Off road

In the spirit of specificity, I decided to shift my LT intervals to the cross rig and a dirt/crushed gravel trail.

Clear advantages of the trail over the road: Infrequent stop signs, hills, traffic allowed me to actually complete 10' intervals.

Clear advantage of the trail over the trainer: 10' @ threshold on the trainer is mentally very brutal. 10' outside on a trail was *almost* enjoyable.

Clear disadvantage of the cross bike: It's a single speed with a 38:16 and 26" wheels--it's geared up high enough that it gives me good enough top end to hang in on all but the descents, and it's low enough that I can still climb and accelerate. The gear is actually pretty solid for a cross race.

On a flat trail of hardpack though, I was a little spunout at threshold. So my intervals were pretty odd. Muscles weren't taxed all that bad but I still got my HR up to 174-175 for a 10' work set, but only by spinning out consistently for 10' @ probably 130-140 rpm. The fronts of my calves wanted to die during the first one.

Not a workout I'd want to do every weekend--I think the power output was a little low--but it was nice to know that I can spin my legs that quick for sustained durations.

I had so much fun on the trail that I'm going to make my Saturday interval work every weekend a trail ride. Next week I'm going to notch the gear up a hair at maybe 38:15 or 38:14 (cogs smaller than 16 aren't a great idea on an SS, but neither is racing on an SS) or a 40:16 if I can a) get my hands on one and b) make it fit in the minimal amount of clearance on that bike.

Saturday August 16, 2008

All I've got is Average Heart Rate Data. They were damned consistent for the work sets.

10' @ ~125
5' @ ~120
10' @ ~135 w/some harder pushes
5' @ ~120
10' @ 173
5' @ ~125
10' @ 174
5' @ ~125
10' @ 174
5' @ ~125
10' @ 173
5' @ ~125
30' @ <120

These felt really solid. Next weekend, we'll probably do 3 x 15' or 4 x 12'.

Sunday, August 17,2008

Got out for a ~2 hour spin with Zack and Jake. Had a few hard efforts and a couple of force intervals--wanted to hit the muscles side of things as Saturday was devoid of force work with the ultra-high cadence.