Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Trainerroad - Tallac - 3/6/12

For schedule reasons, I decided to hop on the bike today instead of go for a run.  Plus, it gives me another day of rest after Sunday's race.

Todays workout was called Tallac.  Some of the Trainerroad workouts have instructions, and while I was able to see them on the screen for the first few, a couple workouts I've done since that have instructions were not displaying them.  After fiddling with some window settings, I managed to sort it out, and coincidentally todays workout had some.

It was basically saying that the intervals for this workout, which seems to be around the 90% FTP value, were 'sweet spot' intervals - designed to push you a bit and require concentration, but allow for recovery in a day or so.  The idea is that it maximizes aerobic benefit while minimizing recovery needs.  Although it does always seem to take me a good 20 minutes for the HR to get up - my HR during the intervals more or less confirms this.  If running at an easy pace elicits a HR of about 140-145, and if a bike typically sees about a 10 bpm drop - my HR in the 130's sounds like it's pretty much right on the money for the cycling equivalent of an easy run pace.  This workout also had some drills to smooth out the cycling motion - spend a minute concentrating on lifting the knees to develop the upstroke, a minute lightly kicking the foot forward on the top, scraping mud off the shoes towards the bottom, etc.

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