Super 6: Phase III

Spinervals 39.0: Aerobic Base at 10,000 ft

39.0 Aerobic Base at 10,000ft

You know you are starting to get a bit hardcore when you know the Spinervals titles no longer only by name, but by number. 39.0 is becoming one of my all time favorites. It's an aerobic base builder (ABB) workout, which as a rule, can tend to be a bit boring because you keep your effort at an aerobic level. You don't have the excitement of wondering if you are going to puke or faint from the all-out efforts present in many of the other Spinervals workouts. You aren't deriving pleasure thinking about ways to torture Troy for inflicting whatever pain he's currently inflicting on you, or hurling curse words at him between gasps of breath. It's just .... aerobic riding. Well alrighty then. Yawn.

But this one is really, really fun, and the time somehow FLIES by. I think that's the case because it's fundamentally centered around a 30 minute pyramid set, that somehow feels like it's 5 minutes long. You work your way up the pyramid (1m, 2m, 3m, 4m, 5m) with 30s rests in between, then work your way back down, changing gears/cadence with each step to mix things up a bit. In no time you are on that 5m rep, then you are on the down swing. It really just flies by. By the time that wraps up, you are under the hour mark, and well, that means you are home free and the remaining sets go by lickity split.

The athletes and general chatter in this one are interesting and different as well, as it's located in Leadville, CO, home of the Leadville 100 mountain bike and ultra running races. These people are crazy!!!!!

Definitely a winner and a nice length at 1:25 - over that hour mark, but doable on a weekday before work. Check it out, I think you will like it!

The HardCore 100: Spinervals 26.0

"How can you ride your bike on the trainer for so long and not get bored?" 

I get that question a lot. Hell, I think when I first starting riding I *asked* that question a lot. And even after I was moderately experienced, I still thought this workout, a 5.5 HOUR trainer workout, was insane. INSANE. Seriously, who would do this, voluntarily???? Ok, ok. If you are Ironman training and you live in Siberia, I get the need. But for the rest of us? No way. I've owned it for years, because, well, I love everything Troy puts out and I like to have a varied collection of workouts. While during the intro and throughout the workout, he claims that we HAVE TO FINISH this workout if we start it. Well, I've done disc 1 (it's a 3 disc set) many, many times and it's a fantastic workout on it's own, and to date, Troy hasn't showed up at my house to take the workout back from me for disobeying the rules. :) So while I've owned this for years, I've never done it in it's entirety and never had plans to. Because, that's crazy talk.

Until this year's December Challenge that is. As usual, the Challenge ends on New Year's Day with, yup, the HardCore 100. I'd been off my bike from any serious training for quite a while, so the thought of a 5.5 hour ride at this point, even after the challenge, was sort of silly. Especially when four days prior we had a 3-6 hour (our discretion) ride scheduled. Prior to this, I'd done Tough Love, which is a very difficult 3 hour Spinervals workout a few times, and that was my longest ride EVER on the trainer. So for the 3-6 hour ride, I put in 3.5 hours and felt great about it. But..... by the end of that workout, I was DONE. My legs hurt. I had a wicked side cramp, and other, ahem, more delicate body parts hurt. How was I going to go an additional 2 hours, just a few days later?????

All I can say is that Troy outdid himself with this workout. It's coaching magic on film, it really is. The first two hours just fly by - you really don't even notice it, the sets are fun, the cast is fun and engaging, Troy is funny, you are done with Disc 1 before you know it. He gives you a 3 minute bathroom break and you pop in Disc 2. The key here, I found, was to not look at the countdown timer. Seeing 3.5 hours left after I had just finished 2 hours? That messes with your head. Just don't look at it, don't think about it, just follow the workout. There were stretches in here that took some mental toughness, the sets got a bit harder, my legs were getting a bit fatigued, and once I hit the 3.5 hour mark, a little bit of self doubt would occasionally try to creep in. "You are in uncharted territory - the wheels are going to fall off ANY SECOND! Just you wait and see!" Thankfully I was able to shut that down pretty easily, for the most part, and stick it out. Then, before you know it, those two hours are done, you get another 3 minute break, and then the real fun begins, at the 4 hour mark. Disc 3. You know how they say the 1/2 way point of the marathon is at the 20 mile mark? I think the 1/2 way part for HC100 is at the start of Disc 3. You only have 1.5 hours left - for endurance types, that's nothing, really. But .... you are 4 HOURS in. You are tired. Stuff is starting to hurt a little. And the sets are getting HARD. This is where the coaching magic truly happens. Every word out of Troy's mouth is perfect. When I was starting to lose my focus, he somehow knew, and said EXACTLY the right thing to snap me back into the game. When I was getting tired, he knew and said EXACTLY the right thing to make me forget about being tired, and to keep pushing hard. Magic.

