Winter Cycling Plan Official Thread (Page 18)

Jorge--your plan looks like a lot of fun especially if you like pain.  I have two questions though before I get too deep into your plan.  Thanks by the way for providing this free.  That is a huge service and clearly shows your commitment to improving the sport for everyone.

Question 1:  I'm racing IM St. George May 1st.  I intend to substitute your plan for my weekday rides and still keep my long ride very long on the weekend.  My question is:  If I'm scheduled to complete the plan three weeks prior to IM, will the plan help improve my bike or am I better off sticking to an IM specific plan for weekday rides?

Question 2:  I really enjoy my lunchtime rides.  These rides lack structure as it is often difficult to focus or follow an interval regime on the road.  If I follow your plan, can I still keep my lunchtime rides twice a week if I keep them at recovery (social) pace or am I risking overtraining with junk miles even though they are slow and minimal effort?

Thanks in advance.

Cameron

Depends on how long they are and at what effort.    I'll bet you were wiped after them!

OK, Jorge's mean-ness is still alive and well - got the W9Q1 done at 5:00AM - there should be a law against that much pain that early in the morning....

I'm glad to see that everybody else is hurting also.  I started wk. 8 last week, but Christmas kind of screwed the workout schedule up.  I decided to start this week over with wk 8.  Sweet Moses! Those 4' intervals are KILLING me! 

Hey guys,

I just want to share with you how the plan is been working out for me with my numbers and remind you a few key points. First of all same as many (all) of you I also struggle and suffer every time I get on my bike. These sessions are meant to be challenging and force us to push way hard out of our comfort zones to help us improve. Remember we are seeking to train as efficiently as possible and will little volume (hours riding x week) we are striving to improve our cycling power via intense sessions targeting specific adaptations.

Anyway, each wee we are adjusting our numbers and that’s why every week is as hard as or harder than the last week. Because of this it is very important to take care of the details week in week out to allow our body to recover and be ready to train for the next sessions. Remember to fuel before, while and after training, warm up and cool downs are key, stretching can help keep legs loose, there is evidence that compression and icing improves recovery times and in my n=1 experience compression tights (good ones such as zoot brand) really helps me recover faster.

My numbers summary; my 20 mi test was done on 11-25-09 – 261w avg, 145 pounds, 3.96 W/Kg. Since then I’ve been doing 20MP sets doing the - 6 x 4' minutes of hell sets and below are my improvements

Date                          Sets                            Average   New Base line      Weight               W/Kg

12-07-09     261, 262, 260, 260, 265, 268         262w           266w          144 pounds           4.06
12-16-09     263, 266, 265, 265, 268, 272         266.5w        272w          143 pounds           4.19
12-24-09     266, 271, 276, 274, 280, 283         275w           280w          142 pounds           4.34
12-30-09     281, 279, 279, 286, 284, 303         285w           285w          142 pounds           4.42

As you can see in 4 weeks my 20MP has increased 23 watts and since I some lost weight my w/kg has increased 0.46 which is VERY good!

Anyway, nest week we switch into focusing on our power threshold which is the max power we could sustain for 60 min and then in 2 weeks test again. If you have been doing the training and been consistent then you should see a nice increase in your 20MP and your power threshold (for those training with HRM/RPE you should see an increase in mph)

Train Hard people!

Good for you - an extra week of the 4minute intervals...  tell me how that works out for ya

Oh, just way for week 9 Q1...  Muhahaahah....  its brutal....  Going to try to hit W9Q3 tonight to finish off the week...  Did a couple of longer rides on Fri / Sat - Fri was a 2:03 topline Z3 ride that left me sore afterwards, Sat was a 1:40 Z2 movie watcher....