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Had too many full-carb beers over the last two days so I was fairly well carbed up for today's workout. It shows how much of a difference in my heart rate glycogen depletion makes (50 watts more for the same heart rate).

My left shoe keeps popping off when I try to do maximal springs lately... guess its time to adjust it.

A bit about carbohydrate and fats for performance in today's cycling weekly.

Andy

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/fitness/how-to-burn-fat-cycling-163887
 
The idea of using exogenous ketones as a sort of carb-sparing fourth fuel souce is interesting. I doubt they're available here for a reasonable price, yet.

I didn't make it through "the wringer" so I laid down for a while and did 30 minutes 250 watts, which when carbed up isn't very hard at all. Maybe I should have gone for an hour...
 
Had my BF% measured today and I have lost about 1.3 kilos of fat in roughly one week. So only three months to go, I guess? Haha. As if anything was ever so simple.

Edit: Dang, it was actually two weeks.
 
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OTOH my average fat loss over three weeks has been 0.7 kilos per week, which isn't terrible. It just means I won't hit my goal weight until halfway through the season...
 
I too lost a bit of weight last week.

The usual weekly training blog pasted in below.

A few days of sunshine here makes me feel spring is around the corner☀️

Andy

 
Speaking of feeling terrible and getting off the trainer... The same thing happened to me today. I've never felt as weak in the legs before. I suspect I am just dehydrated since I weighed my lightest this morning despite having too many heavy European beers, pizza, and fish and chips last night. The carbs should have made me weigh more, if anything.

My heart rate was through the roof just warming up at 200 watts...
 
Speaking of feeling terrible and getting off the trainer... The same thing happened to me today. I've never felt as weak in the legs before. I suspect I am just dehydrated since I weighed my lightest this morning despite having too many heavy European beers, pizza, and fish and chips last night. The carbs should have made me weigh more, if anything.

My heart rate was through the roof just warming up at 200 watts...

Tanita scales are good as they measure water content too, so you can look at your hydration trends.

In the summer this will be a good feature for measuring fluid loss from riding and understanding how to refuel after a ride, or more importantly, how to fuel during a ride.

I like the zwift warm ups, particularly the 3 steps up in power/cadence and will adopt them for my pre race warm up.

Also the warm ups let you know your condition prior to diving into the workout, so if you're not in the right condition, you can pull the plug early.

Andy
 
Yeah, I keep all my print-outs from the hospital-grade Tanita scale I use. Usually my water weight tracks pretty well with my lean mass unless I eat way too much sodium or too many carbs. I actually felt weird even before I got on the bike. No idea why, other than dehydration.

OTOH, new weight record after getting off the bike, so that's a plus.
 
...
still living a "no beer life"!
...

I'm with you on that--about Jan. 10th or so my daughter asked me to stop until her next kid comes (mid-April, and she's been off since summer). She might have some other idea in mind for me from then on.
 
Sorry to jump in but I was wondering what kind of cross training people do - apologies if you've talked this one to death. Personally, I run a few times a week and I recently reintroduced swimming once a week. I'm also interested to know how your cross training might change as we get into the cycling season. I found that I really lost interest in running once the weather warmed up - I also had a bad calf which didn't help with my motivation either.
 
Just do whatever exercise you enjoy doing anyway. Since it's winter, winter sports seem like a good choice. Try speed skating, maybe?

Not a winter sport, but rowing might be something to try, since it's a nice full-body workout.
 
Just do whatever exercise you enjoy doing anyway. Since it's winter, winter sports seem like a good choice. Try speed skating, maybe?

Not a winter sport, but rowing might be something to try, since it's a nice full-body workout.

Cheers for the reply and the suggestions (speed skating does sound fun), tho what I really wanted to know was what others do during the on and off season (if anything). I'd probably class Pilates, yoga and weights as cross training but maybe that's not strictly true as they don't improve cardiovascular fitness a great deal🤔 Anyway, if you want to share what you do, that would be great.
 
Cheers for the reply and the suggestions (speed skating does sound fun), tho what I really wanted to know was what others do during the on and off season (if anything). I'd probably class Pilates, yoga and weights as cross training but maybe that's not strictly true as they don't improve cardiovascular fitness a great deal🤔 Anyway, if you want to share what you do, that would be great.

I did much less cross training this winter than in previous years.

I like swimming, running and futsal. I also did some judo, basketball and badminton with the kids at school.

By far my favorite cross training is snow shoes which actually comes close to the pleasure of riding.

This winter I didn't do much cross training but I did a record 60 sessions at the gym. I intend to go once a week during the season for strength maintenance. Though I say that every year...

Andy
 
I started uploading Zwift workouts to Training Peaks as well as Strava to have an idea of how much TSS I am doing.

Last night I did 97 apparently. That sounds like a lot.

People say not to overdo Z3 and Z4 workouts but somehow I get the feeling that if you had limited time to train and were only going to do one kind of workout, it should be sweet spot.

I don't consider things like yoga or weights to be cross training. Just physical training. Cross training is more like a tennis player playing soccer.
 
@andywood All great activities! I remember you mentioning the snowshoeing before, which must be great living in Nagano as you do. I do like the swimming at the moment and I'm looking to do that a bit more seriously this year - say building up to one hour structured sessions.

@baribari Very true. I do wish I could be one of those guys who can get into a regular routine of physical training + sports activities. If I could get that down in a manageable way, I'd really feel I'd cracked it!
 
Fudge, I gained 100 grams of fat this week.

Also, I seemed to have sprained my ankle (the same one) again and I have a saddle sore.

Sigh.
 
I'm not brave enough to get on a scale at the moment. I have been dieting for nearly three weeks now (and doing a bit more exercise). The collars on my work shirts are comfortable again and I've gone down a belt buckle. I'll probably give it a month and then ease back on the diet. I'm lucky as I'm going into the school holidays soon, so I'll have a bit more time to exercise.
 
I went full binge eat/drink mode at World Buffet (love that place) last night and was two kilograms heavier this morning due to carbs. On the other hand, I fasted until 4 pm and did The Gorby and I finished the it without issue. It was a world of difference from the other day.

Back to the diet. Hehe.
 
I'm no expert, but I find weighing myself every day really helps. There are daily fluctuations of 1kg or more, mostly after eating out / drinking. But if you plot a graph, and can see a trend, those spikes don't worry you so much.

DSC_0483.JPG

Having a beer now, so maybe another spike tomorrow morning😅

Andy
 
Wow, you did it on graph paper?! Old school.

I just put it into a spread sheet, which lets me plot a trend line into the future. Not that the trend line has ever actually been useful. Lol.

I actually lost most if not all the weight by the end of my workout.
 
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