My original intent was to do a 6 mile lunch run on Friday, but my legs were quite sore from the legs session on Wednesday night, and I don't like to do much running on sore legs like that - sore legs means tight muscles, and tight muscles means extra tension on an IT band that has historically been prone to inflammation. So I limited myself to a trainerroad workout. Next up on the docket, Monitor.
This workout was 6 x 6 minute intervals at about 90% FTP. I've been noticing that these base building workouts are gradually increasing the amount of time spent at this particular training level. I also notice that towards the end, my HR tends to get to around 150. One thing I'm not positive of, though, is how intense these workouts are supposed to be. According to trainer road, the Baxter workout from a few sessions ago is an intensity factor (IF) of 0.66 - about 2/3 as intense as an hour long FTP workout. The next workout, Ericsson, was an IF of 0.79, and Monitor is 0.81. So it would appear that in the grand scheme of things, they are building up the workouts gradually. Until I have more experience, I'm not entirely sure whether I'm actually putting out 80% effort - but I do have to admit that I think it is probably a rather good estimate. I definitely have more in the tank, but the end of the intervals are a welcome break.
Anyway, for this workout, I did take the opportunity to do some ILT's during the recovery periods, so that is why the power output for those sections are off the target - I'm still not yet at the point where a single leg can match the intended target power. Also, at the end of the workout, during the cooldown, I did a couple high cadence one minute long spins. I think I'm finding I like this pattern - it's a way to get some quick high cadence work in (currently working on stabilizing cadence in the 130's range), as well as a good way to drive the HR for blood flush to improve recovery without the muscle strain that would normally be associated with the HR that is achieved.
The next workout (Saturday) was called Eclipse. Being a workout slated for a weekend, it was 90 minutes, as opposed to most of the other workouts that are 60 minutes. This one included 3 x 20 minute 90% FTP intervals, which were definitely more challenging than the previous six and eight minute intervals. During the second and third intervals, there was significant time that the HR was right around 150. Also, the IF for this workout was 0.84, so that has notched up a bit again. The recovery periods were longer than other workouts - five minutes - and I was once again able to get some ILT training in by doing one leg solely during each of the first two breaks. Once again, during the cooldown, there were a couple high cadence blood flushing spins.
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