Hard Work

Tuesday afternoon's class at Todd's kicked my butt. This was by far the hardest class so far, even though it wasn't much different than last week's classes. What was different, however, was my seat. I was trying a new saddle, and it was fine on Sunday when we rode outside. On the trainer, though, was a completely different story. It was so uncomfortable and annoying that it was all I could think about and by minute 56 I'd decided to get off, get my saddle from my car, and have Todd change them out. It meant 7 minutes off the bike, but it was worth it since the final 30 minutes went so much better. I rode at my normal 230W threshold and sprinted to 714W at the end. We did one 10-minute tempo block and two 25-minute tempo blocks, the final 5 minutes of which reduced me to barely pedaling. Like 80 RPM rather than the prescribed 95-100 RPM. But besides the equipment fix I never got off and never lowered my threshold, so success!

Tuesday morning I did a short but tough workout at home. Monday afternoon was another similar workout. Wednesday was a different, fun workout that I haven't done in a while, and because I actually left on time, I got in the entire workout before work.

Wednesday was great. The morning and afternoon workouts went well (I'd forgotten how much I like the step mill), and then I went over to my teammate Shannon's house for dinner. We chatted a ton about training with power, something I've been having a hard time understanding and appreciating.

Thursday morning was another good workout and then a good swim at lunch. Each hundred was fairly consistent (albeit a little slower than elite level), but I was happy with a slightly longer and good-feeling swim. Todd's class again was brutal. I asked midway through whether it was the same workout as last week's in terms of intensity, and he said yes, the first two blocks (warm up and subthreshold) were the same. I knew then that I was pretty tired and knocked down my watts. Both Tues and Thurs my HR was well above my normal aerobic zone within the first 20 minutes. That meant I was working super hard to achieve the same results and was outside the zone I needed to be training in. With about 20 minutes left, I went from 230W to 200W to keep it in my aerobic zone. So. much. easier. and tolerable. Here's the results of the first 56 minutes from the last four workouts:

2-05-13: 168 bpm (final sprint: 701 W)
2-07-13: 166 bpm, (final sprint: 726 W)
2-12-13: 174 bpm, (final sprint: 714 W)
2-14-13: 176 bpm, (final sprint: 709 W)

This is not trending in the right direction!