2012-03-28

[JEP Coaching Scholarship] Report for Week 15 (ending 2012-03-25)

Weekly Overview:
Between work and awful weather, it's been hard to find time to ride. I wasn't feeling well this week either.

Workouts:
03-19 Monday
Prescribed: Day off.
Actual: 90min Z3 rollers ride.

03-20 Tuesday
Prescribed: 90min Z2-Z3 ride, 1h strength maintenance session.
Actual: Day off.

03-21 Wednesday
Prescribed: 90min Z2-Z3 ride, 30min stretching session.
Actual: Easy 1h ride around lunchtime.

03-22 Thursday
Prescribed: 1h ride with 10min Z4 efforts, 1h strength maintenance session.
Actual: Day off. Allergies acting up.

03-23 Friday
Prescribed: 90min ride with seated sprint efforts, 30min stretching session.
Actual: Day off. Allergies gave way to a cold.

03-24 Saturday
Prescribed: 2h rollers ride with Tabata and Z4 efforts, 30min stretching session.
Actual: As prescribed.

03-25 Sunday
Prescribed: Warnerville Road Race, replaced by day off.
Actual: No racing. Day off on account of rain.

Weekly summary:
Time: 5 h 06 min
Distance: 70 miles
TSS: 333

(Distance and TSS only incorporate rides for which I have power data.)

I've copied this report to my blog at http://bikefleet.blogspot.com/, where you can also find past updates, race reports, and more!

Thanks for reading.

--Jose

2012-03-21

[JEP Coaching Scholarship] Report for Week 14 (ending 2012-03-18)

Weekly Overview:
The time change, the cold rainy weather, not feeling all that well, and tasks at work made training difficult this week. The time change means that I now wake up an hour later, and as such, have even less training time in the morning. I just don't ride well in cold weather.

Workouts:
03-12 Monday
Prescribed: 1h30min Z2 ride, 30min stretching session.
Actual: Rode outside for 1h, felt awful. Did a little stretching.

03-13 Tuesday
Prescribed: HIT Session: hill repeats at Huddart Park, plus 30min strength maintenance session.
Actual: 1h stretching session with some kettle bell work, not feeling up to strength maintenance. 45min of efforts on rollers, 2-3min Z5 repeats.

03-14 Wednesday
Prescribed: 90min Z2/Z3 ride, 30min stretching session.
Actual: 90min ride on rollers, 5min stretching.

03-15 Thursday
Prescribed: 1h strength maintenance, 1h30m Tabata efforts (20s on 10s off for 4 minutes).
Actual: Day off. Not feeling up to training at all.

03-16 Friday
Prescribed: 1h30m pedaling in drops, 30min stretching.
Actual: 1h in drops doing Tabatas. No stretching.

03-17 Saturday
Prescribed: 1h30m pre-race openers, 30min stretching.
Actual: Day off.

03-18 Sunday
Prescribed: Bariani Road Race.
Actual: No race. Apparently, as a Cat 2 under 30, there was no field for me to do, and the weather was suspect.

Weekly summary:
Time: 5 h 40 min
Distance: 85 miles
TSS: 419

(Distance and TSS only incorporate rides for which I have power data.)

I've copied this report to my blog at http://bikefleet.blogspot.com/, where you can also find past updates, race reports, and more!

Thanks for reading.

--Jose

2012-03-14

[JEP Coaching Scholarship] Report for Week 13 (ending 2012-03-11)

Weekly Overview:

This was a busy week at work. It was difficult to find the time to complete all prescribed workouts this week, and nearly impossible to find time to stretch. Cold mornings continue to be a challenge for training. Getting enough sleep is at least as important as training correctly.

Workouts:
03-05 Monday
Prescribed: 1h ride featuring Tabatas on bike: 3 x (8 x(20s on 10s off), 5min rest). 30min stretching session post ride.
Actual: Did Tabatas in AM on rollers. Felt absolutely awful but the power was quite good. Did 30min of stretching afterward.

03-06 Tuesday
Prescribed: 1h "strength maintenance" session. 1h Z3 trainer session: 4 x (3x(2.5min on 0.5min off), 2min rest).
Actual: Did 1h strength maintenance session: lunges, step ups, kettle bell swings, Turkish getups. Felt really, really sore after these. No time or energy for intervals, so punted these to next day.

