The more I think about it, I do ‘feel the need…the need for speed’ :)Â
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwNWviK5z0Q
My focus right now is getting the training plan setup for the beginning of January, to get a jump-start on the season goals…and part of that is finalizing the season goals.
I find myself intrigued by some of the Endurance Nation ideas. I guess what I find interesting about it, is that I’ve read quite a bit over the past couple of years about ‘intensity’ producing equivalent endurance results to ‘volume’, but this is the first time that I’ve seen a long course training program specifically and solely based on it…along with the feedback from a couple of years from a few hundred long course athlete’s…most other ‘studies’ seem to be goofy short, or small, or if replicated produce conflicting results.
In looking at the Endurance Nation stuff for the first 3 weeks of their OutSeason, every workout has a core Z4/Hard element to it (only exception is short brick runs off the bike), but they keep the volume down to under 7 hours a week, so it’s really premised on go-very-hard, but short…for 20 weeks ideally…and then add in the ‘far’ closer in to the event.
…not sure what their adjustment is for adding in swimming for nuts like myself that feel the need…or just terribly slow…or for bum knees…or if you simply have more time, and willing to spend it on training…presumably if the pro’s workout for 20-35 hours a week, they’re doing something with the time that’s worthwhile…or maybe not…I’m going to research this further.
That bum knee is the wild card right now. I ‘feel’ it on every run, but it doesn’t really ‘hurt’… swelling is the net effect…but not horrible…so presumably the torn meniscus irritating the joint.
I’ll be catching up with Coach Dinah for her input to the swimming thing this week…phone call on Monday, then an hour in the pool on Wednesday. My thinking at this point would be a weekly, one ‘lesson’ or drill focused session, one drills/form-focused swimming by myself to practice, and one ‘fast’…see if I can finally solve swimming this year.
In terms of running, ‘if’ the knee would hold up, I’d probably like to try out a high intensity approach, even if it’s for a few weeks to see what happens…’lab rat test of one’…I ‘should’ be faster than I am in the run portion of races…and it seems that I never race up to my potential in the run…although part of that is probably developing crushing speed on the bike, and then have a smart race ride, and leave some legs for the run.
In terms of cycling, I’ll talk with a couple of the local shops about the group rides, to add some speed motivation…nothing like trying to stay on the last wheel of a 30MPH peloton of 50 cyclists to get the heart rate up…like I did in Palm Beach a couple of winters ago…took me 2 months before I could complete that ride without getting dropped, and another 2 months to finish with the lead group…here are my log notes from a 3 hour ride on May 9, 2009:
It’s not often that I _really_ acknowledge, even to myself that I had a great workout, or that my fitness is even improving…but even I have to say that today was a really great day on the bike…hot 76F (@ 7am) finishing at 87F, and humid 90% going out, 57% by the end, winds pretty light 5-10MPH from the SE
– warmup ride down to the start of the group ride, and caught up with them as planned at Lake Worth 34 minutes into my ride
– long and the short of it was that I actually completed the group ride today with the lead group for the first time…too cool…never dropped, never off the back, no tip-over’s…lungs hanging out a few times, but able to stay in there…32.8MPH max, 24.9MPH average (and this includes a bit of a stop and go section through town for a few red lights), 139HR avg, 156HR max, 215W (norm 258W) average for the 52min….CP 5min was 308W (322W norm)…that was the 152HR avg, 156HR max section…that was part of the CP 10min at 272W (300W norm), 146HR avg
 – and it actually gets better…I’ve never actually had…at least specifically recorded… a 1 hour out and back or circle route over 20MPH…even as a young lad…so something that I’ve had in the back of head for a while to do…I ‘knew’ I could do it now, just never had, and wanted to see if I could do it without killing myself, and feeling like it was a sustainable speed
…and since I was already warmed up from the group ride, I thought I’d give it a try to see what happens on legs where the edge has been taken off a little already …winds were 5-10MPH from the south, so headed south to start…felt if I could maintain close to 20MPH going against the wind, I could make it up coming back…was taking about 210-220W to keep it there…first leg was 36 minutes…went a little longer when it occurred to me that I could make it a 40K Time Trial…213W avg, 20.1MPH, 132HR avg, 137HR max, so a nice high Z2 low Z3 as we now have it…didn’t know it at the time, but I thought I was close to 20MPH…180 turn, now with a bit of wind at the back, ended up coming back in 28 minutes, 212W avg, 22.4MPH, 134HR avg, 139HR max, so still mid Z3…had to stop at a red light with cross traffic near the end, so didn’t get all the way back to the starting point…short about 1 mile…so average speed would only have been higher since I was still with the wind…total was 1:05:26 at 21.1MPH, 133HR avg, 213W avg for 22.9 miles…and still had lots of legs left
– not bad for an old guy I’m thinking
– also left thinking that the Cervelo P2C with the ZIPP’s is fast…nice power to speed ratio
From what I’ve been able to find, it looks like the group rides this time of year, where I live now now are ‘B’ speed…under 20MPH…the long-slow philosophy…the fast stuff is in spinning classes…one of the bike shops has a weekly ‘pain-fest’ for 90 minutes on Computrainers…but it’s a mid-week thing, so not sure that if I have a specific time slot for a swim lesson whether I want to add another specific mid-day time slot for this…I know that I don’t want the 5:30am slot.
I’m going to add in the various dates that I have into the calendar, convention, vacation, trips, events to start getting more specific…and then find some speed.