I have to admit that I sort of lost it at about the 5 hour mark (!!!!!) when he announced there were 5 killer minutes coming up next. Killer minutes, as you might guess, are KILLER. At the 5 hour mark, they seem like ... suicide. I cried. Yup, I cried. For about 2 seconds I cried, then I mentally yelled at myself to stop being a baby and I killed those f&^%ing minutes (spoiler alert! Thankfully Troy is nice to us and we don't actually do 5....). Now, the wheels really are falling off, but there are only a few minutes left. I am going to finish this workout. I am ACTUALLY GOING TO FINISH THIS ENTIRE 5.5 HOUR WORKOUT, HOLY CRAP!!!!!!! But we finish with all out, 30 second sprints that honestly and truly make you see stars. But then it's over. It's over, it's over, it's over! And I felt like I accomplished something MONUMENTAL! I know it sounds silly - a workout in my basement. Big deal. But it WAS a big deal, and I was really proud of myself, and so very thankful for all of my Spinervals Team Members who were cheering me on (and me them) along the way all morning long via our quickie phone updates to FB. We did it!!!!!

Super 6: Phase III

It's on the schedule again (two times, actually!) over the next 6 weeks (Phase III of the Super6 started on Monday) and I can honestly say that I'm looking forward to it! I'm even more looking forward to how this will transfer over to my cycling on the actual road this season - wow.

It's going to be a great year!

Challenge Days 15-32!

December Spinervals 32-Day Challenge: Completed!

Well, I am a lousy blogger (with good intentions!), but I did really well with the challenge this year! I can't claim to be a true finisher as I missed a few workouts, but I did MUCH MUCH better than last year and really stuck to the schedule as best as I could. It was spectacular - hard, fun, everything I thought it was going to be and so much more. I love my bike. I hadn't been loving my bike much - not because of anything in particular that had anything at all to do with my bike, I had just needed a break and wasn't getting that itch to get back on. This challenge, by putting me on the bike almost EVERY day in December, was exactly what I needed!

But the best part? By far, the best part was really connecting with the other challengers who regularly post on the Spinervals Member Facebook page. What an AMAZING group of athletes, who all blow me out of the water, but who also all reply to my silly musings and laugh at my stupid jokes. Who convinced me I could do ALL of the Hardcore100 workout - all 5.5 hours of it, and who not only said I could do it, but cheered me along during those 5.5 hours. Many of us will never meet - we are simply too far spread around the world and it will likely never happen. But the camaraderie we shared during this challenge (and going forward) is so very real - it's a very cool thing.

Each year I do better with this challenge, perhaps next year I'll finish every single workout to the letter and make it to the Spinervals Finisher page. But in the meantime, I'm loving my bike again, and that is priceless!

I would encourage ANYONE to give these Challenges a try. You don't have to be an uber athlete to do them - you can modify to make them work to fit your fitness level and your schedule. But they are just so much fun - they could be just what you need to shake up your routine. We just started Phase III of the Super6 (6 weeks of 6 days per week on the bike) and it's shaping up to be another great run. Join the fun!!!!

Challenge Day 12

Day 12: 12/12/2012

And we keep plugging along!!!! Today we had a new one for me on the bike, and one I didn't already own, so I thought I'd give the download workout option a try. While I need to find a solution for increasing the volume more than I can using my laptop alone, it worked out GREAT. I have a ~4' step ladder set up next to my bike to hold various crap (chain lube, gels, extra water bottles if I need more than 2, Kleenex, etc.), and the laptop fit perfectly on the top step. If this were a 100% on the bike effort, I could use headphones, but with the on/off nature of this one, that wouldn't work. I just turned it up as loud as it would go and it was fine (I just like Troy yelling at me loudly!).

