Settling into a rhythm

Training is getting to a point where it's not all that exciting. It's just slow and steady progress.

My training volume and intensity are slowly increasing. I'm up to about 8 hours and 4500 kj of training per week. For comparison, at my peak I was doing about 12 hours and 6500 kj, so I have a lot of progress still to go.

My threshold and power at VO2 max are slowly climbing. I'm not making the enormous gains I was the first month, but I'm still seeing a few watts per week improvement (which to be honest, is still pretty fast!). My functional threshold now is about 215 watts. For comparison, it was about 275 at my peak.

I'm consistently able to do 2 hour rides on the weekends, but not on both days. Eventually I'll want to be doing 2 hour interval rides on Saturday and 3 to 4 hour endurance rides on Sunday.

My weight... well, it's been stable. With the steady increase in training, I'm eating to keep myself fueled and replenished. I knew that my weight loss would be pretty slow in the beginning, if it dropped at all. It doesn't help that work has been more stressful than usual lately and I tend to stress-eat. (on the plus side, at least I'm not gaining weight!) I am seeing changes in my body fat %, so my body is changing, just not the way it will once I start dropping weight.

I'm hoping that the race in September will actually happen. Right now, I'm confident I could finish it, and it's just a matter of increasing performance as much as possible.

My Progress Graphic EQ keeps showing improvement. I also keep tuning it, so it helps show progress but also doesn't become a source of frustration. You can see the big drop off at 2 hours, because my longest rides right now are about 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Rethinking my Training

Over the last week, I've been looking deeper into analyzing past training years, seeing what I did right and what I could have done better, and looking at the training demands of the events I have coming up.

Newsflash: the training will be different.

Previously, I was training for relatively short events, with the longest ones about an hour, but most of them 35 minutes or less.

Training for a roughly-4 hour event with two major efforts of about 25 minutes (in the first hour) and 35 minutes (in the last hour), needs to be different, so I have a LOT of habits to break.

Without thinking, I shift up and hit hills as hard as I can, going anaerobic for a minute or so, then settling back in. I need to stop that (at least for now), and focus on keeping a steady pace. That means downshifting and riding up the hills however slow I end up going at the target power.

One of my new markers is time in zone... I am going to be working on spending as much time in zones 2, 3, and 4 as possible, between 66% and 99% of functional threshold power. Of course, I'll always have some time coasting into stop signs, and hills that are too steep even in my lightest gear, but I'll be paying more attention to keeping it in-zone.

Eventually, I'll be aiming to build up to 2 or 3 hours "in zone", which when you add in the time coasting and such, it could be a 4 or 5 hour ride. Ouch.

With the software I'm using, I can get reports on my rides and see how much time in zone I'm getting, and it scores rides accordingly.

That's really what foundation training is, apparently. It's not all "easy riding." It's just sub-threshold riding... and believe me, holding 90% of threshold for a long time is WORK!

Test Day

It's threshold test day once again!

I kind of did a test about 4 weeks ago, just to get a vague idea of where I was at, but the last "real" test I did was in April of 2018... it's been a while.

In concept, it's simple: I took the week easy in training, and today I did 20 minutes as hard as I could.

Given my performance on the bike over the last week, I was sure I could hit 220 watts, I was hoping maybe I could hit 225 watts, and as a dream I wanted to hit 230 watts.

20 minutes really isn't that long, but it's long enough to really hurt and long enough that you need to think about pacing.

I'm really happy with how I did today. I paced it well, starting out at a safe pace, and increasing the power output a little but for each five minutes.

At 5 minutes I was averaging 218 watts. At 10 minutes, 223 watts. At 15 minutes, I was at 226 watts, and gave it all I had left, finishing at 228 watts average.

When the clock hit 20:00, I felt like I really did do the best I could today.

To put that number in perspective... my last test in April 2018 was 223 watts, so I'm in better shape than then! My best was in April of 2013 when I averaged a stunning 309 watts (and was 30 pounds lighter).

Here are the results:

Avg Power: 228 watts

Avg Heart Rate: 154 bpm

Current weight: 194 pounds (88.2 kg)

Ratio: 2.58 w/kg (I want to get over 4.0)

My Training Graphic EQ is filling in nicely. I've started doing longer rides, hitting the 2-hour mark. My next big goal will be to start losing weight as I slowly increase my training volume.