CompuTrainer Class: TTT and No Plan of Attack

Here is the workout from today, which consisted of a 5-mile time trial (TT)—all out, as hard as you can as fast as you can, at whatever watts you can:

• 1:10:05, 155 HR (192 max)
• 48:08 warmup, 149 HR
• 13:43 test, 186 HR, 228 watts
• 8:13 cooldown, 143 HR

These are my results from the previous TTs I've done at Todd's:

Date	Test Number	Completion Time	Average Watts
January 24, 2012	TT #6	13:43	228 watts
May 4, 2011	TT #5	13:37	237 watts
March 3, 2011	TT #4b (tempo)	14:26 (tempo)	202 watts (tempo)
March 1, 2011	TT #4a	13:38	229 watts
January 6, 2011	TT #3b (tempo)	14:58 (tempo)	185 watts (tempo)
January 4, 2011	TT #3a	14:06	217 watts
March 25, 2010	TT #2	13:56	223 watts
January 28, 2010	TT #1	14:22	208 watts

Todd asked me after class today what my plan of attack had been. He must have either been watching or looked at my watts after the test, because the change from the beginning to the end result was drastic. When I looked up at 0.46 miles into the 5-mile course, I was averaging 286W. If you look at the list above, you'll notice how distant that is from what I've achieved in the past. And from where I ended up. Obviously I either didn't have a plan or the one I had didn't work.

I think I will try the TT again on Thursday, testing this time rather than riding tempo as I've done previously on the second day of the week. I am interested to see how it will go for a number of reasons:

• I'll have a plan: Don't try to ramp up like Todd suggests; rather, start at my pace, cadence, and challenge level and hold it there the entire time. Ride steady.
• I won't have done 7 minutes of work the night before.
• It will be after a rest day.
• The class is in the afternoon, and I think I ride better at 5pm than I do at 5am.
• There are different people in the class; Anna and Val won't be there to cheer and give me mile markers, and Leslie won't be there for race against.

After work, I went to the CSY to lift. I was supposed to have done 3×30 heavy but had no desire to—this week I am really missing Will and his pushing me to work hard. So instead of that workout, I did 20 minutes on the step mill and a Body Pump class. It was a fair workout; I sweat during the warm-up but really didn't work too hard after that. I did all the exercises, it just wasn't difficult. Maybe I need to increase the weight, but the easiest way for me to get through the class is to keep the same weight on the bar the entire time. However, that's evidently not enough, because it really was easy after the warm up.