Fluidity in Training or Where were these legs on Monday?

Fluidity is a good word. Like water, sometimes we need to flow around obstacles and take the paths that open up for us. That is how I've felt about my training this week.

Early in the week, my legs were pretty dead feeling. Well, maybe not dead, but you know, tired, stiff, heavy, no snap. I thought at the time that maybe I was putting too much intensity into my training week, with a TSS score last week of 813 or something like that (I don't have CP on the computer I'm doing this post on to double check). If that was the case, I wanted to ease up rather than risk becoming overtrained and getting myself into difficulties that a few rest days wouldn't get me out of.

So, like water, I found a different path and decided to remove one of my BT workouts, the one that has the least apparent impact on my goal event of a 200km solo ride, namely anaerobic endurance. As the week went on however, my legs felt really good. Yesterday's ride was a good example of that and this morning to my surprise my legs were not sore at all. So, again like water, I changed my course and added back in the BT workout instead of doing the easier endurance ride.

Today's workout had two parts, Hill Anaerobic Endurance intervals and a threshold workout. The hill anaerobic endurance part took the form of 5 intervals of 3 minutes each with 3 minutes rest at an intensity about 120% of threshold. The threshold workout took the form of a 20 minute interval at my CP60 level, which is 273W (Just a bit under my 294W FTP because my CP levels are set from average power and my FTP is set by normalized power. This is sort of a moot point for today as we will see.), in an aero position, which for me means down on the drops.

For the hill anaerobic portion, I went out to Dole Hill, same as I did for part of this workout last week. It is perfect for these. It is a 5% grade hill (workout description calls for a climb 4-6%) and it takes me a bit longer than 3 minutes to climb at the intensity prescribed, 330W-360W in this case. Last week, when I started out on the trainer, I died after 3 intervals but was able to do two more when I finally got outside. This week I did all five intervals on the hill with good solid results. Average power for each of the intervals was: 356, 352, 353, 354, and 359. Note that the last interval was the strongest and they are all pretty consistent. Also, the difference between normalized and average power was well below 1%, in most cases just 1 watt difference with just one case of 2 watts difference. So that tells me that not only were the intervals consistent one to another, they were pretty steady within the interval as well.

After I completed the last interval, I moved on to one of my regular routes, figuring I could get the 20 minute threshold workout in on that. I began the interval when I got to the top of climb and tried my best to stay within the CP60 range, or roughly 260 to 290W. I figured this would be a challenge if for no other reason than there is a lot of descending on this particular route (averages about -3.5%, although the last two thirds of the route is more flat, maybe <-1% grade). Also, there is a sharp 90 degree corner in the middle of the route, plus an intersection where you have to cross a four lane highway to continue. I had hoped that the 20 minutes would be up before I got to the intersection, but they weren't. It was a little hard to keep from going well over the 290W top end of my range. Quite often when I glanced down I was at 300W+ and I would have to ease up a bit to get back down in my range. I have to say it was quite a rush going 40+ mph and putting out 300W of power. Made me feel like I was almost racing. Needless to say my power dropped at the 90 degree corner and again at the intersection, when I still had 5 minutes to go. By the end of the 20 minutes I had actually gone past the turn I'd need to take to go home and was part way into town. For the 20 minute interval, I averaged 280W at 90RPM and 27mph. As I mentioned above, the fact I was using averaged power to set the range for the interval and my FTP was set using normalized power was a moot point today as the low end of the range if I used my FTP rather than my averaged CP60 value would have been 279, so either way I was within the right range, if just barely.

Tomorrow I have a 3 hour endurance ride, which is my final 'hard' ride before moving into a recovery week.