It was fun to see some familiar faces in this one - Brenda and Marilyn! Brenda is an old friend from another fitness board who, along with Nancy, convinced me I could get into triathlon. She also gave me the BEST advice EVER, at the start of my first race. "When you panic in the water, and you WILL, flip over on your back and backstroke while you get your nerves under control." I'm not sure I ever thanked her for that advice - she saved my swim. :)

Anyway - UltraConditioning 1.0, which has 4 working sets that each consist of a strength building bike set (big gears) immediately followed by some sort of squat set (super slow, squats for time, plyo, mixed of all 3). It was just under and hour and FUN! For some reason the big gear work comes easily to me - it's hard, yes, but it doesn't slay me like the wicked intense interval workouts do. Perhaps it's my strength training work over the years? Dunno. But the workout was fun and I got in a fantastic solid hour of work.

I had done well over 200 squats as part of the workout, but .... again, since I'm an OCD whack-job I felt the need to do my Squat/Plank A Thon squats anyway. So after about 5 minutes I did my 70 for the challenge and my 2:10 plank hold. Until we hit 3:00 I'm now doing a flat out push-up position hold for the full time (I had started mixing in some side planks to make it more interesting). I'll mix in side planks again (and perhaps some other crazy modifications!), but after we hit that 3:00 mark early next week - I want to hit that first!

Challenge Day 11

Day 11: 12/11/2012

After a LOVELY rest day yesterday (I did get in some really, really, really lovely stretching before bed) it was back at it this morning! I felt surprisingly great when the alarm went off - I thought the week was going to be a rough start, but the day of recovery was all I needed. I was up and raring to go, and 33.0 The Pain Cave was just the thing to kick us off! This is another multi-energy system workout. We cover both tempo work and high intensity sprinting work, with lots of rest in between sets so you can really go after each set with all you've got (for the high intensity threshold work - it was a bit of a challenge to keep the tempo efforts tempo efforts - I kept having to dial it back to stay in my tempo zones...). The last set contains all out standing sprint efforts, and I clipped 475W on the last rep - I WILL HIT 500W THIS MONTH!!!!!

The time flew by - it's nice when you get to the point where any workout less than 90minutes really and truly feels like it's no big deal. Yes, the intensity is super high, but it's over in a flash! Anyone can suffer for 47 minutes, right? :)

Then it was time to get back to the Squat/Plank A Thon Challenge - we are on the build up to hit 100 squats and a 3:00 plank hold over the next week. Today was 65 / 2:00. I split the squats in 2 (they are a tad more challenging AFTER the Spinervals workout when the legs are a bit fried) - 35 before the planks, then 30 after. I mixed up the plank as well: :30 normal, :30 side right, :30 side left, :30 normal, which was a fun change up. I LOVE side plank - I really feel it nailing my obliques.

Today is usually yoga at lunch at work, but I just got an email saying class was cancelled. I think I'll do more stretching at home before bed again tonight, I'm looking forward to trying the Gecko pose again!

Challenge Day 9

Day 9: 12/9/2012

Given the late workout on Day 8, I knew I wasn't getting up early to hit Suffer-O-Rama, the aptly named workout of the day. It felt lovely to sleep in a bit, but I did get in my Squat/Plank-A-Thon Challenge work early before I forgot about it (60/1:50 - it's getting serious, and my legs were not too pleased to have to work just yet...). With that out of the way, I just had to decide when to do my bike workout. Before the late afternoon dinner party? Or after I got home????

I decided on after I got home as the lazy morning turned into a lazy early afternoon. This was somewhat risky, as it would have been easy to say yes to a glass of wine with dinner and shoot all chance of a workout later that night. But I was VERY good and not only skipped the wine but ate sensibly, so when I got home at 8:30, I was feeling good. Thankfully it was a short one - under an hour.

It's a toughie though. I remembered the "5-Killer Minutes" from previous times with this session (they are, indeed, killer), but had forgotten all the standing work in the tempo sets. My legs were really quite fatigued from not only the 3 hours the night before, but from the cumulative effort of the week - the standing work HURT and my legs were a wobbly mess! I felt damn good on the interval sets though, which somewhat surprised me. I think because the reps are short - a minute max - so you can go all out and hold it. JUST when I felt I was about to lose it, it was over and we had a nice rest. This is definitely one of my favorite interval workouts - to the point, hit it hard, solid work in under an hour. LOVE IT.

