Trying times

We've had more rain in the first 9 days of november, than we've ever had in any November!

Needless to say commuting on the bike seems like a chore at the moment.

Check out the Performance Manager chart - you can see my CTL (blue line) was chugging away nicely but has started to dive away again... Hopefully the weather gets its shit together by Sunday so i can get a long long slow ride in...

Trialling times.

Managed to get out for some TT sessions on the TT bike this week.

Felt absolutely great! Have managed a good position on the bike - and feel as if i can apply good power with a nice aero position. Unfortunately however my time trial bikes powertap was intermittently failing - when i analysed the data i had a few 4000w peaks in there.. something we'll put down to a glitch. Hopefully its just the batteries as this will be my second powertap failure in 1 year.

I'll start dialling in more tempo rides over the coming weeks as time allows it. We are still homeless which means my Saturdays are non riding/racing days as we are still house hunting...

A little bit more each day.

Hit Mt Keira this morning for another threshold session. Now a few weeks ago i could barely hold 280w up the climb, but this morning i was able to hold over 300w for the entire journey (NP 322W).

Managed to even catch and pass two riders on the way up - which always helps the motivation.

Interesting sensations have returned to the legs - out of the saddle my lungs hurt more than my legs which I find always a good indication that progress is being made.

Plans are to return and reset my 16km TT time and hopefully FTP this coming saturday - I'd really like to get up and over 300w for the entire journey and get under 26minutes.

The Park,

TSS 233, NP 216W, 25.3km/hr, 101km, 4.01.36

The Royal national park is 22km of undulating unforgiving terrain. The park exposes any (in my cases many) flaws you may have.

Overall, i'm happy that i bit the bullet and forced myself to be exposed to some pretty serious pain. I really need to focus on my tempo rides building strength at thresholds.



Tomorrow is a rest day!

FTP - The 16km TT

16km, 26.16 minutes, NP 285w, 36km/hr

Not a bad effort, i thought my FTP would be hovering around 300w, but i was wrong!

Pacing was very bad, and i overshot one of the turn around points.... Now that i know the course better - and with better pacing i think i should get under 26minutes by next week.

Will be doing some tempo rides at around 250w during the week on the TT rig to get used to pushing the pedals in the aero position.

TT and The Park

Have planned a 16km TT tomorrow morning to get a baseline for my FTP - then on Sunday I have a 4 hr epic ride through the Royal National Park. Focus will be on FTP efforts up hills to get some climbing form back in the legs and work @ thresholds.

Then the following week is our Club Championship Road Race at Eastern Creek Raceway. This is a fantastic facility and the competition should be high making it a good work out!

Training has been coming along nicely the past couple of weeks. Have started to introduce a bit of intensity, and the legs have been responding nicely.

Early morning rides are now stretching out to 2hours ~ 55km, so the volume certainly is getting up to the magic 300km/week

With any luck - these should become routine volumes.

Waterfall

Waterfall hill 13.10, NP 330w.

Not a bad hitout for my first hill climb for around 4 months. I started off just trying to keep the power under 350w but continually found myself nudging 400w for the first 1km. Then when i hit the flat section I just wasn't able to turn the big ring as well as i'd like.. From there in i thought I'd just keep a solid tempo at around 85%.. I was very surprised to come in so close to 13minutes.

This is a great benchmark to work from and i'll be including Waterfall hill in my weekly long ride.

I'm finally starting to find my legs.. Last week was a very solid block of training and i still have some residual soreness.

A gentler week this week, possible Heffron criterium this weekend if the legs are feeling well!