Jordan's January Jammin!

1/28/2010 - 1/31/2010

Took Thursday completely off. Friday, walked a 15% incline on the treadmill @ 17:00 pace, with 6 x 0:25 x 1:35 uphill runs @ 8:00 pace in the middle of the workout. Those were tough, but the variety was fun. Saturday was a pretty vanilla 2 hour ride on the trainer, 90:00 @ 200-250W. Sunday was going to be a ride, but I substituted 250 "snow squats" - scoop, bend at the knees, lift, dump snow, repeat... Too bad WKO+ doesn't have a way to quantify training stress for chores...

1/25/2010 - 1/27/2010

This is a rest & recovery week, so it's all about shorter, easier rides. Monday was 50 minutes of spin class, where I kept the resistance dial low and made sure the HR did not get too high. Same thing on Tuesday - 40 minutes of spin class and then 20 minutes on one of the workout bikes at the YMCA. Today will be 60 minutes of active recovery at home, followed by a much-deserved back, neck and shoulder massage at the spa.

1/22/2010 - 1/24/2010

Woke up early on Friday (the wife rises an hour before I do) and I felt energized after the 2 rest days, so I decided to hop on the TT bike and ride an hour of low-end tempo, just to burn some calories. What a great way to start the last work day of the week - I felt all warmed up and ready for my day!

Friday evening was the regularly scheduled workout - 56 minutes of LT on the TT bike, split up into shorter intervals with a little bit of rest in between: 4x5mx1m; 4x4mx45s; 4x3mx30s; 4x2mx15s. The short breaks allow me to get in probably about 10-15 more minutes of LT work than if I took the 4x10, 3x15, or 2x20 approach. Wattage was up 10-15 watts for each effort compared to the last time I did this workout.

Saturday's weather was really decent, so I decided to go for the big miles again. 4.5 hours (86 miles) of L2/L3 riding, with 10 short 8-10sec form sprints in the second half of the workout to build neuromuscular power. Burned nearly 3500 calories, then went to Richmond to gain it all back eating sushi and celebrating a friend's birthday.

Sunday will be a fairly steady endurance ride, with the plan to ride for 90-120 minutes and fill in the remaining training stress I need for my weekly goals. Next week is a full-on rest week - WooHoo!

1/19/2010 - 1/21/2010

A fairly easy day on Tuesday, taught a 35 minute spin class and then got on the Expresso bike for another 35 minutes at about 200 watts.

Fatigued on Wednesday, decided to listen to my body and take a full rest day.

Today was spent supporting my wife as she won the Best Desserts award at the annual Celebrity Chef Cook-off here in town. Some great food, so decided to take another recovery day and enjoy some diversity in the diet!

1/18/2010

Warm temperatures and the day off means a bit more time on the bike than the usual Monday. Will switch Tuesday's 2-hour L2 workout for today, then go easy or rest on Tuesday.

1/17/2010

Rain kept me indoors, but I didn't have a big day planned anyway. Only needed a little bit more L2 riding to cap off a solid week. The week ended very strongly considering when it started I was wondering if I would be able to do any serious training at all. The back muscle is recovering steadily and I only subbed L2 for one workout (big gear strength).

1/16/2010

A great 4.5 hour L2 ride. The first 33 miles were solo, then crossed paths with a couple mates and the three of us went out for another 50 miles, mostly on pavement but also a little dirt thrown in for fun. It is rather satisfying to hear a rider who is 18 years your junior announce he's cooked after 2 hours when you've been riding for 4 hours!

1/15/2010

What a blessing today's weather was! There aren't too many days in January when you can go riding in a short-sleeve jersey, wind vest, and knee warmers. It was great to get outside for a ride focused on neuromuscular bursts. This was the same as the 1/5 workout, but outdoors instead of on the trainer, and what a difference! While I could barely manage 550W indoors, outdoors I had no trouble getting every 10 second burst into the mid-600's to lower 700's. The best part was, rep #20 was actually my peak 10 seconds for the whole ride!

