Power Mentor Group with Shane & Marc - Closed. (Page 7)

Nice, I like the snail thrown in the midst of it all!

Marc,

That file worked in the TR workout creator. I needed to do one edit though.

Line 6 had to be changed from:
"MINUTES PERCENTAGE"
to:
"MINUTES PERCENT"

After that it worked fine.

New PM is working well. The 10 watt difference I noticed in a quick test last night is true, it varies a bit based on speed. All in all I think that's pretty close for a VP reading. I'm happy with the new toy. Now I just need to work off all the food, wine, cookies, pies, wine & cookies from the past several weeks!

CD

Glad you did it first! I did what you did and it worked. That is good to know. If you drag and drop without doing it, then it looks like it is accepting it but nothing shows up. Good stuff. I just opened up with notepad on my Mac and changed that one word, resaved and dropped it in...for those not sure what to open it with.

So, I just took my new fancy fancy vectors for their first ride in the outdoors, and I learned a big lesson. I am a pansy on the trainer. I did an FTP test and was averaging 145-170 watts over 20 minutes.. So I figured, on the high side my FTP is 170. Then, when I went outside, I was holding 165 over the course of two hours, with surges into the 300s (and of course, drops to 0). Apparently I need to HTFU on the trainer and really pound it.

How exhausted should I be after an FTP test?

20min test ? You should recover pretty quickly.

Excellent ! Thank you. We will publish the workouts with that change so they can run both in GC and TR. I checked the change in GC and it works.

It's great seeing everyone posting.

We are getting close to start date. It's great you are getting a feel for what kind of wattage you can do. It will make the 20' test that much better,

I have this video and recommend it. Parts are very entertaining (girl making an omelet while riding on rollers!!) and the 20 minute section is made a little more bearable with others suffering with you and it counting down the minutes.

Broken bones and missing fingers??? I had no idea power would be so dangerous!

I second the recommendation on the Sufferfest "Rubber Glove" video. I did it a few times last year using virtual power on Trainer Road and it was so much more tolerable than just a plain 20 minute test.

I'm finally not limping today, so I'm going to try a super easy flat spinning ride tomorrow with my new toy...wish me luck.
Jaime

The big dip after my 20 min CP test is me grabbing the Kleenex to blow my nose. I couldn't bring myself to shoot a snot-rocket on the trainer

Yeah, that was my first 20 min CP test. I had a ballpark number in my head based off of a couple of outdoor rides I had done with my PT. I made sure not to go out too hard, and I did it first thing in the morning so I was rested and it was cold enough that overheating wasn't an issue.

The next time I do a 20 min CP, I'll probably go out harder and see if I can hang on for the full 20.

I may try a 5 min CP test tomorrow, using the BT guidelines:

WU: 10 minutes @ 65-70%CP
+ 5 minutes alternating 20 seconds @ 105-110% CP/ 40 seconds @ 65-70% CP
+ 5 minutes @ 70-75% CP
MS: Maximal test 5' all out
- After you finish the 5 min all out effort do:
5 minutes @ 55-65% CP,
20 minutes @ 75-80% CP
CD: 5-10 minutes @ 60-65% CP
Total time 55-60 min

I am going to make a wager
I am going to bet you that you will do your 5' and then want to do your 20' over again

I'll explain my reasons after :-)

Nicole, I have been watching you on the ST100/100. Great job. You have no idea how good this is going to be for your run. I have no idea what your swim is like but between that high frequency running and this plan and your the type of rider your are (body wise) you are going to kill St-George 70.3.

Keep the running going. You will see it "just click" in about 4-6 weeks.

Which brings up the topic of training. If people want to talk about there other training, that's cool. We don't have to keep it 100% on power.

