Last night I was looking at the plans for TrainerRoad, and started noticing some patterns in how the plans were laid out. In looking at the descriptions, it appeared there were a few major types of workouts that were being hit upon each week - one endurance workout that maintains between 50-80% FTP, and ranges from 1 to 3 hours; one threshold type workout of multi-minute long intervals which may or may not be intended for out of saddle; one threshold builder, like an over/under workout where a 8-10 minute interval is spent with a minute or two just over FTP, followed by a minute or two just under FTP, and repeated until the primary interval is done; and one anaerobic/sprint based workout, where the intervals are very short, but well over FTP.
Having never done the latter yet, I decided to give it a shot, and I picked one called Taylor as the first one to go with because the intervals were relatively short @ 30s. So, it was basically three sets of 20 sprints - 30 seconds at 120% FTP (270W), followed by 30 seconds at 40% FTP. The first challenge was finding gear ratio's I could swap between that would allow me to hit the target powers, but with minimal shifting. With only 30 seconds, I wanted to minimize the chance that I'd lose precious seconds fiddling with finding the right gear. Fortunately the workout had a couple warm up intervals, which I completely overshot because in my head I was thinking I'd have to go big chainring, small sprocket and mash gears. Once I saw the power rocket up past 350, I knew I overdid it, and adjusted accordingly.
All in all it was an interesting style of workout. Each overarching interval set was unrelenting in that the sprints just kept coming, but no individual interval was too awful strenuous. Towards the end of each large interval set, the mini sprints did get tougher, but it was a comfortable tougher. While the goal may have been to hit anaerobic activity - I'm not entirely sure it did because my legs didn't feel cooked. However, that may be exactly the point - work them just enough to go through their oxygen supplies in 20 seconds, leaving only 10 seconds for anaerobic activity, which is not too taxing overall. I'm sure these types of workouts will get harder later, in looking at some of the future ones, they involve things like 180% FTP sprints immediately followed by a couple minutes > FTP. Yikes!
For running, it was just another 1.5 miles to keep the runstreak going. Ankle felt pretty good all day (no advil last night, only one this morning and one at lunch) - but I did start feeling it a bit after about a mile during the run. So I think any idea of testing it out with 4-5 miles tomorrow is out. Frustrating having it be 95% healed, but just not quite there yet.
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