Bigger Watts in Little China

My turn. After five weeks of taking sprints on a trainer to a whole new level, it was time to test my FTP again. Here are the numbers from Trainer Road:

Skipped the clearing interval/warmup and some early recovery. Pain is the only requirement for T6P workouts. We can recover when we die.

While these numbers are in the right direction, my Garmin/WKO was even better, listing my norm power as 226w. To compromise, I’m going to call it 225w. For me, this is another 3.2% increase in my FTP, resulting in a new 3.65 w/kg. Yeah, I know it’s nothing like Consultant’s massive 33% increase. Still, I have gained 14 watts since January. In previous years, I never moved my FTP much at all in winter. 225w is my highest FTP EVER. Without a doubt, Trainer Road and T6P is taking me to a new level. I can’t wait to see how things feel when I start to battle the big Montana hills soon.

Speaking of battles, it’s time for a quick update for the Strides of March challenge. Just to refresh, the challenge is to run at least two miles everyday. No matter what other training you are doing. Most miles wins.

As expected, the Lawyer is currently leading the group. He’s running like he stole something…which is highly possible. After him, the ranking are a little less clear. While rankings are fun, whats more important about this challenge is that we are motivating each other to put on our running shoes everyday. Prior, it was always easy to find an excuse not to run. Just by throwing down the gauntlet, its suddenly much easier to find a reason to stride. Hell, we even have the guy with the bum knee running everyday.  And no, that’s not me anymore. And while two miles may not seem much on some days, its great for staying lose and keeping our form on. Word on the street is that this may be a multi-month adventure…..one day at a time.

FTP Increase of 33% in 38 Days

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that we set out to make some big FTP gains during January (which we named Sufferary) and February (which we named Fastuary). While the rest of the team did 3+ bike workouts, 2-3 runs, and swimming for some, I (aka Consultant) took a different path and only did 2 bike workouts per week and that’s it. Nothing else. My primary reason for taking this path was to see if I would get better gains in power with adequate rest/recovery time between workouts. This also allowed me to really go for it at the end of each workout since I knew I would get plenty of time to recuperate. Read more

Find Your Edge

A few evenings ago, while knee deep in Goggle searching for something to help solve my current job dilemmas, I ran across the book Running the Edge by Adam Goucher and Tim Catalano. I briefly read through the leaflet and told myself this sounded interesting, and grabbed a copy to read “someday”‘ thinking it might help with my Ironman dilemma. Someday came sooner than I expected and I am glad it did.

This is not the type of read you’d expect from elite runners. Adam doesn’t lay out, lap-by-lap the workouts that helped him qualify for the Olympics in 2000, and Tim doesn’t wax poetic about his speedy days at the University of Colorado. Instead, the message is bigger than that, deeper—it forces you to slow down and think.

Adam and Tim ask you to look at your running and consider whether or not you are being honest (with yourself and the world) about your training and goals. And once you’ve evaluated where you can improve, you’re prodded into considering how that translates to the rest of your life. Are you doing all that you can to be the best runner you can be? Are you doing all that you can to live your best life?

Imagine if we went to the same lengths to improve our life stories as we do going after a new PR, goal time, or qualifying standard. Imagine how much better our lives could become if we applied the same level of commitment, determination, tenacity, and creativity to improving our lives as we do in improving our running. (pg. 188)

Adam and Tim want you to recognize that by improving your sense of initiative, responsibility, determination, adaptability, integrity, and person-ability [sic], you can become your ideal self.…

We run the risk of living passive lives waiting for things to happen. We wait for love, for our big break, for a problem to disappear. We are waiting for our lives to live us, instead of going out and living our lives with purpose and action. (pg. 84)

You are in charge of creating your best life. You have the ability to be a positive force in the world. These messages are universally appealing, ones that everyone should hear, not only runners.

Adam and Tim never ask where personal integrity and accountability have gone in today’s society or why we all feel so entitled. Instead, they show us through personal anecdotes how they failed on occasion in their own lives, where they have succeeded, and what they’ve done to improve themselves. And they implore the reader to live their lives—as runners, and as sons, daughters, friends, and neighbors—as close to the edge of greatness as possible.

