2010 Week 1

Sundays should be my long road ride but, lets be honest, there was no way I was going out on the road today. So it was back on the turbo - but what session should I do? I could simply replicate an easy road ride and sit on the turbo at a relatively low power level for 2.5 hours but that is the sort of session that makes turbo training insanely dull and boring. I mentioned on Mat's blog a couple of weeks ago a session I cribbed from Cycling Weekly last winter (or was it the winter before that?), that of 6 x 30 seconds flat out 4 mins recovery. Mat did the session and mentioned that it didn't feel that hard and so today I thought I would do this session but take it a step further. Or several steps further in fact.

I wanted to do an hour on the turbo and so after a 10 min warm up I did 10 x 30 secs flat out 4 mins recovery and then a 5 min warm down. Yes, this isn't a very long warm down but as the last 4 mins of the last rep were at a relatively low level I figured that was OK. So how was it? Well, as Mat said, doing 6 of these doesn't appear to be that hard; fatigue is certainly building up as the reps go on and there is a definite increase in effort required to sustain the 120+rpm (about 66kmh) that I do the 30 seconds at. By the 9th rep it was really hurting and I was unable to sustain 120rpm for the whole 30 seconds. On the 10th rep my legs had turned to jelly; I couldn't get up to 120rpm and even then the cadence simply fell away and there was nothing I could do about it. My legs had, quite simply, had enough.

So there you have it; 6 reps is manageable but 10 is definitely a much tougher proposition. Like Brainiac, I do these tests so you don't have to!

So, Week 1 of my 2010 campaign has been completed and despite the weather I clocked up 121 miles on the turbo. I'm looking forward to the weather improving but in the meantime I'm loving my turbo.

Oh yes, and we went sledging this afternoon as well. Great fun.

Train smart folks.