Challenge Day 8

Day 8: 12/8/2012


Saturday. The long bike day. 3 hours. It's been .... years since I've done a 3 hour ride, and I think I've only done ONE 3 hour ride on the trainer and that was a VERY long time ago. I honestly had NO idea how this was going to go.

And it almost didn't happen today! I usually do my workouts early in the morning before the kids get up - get it done before the day gets away from me, especially these longer workouts. But last night The Girl Child snuggled into bed with me (it's been a while since she's done that) so when my alarm went off at 4:30am I promptly turned it off and snuggled back into her. It was also really nice to sleep in (until 8:30 - unheard of!) and I needed it. But .... when to then fit in the 3 hour ride? I was planning on swapping the Saturday/Sunday workouts, and getting up early on Sunday to get this long ride in. But as the day went on, I really wanted to do it per the schedule, even if it meant a late night, and while I had a busy day, I was feeling really good. The Sunday workout is a short one - just an hour, so I can squeeze it in easily at multiple times depending on how I feel. So ... after tucking The Girl into bed, and telling The Boy not to stay up too late playing video games with his buddies, I went down to the basement and started my workout at about 8:20pm.

We were to do 30.0 Muscular Endurance PLUS, which is a 2 hour, 25 minute workout, then tack on an additional 35 minutes to get to the 3 hour mark. Alrighty. I've had 30.0 for a while now but haven't done it, so it was going to be an adventure, and it was a grey zone workout, so it was going to be challenging. One would think that riding the trainer on "the road to nowhere" as Coach Troy calls it would be mind numbing. But this workout seriously FLEW by. The sets get progressively shorter so mentally you feel the time clicking away at a decent clip. I was nailing my zones perfectly and feeling really, really good until the last set. This one was tough - 6x5 minutes, and within each 5' rep, we changed gears every minute and either decreased or increased our cadence accordingly. Mentally, it was great - you broke up the long 30' set into 5' blocks, and those 5' blocks into 1' increments. Beautiful. But this all happens after you've already been riding hard for 2 hours, and this set is challenging - Troy is really pushing us here. This is when I started to hurt a bit - the legs were definitely turning to jello and I felt on the verge of cramping up a few times. But I never did and didn't have to decrease my effort, so I feel pretty great about the first 2:24 of the workout. Then the formal workout ended, and I had to rewind back to the beginning to repeat the first 20' set. This was SO hard to do - I wanted to be done. The people in the video were done!!!!! But .... it was a "suck it up, Buttercup" moment. Back to the beginning I went. At about this time I pretty much lost all feeling in my lower body so I just put myself on autopilot, watched my numbers to make sure I was where I was supposed to be, and kept the legs spinning round and round. I then ff'd to the last 5' sets to finish off the time and nailed the full three hours. THREE HOURS!

I did well with hydration and nutrition - felt strong and solid the entire time, which is great. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to do Suffer-O-Rama (best title ever, no?) tomorrow as I think just walking down the stairs might prove difficult, but thankfully it's a short one. Anyone can suffer for an hour, right?

Thank GOD I did the Squat/Plank A Thon (55/1:40) early this morning, as I'm not sure the legs could do anything resembling a squat right now. Tomorrow's 60 could be ugly. :)

3 hours and nearly 43 miles on the Road to Nowhere

Challenge Day 7

Day 7: 12/7/2012

Day 7 of the challenge - a full week down! Woo Hoo!!!!!! I'm feeling the cumulative effect of the week - I'm tired. I've been getting a good sleep at night which is great, but I am most definitely tired. Today I took a vacation day to get some Xmas shopping taken care of, which meant I could sleep in a bit and that helped a lot. We had one of the virtual training rides on the schedule today, one that I've actually done for real! Gates Pass in Tucson AZ,which is an AMAZING ride. I was looking forward to the re-creation today. The virtual rides follow Coach Troy as he rides the route with a camera van following along behind him. We get to see the ride from Troy's helmet cam as well as from the van camera - we really get the simulation of riding along with Troy. As always, the workout tells you your gearing, cadence and perceived exertion, so we can feel how we'd be feeling if we were really there.

