Friday, June 20, 2008

Da PMC is da goods

What the? Nevermind. ;)

My re-introduction to training continues, this time with a 30-minute effort on the bike trainer this morning. So, I have ridden on the trainer six out of the last eight days.

This is shown in the chart below, which assigns a "training stress" score to each day's training as shown by the light blue columns.



The number shown bottom right is my "Chronic Training Load" an indication of how much training I've been doing over the last several months.

Not surprisingly, a CTL of 4.2 TSS/day tells me I've not done much training! Consider that my peak CTL for the last season I raced was 100 TSS/day and I have a long way to go!

But the good bit is I've been able to increase what I do on the trainer through the week, and the half-hour effort this morning is starting to get into the realms of useful aerobic training. I was watching some TdF highlights while riding. 2006 when Floyd Landis cracked on the climb to La Croix de Fer. I wasn't on the bike long enough to see it finish but Rasmussen wa on a solo break away, with Levi Leipheimer pursuing.


Speaking of Rasmussen, check out this You Tube clip of a commercial featuring Rasmussen. It's pretty funny. But you gotta understand why. It's not in English (well not much) but anyone who follows cycling will get it.

Here is the pic of the power meter file for this morning's ride. 144 watts total and a 20-min max of 156 watts. I reckon that's a pretty encouraging start to my training.



Bring on that new cycle leg attachment and look out!

6 comments:

Gavin said...

Nice work Alex, these must be exciting times!

Best of luck with your comtinued recovery

Gavin

Alex Simmons said...

Thanks Gavin.

Next week will be fun - some interesting technology is going to be taking shape....

Ade Merckx said...

Keep banging out those watts Alex! the show must go on :-)

Anonymous said...

Alex you are making significant progress. What is you IF? I might suggest that you need to speak to your coach as your CTL appears to rising quite quickly given the small amount of time you are spending on your bike ;-)
cheers peter

Alex Simmons said...

Peter is of course being a cheeky bugger :) My FTP is currently set to 150W.

Given 2 weeks ago, 10-min at ~100W was about all I could bear and last night I did 30-min with an NP of 162W, I'd say I can manage 150W for an hour OK.

I'm not ready for testing just yet but will once my indoor ergo is ready to rock n roll.

Once I can do 150W for an hour indoors, then I go outside for a ride.

Not far now....

Anonymous said...

Great work.