I hate testing. Looking at my data I can tell when my FP has gone up, you will figure this out as well. But now and then you do have to test and ideally in the same conditions

I like to split my 20min in 4.
First 5mins go to your target but not over it
5-10 you should be questioning if you are going to make it. If you are not doubting, raise it a bit.
10-15minute you are pretty sure you are not going to make it. If this is the case you are on track. If not, raise it a bit.
15-20, you want to stop so badly but you have made it until here. The clock has a tendency to stop ticking just to you off. This is the time to curse in French.

I like to watch your average over the whole ride. You will not like to see the average drop so you will dig deeper to keep it up.

I created MRC files for the 5 & 20 minute CP tests that I am doing.

I used 125% of CP for the target on the 5 minute test, and 110% for the target on the 20 minute test.

I'm going to see if I can get them to post here if anyone is interested in trying them.

Chris




Attachments
----------------
20MINCP.mrc (0KB - 13 downloads)
5MINCP.mrc (0KB - 13 downloads)

Marc, curious what percentage of ftp you are targeting for the 7x3' you did? Was that 90" rest?

I tried an 8x3' w/ 3' yesterday and have never really done vo2 work on the trainer and it sucked. I tried A Very Dark Place twice but that was my only real vo2 type work. I was recently reading some different arguments on the proper percentage to hold to properly target the zone and some were arguing that it can be dependent on what you CP curve looks likes (some riders are strong at the short stuff)...Don't want to dive into the weeds too much but this is something I'm looking to figure out to add some proper structure.

My goal was probably a bit high. I had hit 440 outside for 3 minutes a few months ago so figured I could actually do 8x3 at 350 and that would be in the right range if my FTP was anywhere from 290-310 having lost a bit of watts from the summer, but it felt really hard....I was also overheating a bit and had a 2 and 5 year old barge in half way through asking me questions which crushed focus. Something tells me the more you do them, the more you get used to them and you get a feel for it....also mentally I need to throw out my outside numbers because I generally can hit much higher on the short stuff since you can hop out of the saddle and generate some more torque and aggression than what you'd do seated on the trainer (maybe food for thought for others).

I'll just quickly explain some of these terms for the people that may not have heard them

CP stands for critical power. It is a power level (let's say 180w) that an athlete can sustain for a "long time". Long is a relative term. Generally, it's a bit more than an hour, bit it's close. It's a level that when you cross it, "bad things" start to happen and you tire quickly. Dr Skiba explains this really well.

FTP was a term (I think) was invented by Dr Coggan and represents the power you can hold for 1hr, typically a 40km TT. You will sometimes see notes that's it corresponds locely to your lactate threshold level.

Because FTP and CP are not far off, people have a tendency to use them interchangeably which is innaccurate. Your CP is probably slighltly lower than your FTP.

The best way to establish a FTP is to go out and cycle 40km or roughly 1hr, all out. Not fun!. People don't do it.
There are methods to approximate FTP and CP.
One of those methods consists of doing an all out 5' test and an all out 20' test and then using a formula to calculate your CP. We can discuss how that formula works if people want. With that formula, you could in theory calculate the power you could hold for any duration.

You will see people use terms like CP5, CP20, CP30. This means the power you could hold for 5', 20', 30'. Some people get really upset when you use these terms because they are a "bastardization" of the term critical power. There are places that will stone you for calling FTP CP60.

In Golden Cheetah the calculator is in the tools menu. It takes a short test result (3-5 min) and a longer result (20-30min) and it calculates CP

There is a really cool chart in GC called your CP curve. It shows the power one should be able to hold for various amounts of time. I will post one a little later.

So,

Once we have done both tests we will calculate our CP
From our CP will come our training zones
And then we have fun in our training zones.

a) your CP will increase as we go through this program
b) as you get closer to race time you will learn at what % of CP (or FTP) to do your race rehearsal at
c) you should test this number to make sure it's the right one for you
d) you execute it and know out some PBs, with a great bike followed by a great run. THIS IS WHERE THE GOLD IS.

Remember, you are estimating CP with the 5' and 20' numbers. You are then estimating your race pace from an estimate. That's a lot of estimating. So these numbers will need to be confirmed in training.



