Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Tuesday 3 mile progression hill climb

6 mile warm-up down to Gross Dam. Then a 3 mile hill climb with 1100ft of gain done as a progression by HR.
1 mile at HR 155-160 (jogging).
1 mile at HR 160-165 (tempo or aerobic threshold).
.5 mile at HR 170-175 (threshold).
.5 mile at HR 175-183 (ouch).
Not a great time on this climb for me at 24:45. It felt like I was flying but the watch didn't show it. Yesterday was a 3 hour hard bike (6500ft vertical) and Sunday was a long bike (9200ft vertical) so my legs aren't sharp.
3 mile jog home.

Damie, one of my Ironman athletes, raced Memphis In May Sunday and killed it winning her age-group after suffering through enough bad luck to make anyone else quit. Her race report to me read like an exercise in dealing with everything that could go wrong. I'm quite impressed and that's not easy to do.

4 comments:

Damie said...

Rapture 2011 must surely be getting near. First my mom told me "good job" on the weekend, and now a shout out from Tim? Something big is about to happen. :) Thanks- the best days are always the hardest.

Lucho said...

Nah, if the rapture were true I wouldn't be here... NOT!
You raced awesome.

Rick said...

I think you mentioned that you felt a little sluggish on the climbs Sat, but you were obviously going pretty fast. And for this one you felt fast, but the watch didn't show that. Alost opposite type PE's. Any thoughts on that? Or, just normal at this point in training?

Lucho said...

Rick- I thought about that also. On Saturday there was a ~.75mi flat lead up to the climb and I hammered it. Maybe switching suddenly from flat terrain to a 10% grade, and some lactate, caused me to feel heavy? Also I think I was pushing pretty hard and there were a few ~15%-20% grades in there, not sure you can feel 'snappy' up that grade when you're redlined? I also had a bit of fatigue during the race from a couple of solid bike sessions mid-week. Lots of possibilities.
Yesterday on the 3 mile climb I am positive that I lost time in the first mile by keeping it so relaxed (155 HR is 20 beats below my LT, which is basically jogging). The idea was a progression with the goal of not ever blowing up and needing to slow down to recover (think Evans). In past TT's I would start hard and hang on. So there was the reason for a slower time.
When were training hard or with higher volume our PE becomes much less predictable as recovery (or lack of)between sessions becomes a major factor. Often times the disparity in effort at a given pace can be huge. During the last phase of training the goal should be to go in to every key workout as rested as possible so your PE and performance become more predictable. 2 days of recovery training between every hard workout is the ideal.