03-07 Wednesday
Prescribed: 1h30m easy Z2 ride, 30min stretching session.
Actual: 1h Z3 effort on rollers, plus a post-rollers spin. No time for stretching.

03-08 Thursday
Prescribed: 1h "strength maintenance", plus Z4 efforts: similar to Tuesday, but Z4 instead of Z3.
Actual: Went too hard on Tuesday, so punted strengh maintenance. Did Z4 efforts. Felt really tired, though power was good.

03-09 Friday
Prescribed: Super easy Z1-Z2 recovery ride for 1h30m, plus 30min stretching session.
Actual: Did an easy Z1-2 spin during the nicest part of the day, nice relaxing ride. No time, again, for stretching.

03-10 Saturday
Prescribed: Spectrum ride (sit in) plus Tabatas post ride: 2 x (8 x(20s on 10s off), 5min rest). 30min stretching session post ride.
Actual: As prescribed. Most of the fast guys were out racing so the Spectrum ride was more mellow than usual. I even won the Portola fire station sprint.

03-11 Sunday
Prescribed: Day off.
Actual: As prescribed.

Weekly summary:
Time: 10 h 01 min
Distance: 157 miles
TSS: 897

(Distance and TSS only incorporate rides for which I have power data.)

I've copied this report to my blog at http://bikefleet.blogspot.com/, where you can also find past updates, race reports, and more!

Thanks for reading.

--Jose

2012-03-05

[JEP Coaching Scholarship] Report for Week 12 (ending 2012-03-04)

Weekly Overview:

The weather is improving! Training continues to move toward race prep with some shorter, higher intensity workouts. Dieting is getting to be a challenge. I seem to have settled on 180 lbs. I can lose another 5 lbs, and have in the past, but doing so involves being unhappy and being unproductive at work. We'll see what happens.

This was the last week of scheduled Crossfit workouts. I'll continue to have strength maintenance assigned through the season. To this end, I purchased a kettle bell.

Workouts:
02-27 Monday
Prescribed: Day off, rollers option.
Actual: 1h easy spin on rollers in the morning.

02-28 Tuesday
Prescribed: 1h Defiance Crossfit (last session) plus neuromuscular sprint efforts: 2 sets of (15 sec all out, 2 minutes rest) x 5.
Actual: Last day of Crossfit covered move to strength maintenance. Without a gym, I can still do lunges, step ups, planks, squats, and stretching at home. The kettle bell purchase means that I can do kettle bell deadlifts, kettle bell swings, and Turkish get-ups as well. Sprint efforts were okay but not awesome. I think the highest power I saw was 1375W, which is lower than I did the prior month.

02-29 Wednesday (Leap Day!)
Prescribed: 1h30m Z2 ride with 30 min stretching session.
Actual: As prescribed. Ride was on rollers. Did stretching right after rollers ride.

03-01 Thursday
Prescribed: 1h strength maintenance session plus FTP rollers session: 4 x (2.5min Z4 on 0.5min off for 10 minutes).
Actual: Did strength maintenance in AM. Had to improvise weight for lunges and step ups but it was okay. Unable to do prescribed ride in evening, punted to next day.

03-02 Friday
Prescribed: Nothing assigned (!?). Checked later in the day and saw prescribed day off with optional rollers ride.
Actual: Did Z4 effort from prior day. Had a very good workout, punting was definitely the correct step.

03-03 Saturday
Prescribed: Spectrum ride plus 1x Canada Road TT effort, totaling 3 hours, plus 30min stretching session.
Actual: As prescribed. Sat in on Spectrum ride. Riding with a group is a good refresher for upcoming races. First Canada Road TT in a while, broke 25 minutes on road bike on Beat The Clock course not doing anything special. Canada is always a hard TT course for me. I applied a lesson from flight training: the idea of "establishing" a climb or a descent. The road changes but it can be broken down into about 1 minute long sections of constant grade. Thinking this way helped me better pace the effort. Saw a bunch of AV people out today.

03-04 Sunday
Prescribed: Day off.
Actual: Los Altos Hills ride with a friend from out of town. Super low key, just enjoying the nice weather while it lasts.

Weekly summary:
Time: 13 h 38 min
Distance: 191 miles
TSS: 1019

(Distance and TSS only incorporate rides for which I have power data.)

I've copied this report to my blog at http://bikefleet.blogspot.com/, where you can also find past updates, race reports, and more!

Thanks for reading.

--Jose