1/14/2010

Crappy sleep (a Wednesday night again - is there a pattern here?) - this time the dog apparently had to go out for an emergency deposit at 4:15 AM. Couldn't get back to sleep really after that, so just rested in bed so at least my muscles were recovering. Took a great 1.5 hour nap when I go home today, then hit the bike for an easy 60 minutes of active recovery. Looking forward to tomorrow's warm weather and a ride after work!

1/11/2010 - 1/13/2010

Lower back pain still giving me a hassle, so decided to take it easy for a few days and then, if things get better, put in some volume this weekend when the weather is going to be schweet!

1/11 - Recovery Day - Just taught spin class, and kept my HR in the active recovery zone.

1/12 - Endurance - Taught spin class, kept HR in the aerobic range, then came home and rode about 70 minutes at 200 watts. Good fat-burning pace.

1/13 - LT/TT - Back feeling much much better. Opted to do some short LT efforts on the TT bike: 4 x 5m x 1m, 4 x 4m x 45s, 4 x 3m x 30s, and 4 x 2m x 15s for a total of 56 minutes "on". FT Power in the aerobars only about 3-4% below road bike. Usually it's more like 10% this time of year, so that's good.


1/5/2010 - 1/10/2010

The new semester starts tomorrow, and I still have plenty of planning to get done today, so I will keep it short. Having some lower back pain still from all of the snow shoveling - not enough to keep me from working out at this point, but I will need to keep aware of it and see if it warrants more extended rest so I don't end up wrecking my entire season.

1/5 - 35 minute spin class, fun as usual, then home for another hour indoors @ 240-260W with a 10 second out-of-the-saddle burst @ 540-560W every 3 minutes. One of my favorite workouts to do outdoors, doesn't translate to the trainer quite as well but still less boring than most.

1/6 - 1.5 hours indoors on the TT bike, 60 minutes @ 260W, then 15 more minutes @ 280W. Felt hard at first, but then settled into the rhythm and had a strong finish.

1/7 - Crappy sleep and general fatigue, so switched today's scheduled workout with tomorrow's active recovery. Rode 60 minutes on the TT bike at a recovery pace.

1/8 - Got home in time to take a nap before the workout, which was key. Today was 1.75 hours indoors. Warmed up with 10 x 1 min fast pedals at 110-120 rpm. Rode another10 min at endurance pace, then did 4 x 10 min @ 310W with 6 min of rest between each rep. Very happy with being able to hit all 4 reps at prescribed wattage.

1/9 - 2.5 hours indoors riding tempo, 220-290W. I enjoyed being able to really control the wattage and keep it within the prescribed range, but 2.5 hours on a trainer is just about the limit to my mental endurance. Still, it's good to face those mental limits, too.

1/10 - Today will be some E riding, perhaps a little spin outdoors if I feel like enduring the near-freezaing temps, otherwise I figure 60-90 minutes on the trainer is nothing compared to yesterday!

1/1/2010 - 1/4/2010

The best month for alliterative blog titles! I have started the New Year out right so far with my two new training resolutions - doing core strength exercises 2x a week (up from not at all), and stretching hamstrings and glutes after every ride (also something I seldom did). Planks, side planks, V's - it's all going to happen this year, baby.

This month I have begun to play with my newest toy (well, new to me at least) - a Dura-Ace SRM. Installed on the road bike last week and have enjoyed training with it, and did a really hard ride on 1/2 so that I could get some benchmark wattages to compare with the Ergomo. While the wattage numbers are lower than the Ergomo, it's all relative to whatever FTP I have stored in my software, so I just adjust the FTP downward and the training stimulus is all the same. I am going to try to move the Ergomo over to my MTB so I can have some data from those rides as well.

I'm starting one of Hunter Allen's wattage-based training plans this week, so the last two days have been easy riding, just burning some calories, as prescribed by the plan. This is a training plan I used back in 2006 with considerable success, so I am looking forward to using it earlier in the season this year and then building on it to improve my peak performance.

Gotta hit the hay now - school is back in session!