Their stories lend a personable feel to this call to action, making the book feel more like a conversation with friends than a self-help workbook. The writing itself is clear, ideas aren’t complicated, and the text isn’t sprinkled with psychobabble words that require a dictionary, making it an easy read, though not a quick one. By asking you to reflect on your life and your running, the message begs to be savored.

After working through many of the self-examination assessments provided in the book I can’t say that I was happy with what I saw about myself, but at least I now know where I am and where I am headed. Like others I have many goals, but for now my focus is my triathlon passion and finally engaging my new career after 4 months. Someday is today!

~Teacher

Wallstreet’s review of Sufferuary @thesufferfest

Sorry it has taken so long to post this.  Been busy.  Ended up hooking up with the Doctor on the Cervelo Share the Ride program and bought a new bike.

New Cervelo R3

So of course I had to hold off my FTP testing until I had a proper fitting and a ride under the belt.  So went about testing.  Tried to use Trainer Road and Hell Hath No Fury but my netbook/TR/Sufferfest combo was acting wonky and crashed.  Still all and all it was a good test.  Started the month at 280w and tested at 295w!  All time high.

I’m guessing our methods of training for Sufferuary works.  As a quick review here was our plan:

• Tuesday – Sufferfest Hell Hath No Fury
• Thursday – Sufferfest Revolver
• Saturday – Sufferfest Hell Hath No Fury + some SST
• Runs Wednesday, Sunday and a brick or two during the week.  Run intervals at 10k pace.
• Lots of ball breaking and support from the team.

We better watch out or someone is gonna copy our methods.

Oops, too late!

Where’s my beer fellas?

Well me and the boys were very excited about the Lance Armstrong making his triathlon comeback at Panama 70.3 Sunday.  So excited that we cooked up a little pool to pick the top 5.   Of course yours truly won.  I was the only one with the foresight to pick Bevan Docherty in my top 5 so now the boys owe me some beers.  Let me know when you need my address gents.  Send me your finest local IPAs, the hoppier the better!

While we are at it, how about some thoughts on the race.

• How the hell did WTC not have live video?  I know it usually sucks but Lance Armstrong was returning to triathlon!  I get it was somewhat last minute, well probably not as I’m sure they had been in discussions for awhile.  They couldn’t find someone to sponsor video?  Really?  Easily would have had the most eyeballs all year save Kona coverage.
• ITU racers are damn fast! Not sure how they would do at Ironman distance but up to 70.3 I think they would beat most current pros at that distance.
• Lance was impressive!  Everyone knew about his swim and bike but his run was great.  An argument could be made he treated it more like an “A” race while the other pros didn’t, though I’m not sure I buy it.  His time was fast given course and conditions.
• As for his bike, personal opinion is that he really held back on the bike.  More like Ironman watts on the bike, not half.  I think that is why he was able to run so much better than his closest competitors.
• He really can contend at Kona, because barring injury, he will easily qualify.  And everyone knows, no on prepares better for a big event than Lance.  Will be fun to watch.

Wallstreet

Extra Shot, The Long Scream

Ever since I started training with the Sufferfest videos a couple of months ago I’ve been hooked.  But it wasn’t until I started doing these workouts through Trainer Road that I really started to see the true advantage to having these videos.  The Sufferfest videos will tell you how hard to go based on a scale of 1-10.  I have to be honest, until I started using Trainer Road I completely ignored these numbers and just did the workout that I wanted to do.  With the integration of Trainer Road, it will give you a target power that varies throughout the video and show you on the screen what your current power output is compared to the target power.

Then I heard that Sufferfest was coming out with a new time trial video.  As a triathlete who does 100% of my cycling on a TT bike, I was excited to see that I would finally have a TT Sufferfest video to train with.  I decided to purchase this new video as soon as it came out, but ended up waiting until Trainer Road had developed their Long Scream workout before attempting it.  First, I’d like to say that there’s a very good reason why this workout was given the name The Long Scream (sorry again to my neighbors, I guess I shouldn’t have attempted this workout so early in the morning).  But I have to say, this video is incredible.  Here’s a screen shot taken during the workout while following Jack Bobridge:

One tip I would give to people who are attempting this workout on Trainer Road is to make sure to turn off the auto pause feature.  Right before the 30 minute interval the video tells you to stop pedaling for a few seconds to prepare to start the time trial.  Well, doing this caused the workout to automatically pause on me.  Not a big deal, I just had to start pedaling again to start the workout up.  If you forget to turn off auto pause, an alternate would be just to pedal lightly, just enough to keep the workout going.

