The 30 Minute Climb Back To Victoria

That's what it felt like today!

On the way out it was rather gusty, but as i came off Interurban it had really picked up...and as i hit the water, look out! As i was cruising along Dallas just before Moss, i was pushing 250w, and going all of about 17kph. Normally along there i'm 40+! I could actually feel the wind blowing off my frame onto my legs...weird feeling.

For training today, i opted out of more O/U efforts today, as WKO was telling me my TSS has been too high, and my TSB hadn't rebounded enough after the weekend...plus legs were feeling chunky.

So decided to mix is up, and go out for 2hrs, and toss in some HSS (High Speed Sprint) efforts. Basically, you want to get up to speed (at least 45kph) and then get out of the saddle and sprint, and when spinning out sit and keep pushing. It's only a 10-12sec effort. I make it easy and do them at the bottom of a hill, so i can focus on the sprint portion of it. =)

I did my 'flat' loop, there's not a lot of elevation, but a few appropriate descents that allow for a sprint at the bottom (ie, not into a corner). First was just pass the uphill around Mt Doug...there's a spot where you pick up some speed. Next was the bottom of the hill past Mattick's. Then the decent on Island View (normally start my Tempo efforts there.) Bit of a gap after that, but turned onto Durrance Rd, went 3/4 up the first incline, turned and descended and sprinted there. Then the descent just past the Ob (road was clear). And final effort was the flat portion of the OBB sprint. Last one wasn't quite 100%, there was a lot of traffic and couldn't really ignore it... I intended to do one more on the waterfront, but the wind made that pointless, and i cut off Dallas Rd early on Moss St. It was just dumb slogging it out on there with no cover!

Pretty happy with my efforts. Haven't done these for a long while! All but the last had peaks in the 1150w range, pretty consistent hitting that. First effort was a peak of 1241w, 5sec was 1166w and 10sec was 1019w. Looks like my sustain was pretty good there, which surprises me!

I haven't been tracking my 10sec peaks (and this is a critical flaw of Training Peaks, imo..it doesn't track overall peaks, only for a short date range and i had to program in a couple charts to track that), but in the last month, the next highest was 966w in an OBB sprint. Happy to see i can hold over 1000w that long! Most of the rest of the efforts were mid-900's over 10sec. Last one, again, was lower, only 814w.

On each effort i typically gained ~10kph, usually starting around 45kph. On Durrance, went from 48 to 59. =)

This is fairly close to what i do on the track for a 200m effort...i'll do my jump in the 45kph range, but i'll usually get up over 60kph. All my efforts today were in the 200m range too. I wish we had access to the track...i'm guessing my 200m effort would be greatly improved, i don't recall holding quite that much wattage in the past..

Posted all my WKO data here: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgdbj3nx_23d8fsk6hc

Broke down all six sprints as well. I selected them all rather hastily, so the 'average' wattage may not be terribly useful, but the peaks and speeds are neat to compare.

Garmin file here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/26602365

Nothing too exciting there..i like the funny peak in elevation for Durrance..hehe

Climbing tomorrow, and more O/U efforts on Thursday.

Do it to it!

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