According to an article I remember reading in VeloNews, and available for free over at JBV Coaching, this workout is from Tim Johnson. I figure, if he likes it, then it's good enough for me. It goes: 3 sets of 8x45s hard, with 1 min rest between intervals, and 5 min rest between sets. These efforts are above LT and are intended to work my anaerobic capacity. It's the first workout of its kind I've done this season.
Well, I can say that I definitely recommend this one. It made me hurt as much as I've ever hurt in a non-racing, non-climbing situation. I can also see why having a Powermeter makes doing workouts like these so much more precise. Being a track runner, I always had distance and time to gauge effort from one interval to the next and from one workout to the next. But doing these efforts for time on unequal elevation profiles, the only real gauge I have is my "feel" for how hard I'm working. That makes it difficult to really hone in on how hard I should be going in the first set such that my final set is still quality. Today, I felt like the final four of my third set were a bit lacking and that's probably due to my inexperience with anaerobic workouts on the bike.
Right now, I just want to feel the hurt as much as possible. My embarrassing road "season" has left me feeling pretty inadequate as far as fitness is concerned. So until I'm racing consistently this season, I'll probably remain paranoid about getting dropped due to being out of shape. This being the third "Build" week in my season schedule, now is the time to suffer and suffer I will. Bring it on.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
If you can find a shallow climb to do these on you can just use a landmark and shoot for that each time. Once you remove wind from the equation a stopwatch works about as well as a powermeter.
Yeah, you're right on that one. That would give me another "track" to workout on. Unfortunately, I'm doing all these during my 20 mi. commute home, so I go with the flow of the trail.
C'mon, John. With that engineer brain, you'll probably like the dark side with the bright yellow CPU.
I've found it makes training harder and easier at the same time by enforcing rest days and rest periods between intervals, as well as encouraging you to stick rigidly to the planned workout chart. It is also a helpful tool for tuning workouts - when I complete a high intensity workout with no diminution in power output (such as 8x30 second max efforts on 2 minutes rest, times three) I know that it's time to up it to 10 reps or 4 sets; and if I lose 10% off a rep despite similar perceived exertion I know it's time to limit reps.
This hints at a more efficient use of limited training time. Most of my workouts now fit into a commute + 25 minutes scheme, I ride easy on the way home to pick up additional "easy" zone1/2 miles. Some people I know use power meters to get an amazing amount of training crammed into 8 hours/week, including a couple really good Cat 3s I know (who oughtta be 2s). I've found the "E" (Kj) display to be particularly helpful as well for calibrating diet to workouts, esp. recovery eating, this might not be as critical for you given your efficiency.
Just my thoughts... Magnus Backstedt threw his away and Christophe Moreau has apparently never used Power or Hr, and it's a significant cash outlay you may or may not need to make, so take it FWIW.
Considering your poor recent race result at Whitmore's on Saturday (where you failed to beat Vervecken, Trebon and Wicks) but were only able to win the 2/3 event, I think it is good that you are starting to train harder.
Post a Comment