Workout 31st May Marmotte climbs at 250W+

Do Marmotte climbs in reverse order.

Aim for 260W, taking a short break between to simulate transitions. 

Continue until unable to hold 250W for 30s. 

Mental focus: Regular form scans using mindfullness

Tech focus: Cadence at or above 72rpm.  

Result. ADH and Galibier went very well, breathing through nose helped.

After 3 hours started to suffer from saddle pain and lost motivation. Think this is an artifact of using turbo. For future will just do steady non stop tempo efforts,

Workout 30th May - Sella PB

Set new PB up Sella, don't sweat if it's only by a few seconds

Went hard on first half but then lacked confidence I could continue. Good test for future mental toughness workout

Workout 29th May 2019 - "WU" 20

Extend "warmup" to 20 minutes after 300W with balance SST.

Result: Managed this and set SB 7-12 minutes. Drop off after 12 minutes a bit too abrupt so will change for next time

Workout 23rd May Sella PB

Set new PB on Sella. Test of riding hard with tired legs

Done, knocked 2 minutes off best and won by 500m. Power not great at mid 280s but not bad given tired legs and lack of motivation once well ahead

Workout 22nd May 3h@250NW

Another go at 250NW for 3 hours. Will also be be a good test of new shoes and "ankling"

Managed this time on Marmotte, doing long sections of 250-260W. Ate 200g CHO and felt pretty good right through.

Workout 21st May 1xWU 3x8

Up warmup duration, rest then 3x8 minutes on start of Pordoi climb aiming to stay ahead of my pb done a few days ago.

This went better than last week. Set new PB on warmup than managed 3x31x for intervals.

Did Pordoi for first but then switched to Canal for last 2, using 2 tribes for interval timing.

Noticed that focusing on flexing ankle resulted in more watts for same RPE so will check this out in future runs

Workout 20th May Fat Burn Recovery

Fat burn recovery listening to a podcast and check out new shoes

Easy ofc. Upped cadence progressively as workout progressed to end in 90s.

Shoes good but seem to be even better with carbon insole 

Workout 19th May 3 hour tempo

3 hour ride @250NW

Result: Just fell a bit short at 248NW.  Mainly due to foot issues in right shoe. 

Workout 18th May SST Climbs

SST Repeats total 180TSS

• Go for PB up Pordoi
• Do other AR climbs at 270W until unable to complete or hit 180 TSS

Result - Very good. Pordoi in under 30 minutes @310W. Sella pb 271W.

Road bike - better short power

Changed the bars on my Tarmac so went out yesterday in lovely weather to give it a spin.

After the poor 8 minute efforts I spent the first part of the ride doing intervals up the B4000.

Started in a low gear then just repeated changing down a gear until I did it in top.

Went very well, peak was 344W for near 7 minutes which is more like what I'd be hoping to hit right now. 

Pretty pleased with mental approach as well, really pushed right through to the end.

Only funny was the L/R at 46/54. Which makes sense as I tend to focus on right leg when pushing. So hopefully some room for improvement.

After the intevals I did a loop of the Lamourn valley including big ringing up the hill.

Once home I also finally managed to get my tubeless tyre onto my rear wheel....

So all in all a pretty good day

4x8 run 1 not good

Well that did not go well.

My first 8 was at the end of a long warmup and I managed 338W. 

Then I watched yesterdays Giro while doing Z2. Once done I tried doing some more 8s up Alpe D'Huez.

I really struggled, finding it hard to get over 300W. Really not sure what was going on especially since I'd had the previous day off.

Still at least I have a benchmark for the future even if it is a low one

4x8s

I've got 4x8 minutes planned for today.

These mark the point at which I start to find training hard. 

It's a bit of a vicious circle, I know they will hurt and I worry that I will not be able to hit target watts which makes them hurt even more.

So I'll try going a bit easier, just doing 8 minutes up the initial ramps of Alpe D'Huez at FTP+ and see how I get on. 

As a bit of motivation I'll record the results here. 

Racing..sort of

In order to move onto the next Rouvy level I need to complete 4 "races".

Yesterday I had a sweetspot  session planned but before I started I checked if any races were running.

I found one on a 47km course had just started so I joined it planning to ride in SST zone.

Worked like a dream, having the incentive of slowly but surely catching up with the leaders was great motivation and I made the "catch" around 7km to go and stayed strong through to the end. 

Course was undulating so average power was just under target but NP pretty much spot on, 275W for over 90 minutes. EF for the whole workout was good too at 1.98.

My biggest weakness

My biggest weakness when it comes to training is a taste for beer.

All the training advice is to eschew alcohol but, for me, nothing quenches a thirst like a good ale, preferably of the IP kind.

Hopefully the chaps at Brew Dog have come to my aid. I get 20% off thanks to being too!!


https://www.brewdog.com/blog/post/punk-af

Marmotte run 2 result

Run 2 went better than the first. Didn't make it all the way round but managed 5.5 hours and felt pretty good for most of the ride.

I started post Glandon so as to arrive fresh at Galibier which went well.

Just struggled on the last 2/3 of ADH. The simulator grade was steeper than the real thing and once again I think there is cumulative fatigue effect of the resistance always being high so you cant take even a micro pause.

I ate a mix of sandwiches, coconut rings, Snickers and jelly babies, totalling 2800 calories including over 400g CHO, This seemed to suit me better than gels.

Also didn't notice any negative impact of not carb loading or of doing a hard 180TSS workout yesterday

Marmotte take 2

I've replaced my long ride planned for today with another trial run of the Marmotte.

I decided to do this before I saw the weather but glad I did as its pretty foul.

This time I haven't carb loaded the day before. Just done a hard workout and eaten plenty of carbs after.

I will also test eating real food instead of gels. So got some sarnies, coconut cakes and jelly babies ready.

Other change will be to start at the end of the Glandon descent so do the Galibier earlier on. This should help dispel the psychological worries.

Weight update

This year has seen me finally achieve a goal that I've been chasing since my mid 20s.

I've finally got control of my weight. Graph below shows a pretty consistent decline since January. I've another couple of kg to go for perfection but I'm going to throttle back a bit now and focus eating enough to fuel higher intensity power workouts

Marmotte run 1

Mixed results from first trial run of the Marmotte.

Plan was to do climbs at 250W and flats at 165. 

I was comfortably ahead of this target up to second pitch on the Galibier. Then my legs just stopped working.

It wasn't that I had run out of fuel, I had none of the signs of bonking. It felt more as if I could not activate the nerves to make my leg muscles fire. 

This was after over 4.5 hours and I speculate it may have been due to using my Neo. Unlike the real world the muscles are always firing, there are no micro rests that you get on even the steepest of climbs.

Other possibility is that my stomach was empty due to experimenting with using only gels. Next time I'll add in some "real" food.