This was particularly fun because as I mentioned, I've ridden this route before, a number of years ago, when I attended Coach Troy's March training camp. It was an INCREDIBLE experience and I can't wait to go to another camp soon. The Gates Pass ride was my favorite of the trip, although the back side of the pass is a brutality that is impossible to describe. Granted, I was a VERY new rider and really had no business attending camp at that time, but I'd venture to guess that this climb would still be brutal for me today. The workout did a great job of simulating both the rollers of the McCain loop (my absolute favorite part of the route - this is so much fun in real life - roller after roller after roller, through an amazing Saguaro forest) and the back side climb out to finish the ride. Troy happened to point out the parking area at the base of the backside of the pass where I pulled over to contemplate the climb. I still distinctly remember stopping (big mistake!) and just looking at it thinking "No Freaking Way." Thankfully a passing rider yelled out some encouragement which helped me get my head right and get moving, but it was ugly. I want to go back to show it that this time I won't be scared and will kick its ass. :)

This was my kind of workout - mostly a tempo workout which I like, with some hard climbing sections mixed in. I felt really good throughout and had a lot of fun. Thumbs up!

After the 1:15 bike workout, I tacked on today's Squat/Plank Challenge: 50/1:30 - after the tempo/climbing my legs were toast so this was tough today. I split up the squats - 25 wide stance / 1:30 plank hold / 25 narrow stance which helped a lot.

Tomorrow is a 3 hour aerobic ride. Some folks are doing Tough Love, but that's on the schedule for next week and I can't stomach the thought of doing it two weekends in a row! I need to build up to that beast. :)

Challenge Day 6

Day 6: 12/6/2012

Day 6 of the challenge and still going strong! I had a full day downtown with an early start, so I had to get up extra early to get the workout in. I was not pleased with the 4:40am wake up, but I thought of a fellow Spinervillain (thank you Cleda for the group name - love it!) Shaker, who gets up at ... seriously, get this ... anywhere between 2:45am and 3:00am to get his workout in before he needs to go to work. Ok, if Shaker can get up before THREE FREAKIN' AM, I can get up at the comparatively leisurely hour of 4:40am.

After a few tough days in a row, we had a nice 1:20 aerobic ride on the schedule. It was quite wonderful, and I am surprised at how pretty much ok my legs are feeling! Tomorrow will close out week 1 of the challenge - time flies when you are sweating buckets and having fun!

I wrapped up with the 45 squats and 1:20 plank hold on the Squat/Plank challenge schedule. I'll admit that the squats are starting to get tough - the last 5 required a bit of mental toughness. Tomorrow could be interesting, especially since they will come right after a hard hill workout on the bike (legs, legs and more legs!).........

Short but sweet today - busy day, almost time for bed (it is after 8pm after all!). See you all tomorrow!

Challenge Day 5

Day 5: 12/5/2012

Last night I cleared out some space to the side of the bike so that I could give UltraConditioning 5.0, Total Body a whirl. All we needed was a stability ball and one set of dumbbells, so I thought I could pull that off in the very limited space I have next to my bike set-up. I have had this workout for a LONG time now, but have never done it because I didn't think I'd have the room for it. I'm glad I gave it a shot, it was FUN!!!!!

I definitely know that I've been working hard on the bike for a few days straight now, but I felt surprisingly good this morning. I set my alarm a little earlier to make sure I had plenty of time to get the workout in (and I'd like to slowly eek my wake-up to 4:30am as I'm pushing it a bit with the 5:00am time - I'll leave it at 4:50 for a few days, then move back another 10 minutes incrementally until I get to 4:30....), and while I was cold and really didn't want to get out of my warm bed, it was easy to get rolling once I finally threw the covers off and got moving.

