With the thrill of Sunday's win still pumping, it was time to knuckle down and get back to some serious training. This week represented the first week of my fourth month with Brad and I can't believe how far I have come since I started with him. If any of my readers are interested in engaging a cycling coach, Brad's ability to get the best out of you should certainly put him at the top of your list. This week was an absolute cracker and incredibly painful as one would expect.
Monday had nothing more than some E1 riding scheduled so a commute to work and back for the day would certainly have me covered. However, when you are still buzzing from the previous day's race win (and other efforts), it's kind of hard not to throw in one or two sneaky E3/E4 efforts just for some fun with Strava - but no big hills, that was still to come.
On the way to work, it was too hard not to pass up an attempt to take the Parliament Hill PSP segment from AP so a quick blast up there had me on the exact same time as his effort back in December - 1 minute on the dot at 37.2 km/h for the 600m stretch. So close but happy to let AP retain the KOM for the segment. I'd prefer to take it outright and be the first to come in under 1 minute - assuming AP doesn't do it before me.
Coming back from work and I was rewarded with a sea breeze to the back that had my average pace along the South Perth foreshore up a bit more than normal. It turned out to be my third fastest time between the Narrows and the Causeway so it went without saying that an attempt to extend my lead on the KOM for the Taylor St to Causeway sprint was on the cards. I initially thought I had done enough but it seemed to be a day for equals and I was only able to match my previous best for the segment. I was later rewarded with a 34.7km/h PR on Aqua Skate and that nasty little hill sprint up to Riversdale Rd.
I finished Monday with a rewarding experience at the Perth Criteriums in Leederville watching Brad take a podium 3rd for the Elite Men's race. An incredible ride that was thoroughly entertaining (to watch at least). The Support Men's was a high pace event that was fought out to the end while the Open Women's event continued the highly entertaining fight between Emma Pooley and Nicole Cook. Great evening's cycling.
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I was more than happy with my efforts going up Crystal Brook Climb. I managed to score another PB on the first attempt coming in at 4 minutes 12 seconds (on Strava) for an average pace of 15.2 km/h and 12th overall. AP also PB'd on the first climb with a staggering 3 minutes 50 seconds (16.6 km/h) and putting him equal 6th overall - amazing.
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We rewarded ourselves with an additional hour of work continuing up the remainder of Welshpool Rd and out to Pickering Brook for a quick lap of the WCMCC circuit. That climb up Repatriation Rd still hurts like hell and I still hate it with a passion. I will master that stretch of road before the next WCMCC road race series.
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Thanks for a top ride AP. I totally look forward to doing it again.
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Somehow I let AP talk me into a Kings Park training session on Wednesday morning after sending me an SMS on Tuesday night inviting me to join him. As if the pain from Crystal Brook Rd wasn't enough, he was happy to inflict more pain on me the very next day. Well of course I would join him, wouldn't anyone?
Mind you, I made it clear that I would probably not go out as hard as he usually does as I had Welshpool Rd repeats on Hurtsday morning and wanted to have some legs left to complete the session.
I arrived at the top of Mount St just ahead of him so no chance to slack off. Quoting AP: "Here's my plan for the morning. We'll do the usual one and half laps around the Lovekin-May Drive loop where my goal will be to drop you!". Are you kidding!!? How friggin' hard was this going to be? "Then we'll do some aerobic threshold work up Forrest Drive with 30 second hill sprint intervals!". OMG! Anything else? "And to finish off, we'll do some repeats up Mount St!". You're bloody kidding me, right AP? Nope. Not kidding!
So down to the bottom end of Lovekin Drive and we were away and AP has kicked up the pace from the get-go. He almost dropped me right then and there. This was not the usual build up that Brad lets us have before the other groups chase us. AP was out to punish me, so I figured I wasn't about to let that happen too easily and sat right on his wheel (the idea of taking it easy just got quashed). He was putting on some power and it was not easy keeping up with him especially as we hit the Lovekin climb for the second time. I managed to keep on his wheel until he kicked up a little sprint to the finish that I just couldn't quite keep. Will have to work on that.