Besides that one little fluke, there was nothing I didn’t enjoy about this workout.  There’s nothing quite like virtually time trialing with some of the greats, such as David Miller, Bradley Wiggins and Fabian Cancellara.  And the majority of the music in the video is great as well.  This screen shot was taken towards the end with time trialing with Tony Martin (please ignore the fact that my power output at the time was a little below the target power):

The final seven minutes of this workout, my legs were definitely starting to bark at me.  This workout is designed to be used in conjunction with one of the other Sufferfest videos.  I should note that I did it as a stand along workout, although I had just done 4×10 minutes at 95-100% of FTP less than 24 hours prior.  I’m honestly not sure if I could do this workout at 100% as a tag along to one of the other Sufferfest videos.  I think this workout would be best served as a sweet spot (85-90% of FTP) training workout after doing another workout that includes FTP intervals, instead of the FTP workout that it was designed to be.  But doing it as a stand along FTP workout definitely wasn’t easy.

Overall it was definitely a great workout, and one that I plan doing quite often in the future.  For those of you of you who want to see the WKO data from my first attempt at this workout, here you go:

Engineer

Review of Sufferary

The month of January has proven to be a very trying, yet rewarding month for team T6P.  As we started the New Year we decided that this month was deserving of the name Sufferary.   So what is Sufferary?  Well, it started as a crazy idea from Wallstreet to do a month full of hard bike training using a couple of the Sufferfest videos.  We decided to do two 2×20’ FTP workouts using Sufferfest’s Hell Hath No Fury and one 16×1’ VO2 workout using Sufferfest’s Revolver every week.  As the month developed we, one by one, started using a great new program called Trainer Road, which provides you with a target power that varies as you progress thru the workout.  I have to say that using Trainer Road has helped take the Sufferfest videos to a whole new level.  I now know exactly how hard I should be working throughout the entire video.

I have to admit, I was very skeptical that I would be able to do a month full of these grueling workouts.  I honestly expected our group to start dropping like flies out of Sufferary sometime in the first two weeks.  We were even joking about who would be the first to bail.  I knew that these guys would give me a hard time if I was the first person to call it quits, so I was determined to not let that happen.

Before Sufferary started I decided to do a FTP test to reset my training zones and was at 225, which was already higher then my highest indoor FTP test from last year.  The first week I decided to play things a little safe and stay at the lower end of my training zones to make sure I could make it to the second week.  I was surprised at how good I felt the first week, so I decided to start pushing my power numbers up a little each week.  By the third week I was already feeling like the workouts were getting easier so I decided to retest and was able to get up to an FTP of 232.  With all of the hard work we all had done I was able to test at 247 by the end of the month, giving me a Sufferary improvement of 22 watts, or 10%.  This time last year I was only sitting at an FTP of 199, so I was ecstatic to be up to 247.

Here are the results of my final FTP test in Sufferary from WKO+:

Engineer

On-line Group Ride with the Guys of Trainer Road

As Tri6Pack moves into Fastuary from the very successful Sufferary our first weekend group ride of the month was this morning.  Since we are spread all across the country we have been doing 1 to 2 online group rides per week for the past 5 weeks.  The rides have progressed from basically riding at the same time with the same workout and communicating via text message, to using Google+ Hangout to actually see and hear each other.  And yes, at first it was a creepy as it sounds.  But after a few workouts we wanted a way to see our power, cadence, and other data on our laptops or big screens during the workout. This would do away with the need to constantly look down at your bike computer.  And, not to get greedy, but we also dreamed of a world where we could actually see each others data as we rode (because I’m pretty sure team member Wallstreet has been fudging his numbers, go figure!).

