One minute, you can do anything for one minute....one minute, you can do anything for one minute"

Seriously, it's kind of ridiculous, but that's what I do!  Gotta find some way to get through these intervals!

I'm still training with virtual power and so I laughed when I read this.  I've definitely made progress over the last 3 months, but still wonder what my true CP is.

Ignorance is bliss for the time being, but I'm preparing myself for the let down if it drops by 20 or 30 watts. 

Finished Week 12 Threshold 2 last night.  Compared to the 5 x 5 min @ 108% on Wednesday night, the 5 x 5 min @ FTP wasn't that bad. 

I did mentally tune out towards the end and forgot that there was the 10 min @ 98%.  It took a few minutes to get back into a rhythm.

PMC chart is attached.  Its back on the climb after a week off and being sick the week before. 

Testing next week, likely Monday night.

Working on a playlist for the 20 min test...  agree with Shane, Tool and RATM will be on the list and maybe some Prodigy.

(PMC - Apr 5 14.JPG)

This is something I've wondered about for a while (since my failed 20' test last time, really...).

How much are you hurting yourself by targeting a CP that's actually above your true CP?  Are you talking about hurting yourself in terms of being able to recover and complete your workouts in the following days?  Or is it actually detrimental for another reason?

And how much is too much?  Say your CP is estimated to be 200, but is actually 190 -- would you be hurting yourself in this situation?  And to complicate things further, what if you're targeting a CP that's too high, but you're making the prescribed workouts?  Does that mean your CP is actually not too high?

FWIW, I think my CP is slightly on the low side as I feel like I've made improvements, but have not been able to retest due to my upcoming race.  I'll get to that shortly after, but I was very curious about this when my 5' power increased by 20+ watts, but my 20' power decreased by 6W.

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=513852&posts=1&page=1

299 AP, 302 NP for 21:59.  I figured I could hit 310w but overall I was pleased with my time and placing considering how much I weigh now.  Need to shed at least 10 pounds before the end of June when I'll be climbing up Haleakala.

Everyone used road bikes with the exception of a pro triathlete who always does it on his TT bike.  He'd be faster on a road bike, but I think he's too lazy to get it set up.  

I didn't check the pre and post ride numbers.  I did make sure to back pedal a few times while warming up though.

This TT and Haleakala are similar in grade.  The TT is 5.7% and Haleakala is about 5.4% average grade.  I've done some calculations through analytic cycling and it comes out to about every pound for the TT adds around 5-6 seconds to your time and every pound for Haleakala adds around 1 minute to your time.  Of course assuming the same power output.  Given the fact that I was 34 seconds off the podium in the TT, that could have been made up by losing 7 pounds...which is well within my range of weight loss with minimal to no power loss.  

Hmmm, interesting thought.  I kinda figured if I could do 2x20' that my CP was either correct or low.  That said, every time I do a 2x20' workout, I am more and more convinced that I couldn't actually do that power for a full hour....well, unless a bear or cheetah or some other equally fearful creature was chasing me.  Then maybe....hah!

I think / hope that doing a number of race simulation rides (and short runs afterward to gauge how you truly feel) helps dial it in -- for sure better than just assuming you can do 85% of CP.  I have a slight fear that I'm going to pace my bike too conservatively and feel like I didn't put it all out there, given my run fitness isn't at a point where I can capitalize on my run ability.  But I guess it's uncommon that people feel like they had such a great run that they feel they didn't push hard enough on the bike, huh?