We turned around at the roundabout at the top and head back down Lovekin and onto the bottom of Forrest Drive and we slowly make our way to Brad's starting point for the hill sprints. AP's "warm up" lap had gotten me into the swing of things nicely and I was ready to hit these hill sprints hard. I hit the first of these on my own and was happy with the effort and it certainly seemed to be easier than the last time we did a set of these. We completed five of these torturing hill sprints and I think it would be fair to say we were pretty even. I would manage to get away from AP with an explosive start but he would claw me back before the top.
I almost had a revisit from the quad twinge during the final effort but I think my rear derailleur suffered more and was no longer changing to 23 or 25 on the cassette. The derailleur would require some additional attention but I managed to temporarily correct it at the top of Mount St. with some micro-adjustments while AP completed his first repeat of the Mount St. climb. I joined him for the second and after three efforts I was pretty much spent. To his credit, AP completed one more for five in total.
It was a slow and easy ride home. There was to be no super-human sprint efforts along South Perth foreshore that morning however as I got over the Great Eastern Highway pedestrian overpass and onto the bottom of Streatley Rd, I decided to get one last effort in with a climb up the Rutland Ave hill. It didn't seem to be enough so to round out the two hour effort for the morning, I also zig-zagged across the ridge that runs between the railway line and Streatley Rd sprinting up the hills on each road. A nice little finisher for the morning and will be repeated at the end of future rides (must create a segment on Strava).
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A snapped rear derailleur cable on Wednesday night while adjusting the shifter put paid to an early training session out at Welshpool Rd - not happy at all. I was really looking forward to completing the session and completing the repeats which would have seen a fantistic three days of training.
I took the bike into Garland's and the prognosis was not great. The cable had snapped inside the shifter which makes it difficult to reach the remaining cable inside the "nipple". Nick already had a full board of service bookings which I could tell had him under the pump so the bike will be there for a few days.
This meant it was time to hit the stationary trainer and hit it hard!! Late last winter I bought a JetBlack Z1 Fluid Trainer that is supposed to allow you to push out up to 900 watts. I had never really pushed it overly hard on this trainer and there was no way I would be able to push 900 watts of power out of the poor old Diamondback DBR bike I have on it but I was definitly wanting to make the legs hurt. Without an actual power meter, I would have to rely on Strava to give me a rough idea of watts.
I wanted to be able to replicate some of the efforts that AP and I had achieved already this week so I was determined to get my HR and power to levels that would replicate climbing Crystal Brook Rd four times and then backing it up with six 25 second sprints up Forrest Drive in Kings Park. The experience is never quite the same as actually being out there but this trainer certainly makes you work and it hurts like hell.
I warmed up for about 25 minutes which is roughly the amount of time it takes me to ride out to the foot of Crystal Brook hill. I kept the HR to about mid E1 as I knew that the HR was about to sky-rocket and wasn't sure what it would take to keep the legs rotating with a E3 HR across four 5 minute intervals with a 1:1 recovery.
The mental fight is incredible on a trainer. You have no landmarks to tell you how far you have to go until the end of the effort. Going up Crystal Brook Rd, you note marks on the road, bottles on the side of the road, trees, signs or anything else that tells you where you are at. You don't have that on a trainer - all you have is the clock and it seems to go 2 seconds forward and 1 second back just to prolong the pain. The mind begins to fail you and you begin to think that it will be impossible to complete the planned efforts, but then that is the exact thought I used to get after the first real climb of Crystal Brook Rd.
During the next three efforts I was able to overcome the negative thoughts and I seemed to complete the last three 5 minute intervals much easier. The fourth one hurt like hell (just like it does climbing Crystal Brook Rd) and it was a relief to have completed the four efforts. But there was still more pain to come as I was still keen to follow it up with some replicated hill sprints.
Ten minutes to recover is certainly not the same as riding from Crystal Brook to Kings Park but I wasn't prepared to have to recover longer than this. At 1 hour and 10 minutes into the session, I ramped up for the first of 6 all out sprint efforts. Out of the saddle and belting out the power almost gives the same painful sensation that sprinting up Forrest Drive gives you. It was nice to be able to complete the 6 efforts.
