by SickBoy » 25 Feb 2014 19:07
(Finally found a little time to wrap this up).
So the final weekend of the tour, two workouts left, Blender and Violator, neither of which are what I would consider my sort of session.
Blender is a long stage, but mostly under threshold to begin with, it's just after that easing in that it goes into a bunch of sprints and then threshold blocks - looking at the profile it really is a weird looking workout.
Stage 8 - Blender
It hurts to climb onto the trainer - not just legs but my arms and shoulders are starting to suffer, it's almost more work having to hold myself up than pedal.
Don't have the video for this stage, didn't get around to DLing it so decide to have some music on instead which I think works pretty well. Considering I have in the past spent large portions of Sufferfest sessions not looking at the video, or even listening to it, perhaps this is the way forward!
Keeping things at 100% the first section of the session is pretty easy, I'm apprehensive of the sprints that start at the hour mark, during the recovery just before my HR comes right back down to around 130 and I feel good enough that I ramp up a little before the sprints start. As they come around I'm able to meet all the targets, it's a good workout IIRC, the intervals and recovery seemed to be timed just right for me, not too little, not too much. Just 3 x 4 mins at FTP to go, looking back at the TR trace I was working hard, good cadence 95rpm, power and HR both in the threshold range. 90min power record too!
My note to self after: "Not really sure how I managed this, but I did! Must be the more you do the easier it gets, like training or something!"
It's nice as it's Sat to have got this done in the afternoon - means I'll be able to spend the evening doing something other than looking at my stem
Stage 9 - Violator
So here we are, the final stage and nothing is going to stop me now. Sunday evening, the day has been spent out at the Fete des Neiges over at Parc Jean Drapeau, mostly hauling the kids up a hill to slide down on big inflatable rubber tubes, a fun day out if not ideal preparation. We had figured on just spending the morning out but it ended up being most of the day so here I am with just over an hour of the craziest looking workout I've ever seen. Lots of short efforts - I used to think I was good at riding tempo for long blocks and rubbish at this sort of thing but perhaps I'm wrong. Anyway have a look at the profie but there are basically intervals that drop slightly in intensity but increas in duration, you do a block and then the same again but with less recovery.
The first lot is easy because it feels there is masses of recovery between each. I'm even ramping up before each sprint so that I'm at the power level when the interval starts, hitting 450W+ at 100-110 RPM. My HR doesn't even get up very high in the tail end of the first block as each sprint is short.
2nd block is harder but I'm still hitting the targets, 3rd block is just crazy, 5 seconds sprint, 5 seconds recovery, it's hard just to manage what you're supposed to be doing, there's not enough time to transition from sprinting to spinning, gearing has to stay pretty much the same and cadence starts going up and down. The whole thing is a bit of a blur but I just about get through it, not quite reaching the power targets like before, HR is right up around 175 and has no time to recover, it almost works out as a 4 min block rather than 16 sprints. I almost lose it right in the middle but manage to pull it together as the timings get a little less intense, 10 sec sprint 10 sec recover - like I've said before it's easier to handle when you can see there's only a few short efforts left, and the tour itself provided me with a lot of motivation.
The 5 min w/d feels like it's taking forever and I just want to get off the bike but it's a great feeling at the end knowing I've finished it all. Knowing that I am one of less than 1500 people who did this and that over 1000 dropped out
Tour Summary...
A new FTP record to start, over 1000 TSS for the week and 12 hours of training
S1 - Rubber Glove - 1:00:09 - TSS: 73 - NP: 209
S2 - ISLAGIATT - 1:56:39 - TSS: 142 - NP: 209
S3 - Revolver - 0:45:38 - TSS: 77 - NP: 246
S4 - Hell Hath No Fury - 1:11:59 - TSS: 104 - NP: 228
S5 - Extra Shot - 0:22:25 - TSS: 36 - NP: 240
S5 - The Wretched - 0:49:28 - TSS: 71 - NP: 227
S6 - A Very Dark Place - 0:50:49 - TSS: 80 - NP: 238
S7 - Angels - 1:04:43 - TSS: 94 - NP: 228
S7 - The Hunted - 1:01:29 - TSS: 87 - NP: 226
S8 - Blender - 1:44:27 - TSS: 142 - NP: 221
S9 - Violator - 1:08:31 - TSS: 94 - NP: 222
Sent from Canada using my Nexus 4
Globally dominating Canada