Edited by marcag 2013-12-29 9:22 AM

I did them at 110%. I think I had 2' rest.
Anything from 2' to 7' I do between 107% to 120%, depending on how duration and number of repeats and how I am feeling. I did drop them by 5watts because it was the first time I was doing them this season and I was not 100% sure when my FTP was/is.

I don't find that my running volume affected my biking volume, but a very specific bike or run would affect a specific workout within say 24hours. What I mean is that if I did a really hard bike, I would feel it in my run, or vice versa the next day. But that's about it. But I recover faster from runs than bikes.

I would usually do a long bike Sat and long run Sun, rather than vice versa. The long runs and the very hard specific runs had a more impact. I would do things like 2x20'threshold (run) and those I would feel in my bike the next day.

The shorter runs had no impact on my bike. So for example, this AM I ran an easy 30min and have a tough bike this afternoon and it should have 0 impact.

As far as losing bike fitness, it comes back pretty fast I find. I actually think it's doesn't go away, it's there, your mind just thinks it's gone and you forget what the suffering feels like. In November I thought I had lost about 30watts, but I am realizing they are probably coming back pretty quick so I wonder if they were really lost.

I don't adjust my FTP or my paces. I think what I need to watch it my entire load for the week and try to hit them. The TSS (another topic we will discuss) I can do in one week is pretty consistent. How I divvy it up, Run vs Bike does not make a huge difference. At peek, my total run+bike TSS is about 900. it could be 500/400, 400/500, 300/600....I would finish the week feeling about the same.

I found the run frequency changed how I recovered from runs.

Edited by marcag 2013-12-29 11:30 AM

My strength is the opposite of Marc and I know you were talking to the other Jason but I'll throw my 2 cents in having done a variety of things the past few years. I would caveat this with you should decide what your real goal is...if it is to be a faster triathlete, then that is great. You do both with a balance or some skew towards one in the off-season with the knowledge your gains will be smaller than if you really focused on one.

I was balanced for a couple years and got faster quick with the newbie gains. Once those wore off it was small incremental gains. Then I put the bike away and just ran for a couple months to do a marathon after an ironman and I found as soon as I stopped biking I got a lot faster within about a month (I had a decent run base though to begin with)....Then fast forward I decided to a bike focus and for a couple months just rode heavily (for me) with really no running. Even after a pretty big layoff from the bike, I found that the bike came back quick for me. Within a month my FTP went way up again and I was making good gains....then I went back to the run. If I take time off running, I lose a lot and it is much harder to get back. I would have been better off probably just keeping 2-3 runs easy with some strides to keep some form and doing high quality rides. As it stands, I was riding 5-6 days a week this past summer with maybe 1 run and my bike was getting much much stronger than it does if I try to run. Running for MOST people zaps them pretty good and even if they think they are going easy, they really aren't and it is taking a toll. It makes me lose some sharpness I think on the bike....

anyway, a couple months off biking and just running...back in a 6 weeks...a couple months off running with just biking and it is a longer road back....for me. I imagine the impact has a lot to do with it because my 'strength' is all there it seems. Biking is by far my relative strength though I'd say.

Agree with everything you say


I would bet that for most people, biking comes back faster. Even though I am a better runner than cyclist, cycling does come back relatively quickly


Shane will be mentioning that it will be hard to do a run focus while doing this plan.


This is true. However I find that the frequency/short/easy runs minimize this. Pace is very important.


I agree. Even if you put a focus on one, it's better to keep a minimal/critical volume on the others.
For example my swim will be 15% to 25%, run 30% to 50%, bike 40% to 55% of my time. I would not drop below the minimum even if I am focusing on another. (Unless injured).

Edit : just for hoots I checked my 2013 volumes (19% swim, 48%bike, 33% run).

This is how *I* react to mix. We are all very different.


Edited by marcag 2013-12-29 12:36 PM