After a 10 minute cool down soft pedalling I was completely spent and dripping wet with sweat which had begun to pool under the bike on the sweat mat. My towel was soaked and I had gone through 1.5 litres of fluids during the session. It was damn nice to have a swimming pool just out the door in front of me.
I can't say that indoor training is as much fun as being out on the road (not even close) but the Z1 fluid trainer comes pretty close to matching the workloads required for some of my regular training sessions. I think this is attributed to the progressive resistance that the trainer uses as the more power you put in, the harder it gets so you can make the legs work overtime and get the same pain sensation that you would out on the road. Good for the HR and good for the leg strength.
I think Strava's idea of power output on a stationary trainer is rubbish. It estimated only 135 watts which would be an insult to the legs given the way they felt afterwards.
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No ride out on the road again on Friday morning while the bike is still in for repairs. Not that I needed to after last night's spin session on the trainer. The legs felt it as much this morning as they did the morning after some of the efforts out on the road earlier in the week so a good sign that a workout on the spin trainer can be as torturing as the ones on a regular ride.
I decided to do Friday's training on the spin trainer in the evening again with a recovery session of a consistent E1 effort over the course of a hour. I found it a little more difficult to find a strong rhythm compared to last night. I guess being a session of consistent cadence and HR was not as exciting as what the same effort is on a bike out on the road. God I miss the outdoors.
Mind you, I made it clear that I would probably not go out as hard as he usually does as I had Welshpool Rd repeats on Hurtsday morning and wanted to have some legs left to complete the session.
I arrived at the top of Mount St just ahead of him so no chance to slack off. Quoting AP: "Here's my plan for the morning. We'll do the usual one and half laps around the Lovekin-May Drive loop where my goal will be to drop you!". Are you kidding!!? How friggin' hard was this going to be? "Then we'll do some aerobic threshold work up Forrest Drive with 30 second hill sprint intervals!". OMG! Anything else? "And to finish off, we'll do some repeats up Mount St!". You're bloody kidding me, right AP? Nope. Not kidding!So down to the bottom end of Lovekin Drive and we were away and AP has kicked up the pace from the get-go. He almost dropped me right then and there. This was not the usual build up that Brad lets us have before the other groups chase us. AP was out to punish me, so I figured I wasn't about to let that happen too easily and sat right on his wheel (the idea of taking it easy just got quashed). He was putting on some power and it was not easy keeping up with him especially as we hit the Lovekin climb for the second time. I managed to keep on his wheel until he kicked up a little sprint to the finish that I just couldn't quite keep. Will have to work on that.
We turned around at the roundabout at the top and head back down Lovekin and onto the bottom of Forrest Drive and we slowly make our way to Brad's starting point for the hill sprints. AP's "warm up" lap had gotten me into the swing of things nicely and I was ready to hit these hill sprints hard. I hit the first of these on my own and was happy with the effort and it certainly seemed to be easier than the last time we did a set of these. We completed five of these torturing hill sprints and I think it would be fair to say we were pretty even. I would manage to get away from AP with an explosive start but he would claw me back before the top.
 |
| Click to view larger image. |
I almost had a revisit from the quad twinge during the final effort but I think my rear derailleur suffered more and was no longer changing to 23 or 25 on the cassette. The derailleur would require some additional attention but I managed to temporarily correct it at the top of Mount St. with some micro-adjustments while AP completed his first repeat of the Mount St. climb. I joined him for the second and after three efforts I was pretty much spent. To his credit, AP completed one more for five in total.
It was a slow and easy ride home. There was to be no super-human sprint efforts along South Perth foreshore that morning however as I got over the Great Eastern Highway pedestrian overpass and onto the bottom of Streatley Rd, I decided to get one last effort in with a climb up the Rutland Ave hill. It didn't seem to be enough so to round out the two hour effort for the morning, I also zig-zagged across the ridge that runs between the railway line and Streatley Rd sprinting up the hills on each road. A nice little finisher for the morning and will be repeated at the end of future rides (must create a segment on Strava).