The workout is structured really well - you warm up on the bike (duh), then continue to warm-up on the floor with squat thrusts. Those of you who know me know that I love working out. I really do. I love everything about it for many, many reasons. But .... I hate squat thrusts. Hate. Them. It's not that I find them particularly difficult, I just feel like a clutz doing them for some reason (I blame being tall - too much leg to throw around that quickly!), and when I start to get a little tired, then I really feel like a spaz, flinging my legs back, heaving them back in.... Ugh. Not a picture of grace by any stretch of the imagination. So when we finish off the set of 10, I think "Thank god that nonsense is over! Hopefully he doesn't have any more of these later in the workout..." Yes, you know what's coming. At that moment he of course announces that we have 2 (or was it 3?) more sets of 10 to complete this floor session. GACK! I was damn happy to get back on the bike. :)

We then tackled single leg drills, squats/lunges/squats, super spin sets, core work, tempo sets, squats/lunges/squats, power sets, core work, and then "burnout" sets (both on and off the bike) complete this great little 90 minute workout (about 50m of bike time, 40 of off bike time). It's solid hard work both on and off the bike, and it's really, really fun. And during the power set I saw a max power of 432W!!!!!!! That is a beast of a number for me, so while it was fleeting, it was pretty cool to see. Now to just to be able to hold even 1/2 of that for a length of time.... :)

While I ABSOLUTELY had the requirements for the Squat/Plank A Thon covered with the workout itself, I chose to do it anyway after I finished. So I tacked on 40 squats and 1:10 plank hold for good measure. My legs are pretty toasted.

I am already discovering a few benefits of this challenge, in addition to the new friendships being formed as mentioned in the previous post. I have been having some issues with insomnia lately (some personal stuff flying through my head at night keeping me awake until WAY WAY WAY past my bedtime), and that was slowly driving me batty. Since the challenge started I now sleep like the dead. THE DEAD. If I can make it to 9:00pm it's a late night for me, and I'm asleep before my head hits the pillow. Bliss. I also wake up feeling great. I am AWAKE and ready to go, which means I'm really sleeping well. I also feel a little leaner already. I don't have anything really to lose, other than those 5 vanity pounds that everyone always has, but I think I'm dipping into those vanity pounds already. I'll take it!

Tomorrow is an easy day with an 80 minute aerobic base builder on the schedule, which will be refreshing after the last 2 tough workouts. I'm feeling good about the rest of this week until we get to Saturday, which is a 3 hour ride - it's been a while since I've been on the bike for 3 hours, so this could be interesting. I really like the 2.5 hour workout Troy has on the schedule, and for the extra 30 minutes I'll tack on an episode of Weeds, which should do the trick...

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Challenge Day 4

Day 4: 12/4/2012

Testing Day. Ouch.

I was beyond exhausted last night. I tried to watch Christmas Vacation with my son, but had to cry uncle at 8:30 when I simply couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I kissed him goodnight, went upstairs and set out my workout clothes for the next day. Testing Day. Ouch.

I slept like a corpse and when my alarm went off I silently prayed for the ability to turn back the clock another couple of hours. After staring at the clock for a few minutes to only watch it mock me by continuing to move ahead in time, I reluctantly got up and got changed. It was Testing Day. Ouch.

While I've been training regularly, I have primarily been on a strength training kick so my bike fitness is not where it was back in the good old days when I was tri tri tri all the time. As a result, my cycling associated body parts aren't either. Meaning, certain more "delicate" areas are feeling the effects of the last few days on the bike. When I hopped on this morning there was protesting. "Again? Seriously woman????" Thankfully after the warm up I felt surprisingly settled in, and after the first lead in set I was actually feeling hopeful about my numbers for the test.

Test? What is this test I keep mentioning, you ask? For those who aren't Spinervals or cycling training freaks, we need to regularly perform a Time Trial (TT) test to compute our training zones. Some days are easier, aerobic days. Some days Coach Troy makes us feel like we are going to vomit. Other days we question our sanity and plot ways to kill Troy in his sleep. We need to know what it means to work in those zones - what numbers to target, either heart rate, or power. I have a power meter and am ALL about training with power - it is a huge motivator to lock in on that power number and either hold it, or try to beat it during these workouts. It's such a powerful number for me personally (pun intended!) - a direct measure of how much power I am applying to those pedals to make that wheel spin. From MY legs. It's not artificially elevated because I got a lousy night's sleep or am on the verge of a cold (as can happen with heart rate). It doesn't take time to build as you start to work and time to drop as you rest. It's a direct measure of instantaneous power, pure and simple. And when you retest and your average power for the TT is higher than it was last month? Yeah, that's money right there. Fitness improvements, in your face, in black and white. Your body had changed, whether you feel it or not. Truly priceless.