Enter the guys at Trainer Road.  Several weeks ago the Consultant contacted Nate and Reid, the dynamic duo at Trainer Road, and demo’d their service.  Within a week we were all signed up to their $10 a month service that not only allows you to see your data on your screen as you ride, gives you dozens of workouts to keep you busy, and also interacts with The Sufferfest videos to enhance the experience thoroughly kick your ass.  We have written about our experiences with Trainer Road and The Sufferfest here and here.  Unfortunately, by combining Google+ Hangouts, The Sufferfest, and Trainer Road, we have pretty much maxed out the present technology for our on-line group rides. So, when we heard that Trainer Road was looking to expand their service to include group rides we reached out to them as we were already into the on-line group ride thing.  Lucky for us they were extremely responsive and very interested in seeing how we were structuring our group rides.

This morning Nate and Reid both joined us for our weekly group session.  It should be noted that one of them actually did the workout, but I promised I wouldn’t call out the one who didn’t do the workout (Don’t worry Nate, I got your back!)  I can speak for all of us who participated when I say it was a great session, not just for the 4 x 10 minute FTP session, but also the spirited discussion with the architects of Trainer Road.  Although things got a little quiet when the legs started to scream in the last interval, there was a pretty constant flow of questions and answers from them to us and from us to them.  They let us in on a few of  their plans for groups rides and the decision-making process for what additional features should be added to the system first.  Even when they started talking about coding, as in computer programming coding, it was still very interesting.  Everything we heard was very good, and when they do debut the group ride functionality its clear it will again change the game of indoor cycling.  Especially for those who like to compete against their friends no matter where they are, but I better not say anymore.  Don’t want to ruin any surprises.

It was a great way to start a Saturday and a big thanks goes out to Nate and Reid for allowing T6P to be a part of their product development.

Russian Roulette

Another great training night for the group. Today was VO2 day. That basically means bring your shoes, a towel, and a bucket for vomit and blood. Workout this evening was the tried and true Revolver Sufferfest video. After a brief warm up, it was 16X1 minute at 120-150% threshold pace. In other words, give it all you got while keeping form for one minute over and over again. I’ve done this a few times before, but this was my first time using the Trainer Road software. It was also my first time with my buddy, The Lawyer. He said he would be gentle. He lied.

Us hitting the self destruct button.

Are you ready for the gruesome footage? Okay, considered yourself warned:

From WKO

Currently, our training group is a month into our experiment in suffering. Last winter, we were doing 2X20 threshold workouts every few weeks. This month, we are doing it twice a week. On top of that, we are doing these VO2 workouts. When I started this month, I could barely rotate 240 watts during Revolver. Today, I was cranking near 280-300. And I felt in control. Sure, it was hard work, but it didn’t feel like I was running from the FBI again.

It’s great to see some movement in the right direction. I’m most certainly looking forward to testing my FTP next week. Bring it!

On the technical side of things, it was great to have the Trainer Road software along for the telemetry. There were some glitches. First, the video kept getting behind the clock. By the end of the video, I was mashing away at the pedals while the video was in recovery. This was even with me making the software window tiny. It probably had something to do with my 2 year old laptop and the simultaneous running of a webcam and Google hangout. Another weird thing is the NP values for the TR software. In fact, I’m not certain if norm power for a 1 minute interval can be calculated accurately, and the listed values appear very different than my average power from  my Garmin/WKO data. Also, I couldn’t hear The Lawyer at all with the sound of the Sufferfest video noise. One more thing, make sure you pair your ANT USB device right before the ride. I paired mine about 20 minutes prior. It apparently unpaired before I started the ride and that’s why I am missing some of the data.

Can’t explain that Norm Power discrepancy.

I’m not sure what to make of it. Fortunately, the guys at Trainer Road are listening to their customers and working hard to resolve the issues. I know for a fact they are about to add a volume control feature. I can’t wait to see the new updates from Trainer Road.

Time for some Pellegrino, compression socks, and apparently Big Trouble in Little China. WIN.

A Taste of Power with @trainerroad

On the T6P team, I’m known as The Consultant. Last night was my first workout using TrainerRoad. This is a bad ass training tool that I wish I had a year ago when I was training for my first Ironman. This tool is a no-brainer for me since I’m the only member of T6P that isn’t using a power meter. After spending $6-7K last year on my quest to become an Ironman, I had to draw the line at race wheels and power meters. Enter TrainerRoad. This tool allows training with power without having a power meter. By specifying the type of trainer I’m using and using my Garmin +ANT USB stick on a laptop and Garmin speed/cadence sensor on the bike, TrainerRoad is able to determine my power numbers during a workout. Read more