Great power

Today was the first day of the season that I felt like I was riding with power. That sense that I was generating the muscular force to be competitive again. I was able to bridge a few gaps and stay with the pace for the most part. I still got dropped, while I was holding pace, it felt good. After the turn for home. I was still turning the cranks over with good strength.

This is the first fruit of my power training protocol. I've worked my CP20 wattage up to 259 watts. That will be the workout tomorrow evening. At this point, I don't intend to join any road rides with the exception of Tuesdays and Saturdays. I may include a Sunday afternoon ride for recovery and spin.

Forced Rest Day

I had every intention of working out at my prescibed 255 watts last night, however, at the last minute, I decided to change to an early morning road ride...

Well, that plan was thrwarted when my wife woke me up at 12:20am with complaints that she couldn't breathe well and she was having sharp chest pain. Many things take a back seat when you hear something like that.

5 min later, I have all the kids in the car and we are on our way to the ER. As it turns out, she has pluracy. It's an inflamation of the lining around the lungs. Bad new is that it hurts very badly, good new is that it won't kill you.

So, I was able to take a rest day. I hope to be back training tonight or tomorrow morning.

More wattage results

This is the first time that I have had residual fatigue from my CP20 workout. I must be getting close to my max. Last night I programmed the computrainer for 249 watts and started the ride after a 10-15 minute warm up . To my surprise, I was able to maintain 249 watts for 30 minutes again. My heart rate average was a bit lower than my 243 workout. Also, I noticed that my cadence was a bit lower. (96 vs 102).

I enter 249 watts for 30 minutes into an excel spreadsheet and now, my CP20 predicted wattage is 255watts. I'll try it tonight and see how long I'm able to maintain the new wattage.

I hope to get out on the road this weekend. It will be interested to see if I'm able to tell any difference. The next valid test will be the Rooster ride, next Tuesday.

Wattage workout results

In my 3/3 post, I mentioned that I was able to complete a CP20 workout at 221 watts. I was able to ride 20 minutes and 36 seconds. Training has been inconsistent on the road but I've incorporated more trainer workouts. These workouts allow me to do long consistent wattage workouts that are difficult to control on the road.

Monday night, I road 24 minutes at 240 watts. That correlates to a cp20 of 243 watts.
Last night, I road 30 minutes at 243 watts which gives me a new cp20 of 249 watts. Tonight, I plan to do my workout at 249 watts. I plan to continue to increase my cp20 wattage until I'm unable to ride a full 20 minutes. Once I reach a plateau, I'll change my efforts to work on other power ranges.

I'll let you know how it goes.