--
A snapped rear derailleur cable on Wednesday night while adjusting the shifter put paid to an early training session out at Welshpool Rd - not happy at all. I was really looking forward to completing the session and completing the repeats which would have seen a fantistic three days of training.
I took the bike into Garland's and the prognosis was not great. The cable had snapped inside the shifter which makes it difficult to reach the remaining cable inside the "nipple". Nick already had a full board of service bookings which I could tell had him under the pump so the bike will be there for a few days.
This meant it was time to hit the stationary trainer and hit it hard!! Late last winter I bought a JetBlack Z1 Fluid Trainer that is supposed to allow you to push out up to 900 watts. I had never really pushed it overly hard on this trainer and there was no way I would be able to push 900 watts of power out of the poor old Diamondback DBR bike I have on it but I was definitly wanting to make the legs hurt. Without an actual power meter, I would have to rely on Strava to give me a rough idea of watts.
I wanted to be able to replicate some of the efforts that AP and I had achieved already this week so I was determined to get my HR and power to levels that would replicate climbing Crystal Brook Rd four times and then backing it up with six 25 second sprints up Forrest Drive in Kings Park. The experience is never quite the same as actually being out there but this trainer certainly makes you work and it hurts like hell.
I warmed up for about 25 minutes which is roughly the amount of time it takes me to ride out to the foot of Crystal Brook hill. I kept the HR to about mid E1 as I knew that the HR was about to sky-rocket and wasn't sure what it would take to keep the legs rotating with a E3 HR across four 5 minute intervals with a 1:1 recovery.
The mental fight is incredible on a trainer. You have no landmarks to tell you how far you have to go until the end of the effort. Going up Crystal Brook Rd, you note marks on the road, bottles on the side of the road, trees, signs or anything else that tells you where you are at. You don't have that on a trainer - all you have is the clock and it seems to go 2 seconds forward and 1 second back just to prolong the pain. The mind begins to fail you and you begin to think that it will be impossible to complete the planned efforts, but then that is the exact thought I used to get after the first real climb of Crystal Brook Rd.
During the next three efforts I was able to overcome the negative thoughts and I seemed to complete the last three 5 minute intervals much easier. The fourth one hurt like hell (just like it does climbing Crystal Brook Rd) and it was a relief to have completed the four efforts. But there was still more pain to come as I was still keen to follow it up with some replicated hill sprints.
 |
| Click to view larger image. |
Ten minutes to recover is certainly not the same as riding from Crystal Brook to Kings Park but I wasn't prepared to have to recover longer than this. At 1 hour and 10 minutes into the session, I ramped up for the first of 6 all out sprint efforts. Out of the saddle and belting out the power almost gives the same painful sensation that sprinting up Forrest Drive gives you. It was nice to be able to complete the 6 efforts.
After a 10 minute cool down soft pedalling I was completely spent and dripping wet with sweat which had begun to pool under the bike on the sweat mat. My towel was soaked and I had gone through 1.5 litres of fluids during the session. It was damn nice to have a swimming pool just out the door in front of me.
I can't say that indoor training is as much fun as being out on the road (not even close) but the Z1 fluid trainer comes pretty close to matching the workloads required for some of my regular training sessions. I think this is attributed to the progressive resistance that the trainer uses as the more power you put in, the harder it gets so you can make the legs work overtime and get the same pain sensation that you would out on the road. Good for the HR and good for the leg strength.
I think Strava's idea of power output on a stationary trainer is rubbish. It estimated only 135 watts which would be an insult to the legs given the way they felt afterwards.
--
No ride out on the road again on Friday morning while the bike is still in for repairs. Not that I needed to after last night's spin session on the trainer. The legs felt it as much this morning as they did the morning after some of the efforts out on the road earlier in the week so a good sign that a workout on the spin trainer can be as torturing as the ones on a regular ride.
I decided to do Friday's training on the spin trainer in the evening again with a recovery session of a consistent E1 effort over the course of a hour. I found it a little more difficult to find a strong rhythm compared to last night. I guess being a session of consistent cadence and HR was not as exciting as what the same effort is on a bike out on the road. God I miss the outdoors.
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