Wednesday, February 18, 2015

my insane family...

so memories that bubble up over time....

I have a distinct memory of my father launching himself off his recliner to come wrestler with me...
I was on the floor playing with something, and suddenly there's my dad on top and we wrestel. Nothing shocking standard father and son behvior (think I was 8 or 9 maybe?).

Mom was in the room and kinda shocked at the time, not sure how to respond.

After we were done we helped dad back into his chair...

Oh by the way... by dad is a parapelgic. See he knew he  was commiting himself to a one way action just to play wiith his son.

This sort of stuff sticks with me... enjoy the moment, espeicially when it's with your children.

Not a downer in my mind just a reminder to enjoy what I have.

Monday, February 16, 2015

two rides at the new FTP... ouch

So Sat & Sun did two rides at the new FTP level... Sufferfest vids again, Revolver, then A Very Dark Place.

Revolver:
this one consists of 15 1 minute full on sprint efforts then 1 minute of recovery. Very ouchy... In my case after the first 5 efforts I knew my legs weren't going to keep it up so I dialed it back 10% effort wise (TrainerRoad has an adjustment so you can dial back the plan if you need to.)

It's a good workout, but rough as you're doing one effort after another.

A Very Dark Place:
More designed for strength/power this is five 4 minute efforts at or above FTP. It's a mix of high cadence and then low cadence with resistance to simulate hills.
I"ve done it before, so at the higher FTP definitely more of a work out. But I didn't have to dial it back was able to get through it and pretty much stick to the power goals.

So in short... yeah I've needed to re-examine my FTP for a while, now these rides feel like work. But still fun I enjoy the music and sarcasm in the vids.

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Thursday, February 12, 2015

So next phase of indoor cycling...

So last night I finally did a FTP test... a.k.a. Functional threshold power, a measurement (via power meter, or in this case "virtual power" in watts) that is used to set the level of effort for my indoor rides.

http://www.trainerroad.com/career/sceptre1067

Essentailly Trainer Road will adjust the ride based on your FTP, so you have a better idea as to what level of effort you should be at. 

The good news is my FTP is up, now at 194 vs the year old 163. The bad news, workouts will now be harder. 

So the Sufferfest videos will now come with a new level of suffering... woohoo.

Virtual Power - to explain that... I don't have a power meter but, because I have a known brand of stationary trainger (Kurt Kinetic Road Machine) the amound of power can be estimated based on the speed of the rear wheel. Turns out to be fairly close to actual power (w/ in 5% to 10%). So indoors at least I get the advantage of power training w/out the expense of a power meter. The Trainer Road software reads takes care fo the conversion.

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Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Cycling so far in 2015

So first off... completed my first half marathon in beginning of January at Disney World even. Overall didn't prepare enough, so walked a lot of it, but still got out there and did it.

Cycling...
Next goal completed was the Tour of Sufferlandria, nine days of indoor cycling to the Sufferfest (www.thesufferfest.com) videos. Good vids to bike to, somewhat tough (did the 9 days at 90% on Trainer Road). Like the occasional sarcasm to break up the vid and the work out.

So next up... re-test my FTP (functional threshold power) to see where it stands... then several weeks of indoor cycling to prepare for the "season".  

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