Week 8 – Starting to feel the pinch

This second week of this new block of training was certainly very challenging. The wattage ask has gone up and the legs are protesting already.

Monday was a public holiday but I resisted the urge to get out and ride. Tuesday’s session is an important one to come into as fresh as possible. So I did stocktake at the shop. The issue was I was going to be on my feet all day.

Tuesday rolled around for VO2 Max intervals and I was not as fresh as I needed to be. You know it yourself. You start turning the legs, even in warm up and the niggling doubt begins. The legs feel heavy and don’t respond. The warm up escalates and your legs are stuck back at the point you climbed on to the bike. I managed the first set ‘ok’, however the doubt had caught fire and the bomb was ticking. Set two needed a slight reduction in watts. Each interval harder than the one before it. By the time we reached set three I was hanging in by the skin of my teeth.

I got a lift to work so I could ride my new Zipp 303-S wheels home on the Cervelo Aspero. WOW WEE. These things are fast. Fast acceleration and really stable. Love them after 30 mins of riding. Wednesday I was due for an easy aerobic sessions, but after yesterday’s poor showing I thought better of it.

Thursday was Threshold day however for today it was with a difference. The difference being today I used training partner Dale’s trainer and she used mine. Dale’s trainer has been reading low. Mine has been reading high. Dale had been ‘concerned’ that she was not getting the workout she needed, but let me tell you she got it today. Mine was not as hard as normal (or as much as I probably required) but it was probably as hard as I could handle.

Friday was another welcome day off. I have found the last few weeks on my feet really hard for training.

Double session Saturday is something to look forward to – NOT! There is a saying. If you don’t fear the session its not hard enough! Well I certainly feared the first session. 3x3x5min Sweetspot intervals are tough. Effectively its 3 x 15 min sweetspot intervals with a 1min recovery every 5 mins. These are tough to hold. And yep I found them hard to hold. I was just hanging on at the end.

No Saturday goes by without the CCW Zwift Indoor Shop Ride. These are all about trying the bunch. Try and keep them together and keep them all motivated. We have a really great indoor bunch so that’s not too hard at all. By the time this session was done I was completely cooked. Shower. Coffee. Off to work.

Sunday’s weather forced me off the gravel and onto the bike paths. I would have dearly loved to take my new Zipp 303-S wheels on to the gravel roads of the Dandenongs but with the overnight rain they would have been pretty messy. Consequently, it was a bike path endurance ride. Even though it was a bike path ride I was pretty spent after this tough week.