The downside of this is that the test hurts, and hurts bad. Troy thoroughly warms us up, then we start a HARD 20 minute TT effort. You dial it in, then you hold on for dear life. For 20 minutes. There is a skill here to knowing how hard to start out as you do NOT want to go out too hard and fade over the course of those 20 minutes. You also don't want to hold too much back and finish thinking that you could have gone a little harder. The way I describe it to first timers is that when you hit the 10 minute mark, you should be struggling mentally. Your legs should be burning and you should be VERY uncomfortable. Not yet dying (or praying for death, that comes later), but you should be struggling. Mightily. You should be thinking "I'm REALLY not sure I can hold this for another 10 minutes." If that's how you feel at the 1/2 way point, you are on track for perfect pacing. Then you mentally break it into 2x5' sets. You make it through the first 5' (come on, it's only 5 minutes, you can do this, just keep spinning those legs and do NOT let off...), and are REALLY hurting. Now you are thinking that there is NO WAY you'll make it another 5'. So you mentally break it into 5x1' sets. You can do anything for 1', right? Right. So go do it 5x (this is when you might start to pray for death). :)

That's how I handle these tests. That last minute hurts like nothing you've ever felt, you really feel like you might throw up, but you keep pushing. I stare at my power number on my bike computer and try to increase it, even if only by 1W to make sure I don't let myself fade. Sweat is literally pouring off of me, but I just let it. There is nothing else but my legs and the pedals and that power number - I'm in a weird robot-like state.

And then you here those glorious words "Three, Two, Oooooooonnnnnnneeeeeee!" as Troy announces that you are done. WOO HOO!!!!! The good news is that my numbers didn't suck as much as I was expecting!!!! I am a far cry from where I was when I was in top cycling shape, but not by as much as I was expecting. That's good. Very good! I can't wait to see how they improve over the course of winter training.

I've also been having a BLAST keeping up with the other Spinervals Members on our FB page. There are a LOT of us doing the Challenge and it is such a great motivator to know there are people out there suffering like you are, and who are expecting to see your daily check-in posts. There can't be slacking when people are watching!!!! It's a great group of people who are extremely welcoming and fun. And some seriously talented athletes - very inspiring. If you are interested, I highly recommend joining - they have a variety of options and all are very reasonable, and you get fantastic discounts on DVDs, training camps and training plans. And access to the FB page where all the coolest kids hang out! Membership Information

After finishing the workout (it's an hour total - the TT is the main brutality, but he's got a few other sets worked in to make it a solid stand alone workout) I wrapped it up by doing my squats/plank for the day (today was 35 squats followed by 1:00 plank - my legs were a tad wobbly toward the end of the squat count, that's for sure!).

A great way to start the morning!

Challenge Day 3

Day 3: 12/3/2012

My View From the Bike in the HOP

After getting home a little after 11pm last night from my weekend out of town, I was a little worried about the 5am alarm.... But I also knew that if I didn't get up, the bike workout would not happen, and I am NOT skipping any workouts this challenge, and certainly not on day 3! Surprisingly I had no issue at all when the alarm went off - hopped right up, got changed, and headed to the House of Pain (HOP, otherwise known as my scary basement). It's been an embarrassingly long time since I've been on my bike, so I first had to deal with flat tires (I need to run out today to get a new bike pump - it gave up the ghost as I was finishing the job) and lubing up the chain. Then, GAME ON!

Post Workout Happy Face!

Today had 17.0 on the schedule ABB II, one of the few Spinervals in the Comp series that I do not own. So I pulled out 25.0 ABB V, which is a 2 hour compilation workout (containing bits of ABB II!) and did 1:20 worth of that workout. It was a slow start - the legs weren't feeling the love initially, and I had forgotten to turn on the floor fan so I was HOT initially which didn't help matters. After the first set (4x5') and realizing the fan was off and fixing that issue, I settled in and felt really, really good for the remainder of the workout. I was even a bit disappointed when I hit the 1:20 mark - I would have liked to keep going! But that's about as long as I can fit in with a 5am wake up, so regardless I had to get off the bike. And tomorrow is our Threshold Test - pain, pain, pain. Adding in extra work today would have been stupid.

When I emerged from the HOP I did my 30 squats and :50 of plank that were on the schedule for the Squat/Plank a Thon to wrap up the morning. We've got a strength/flexibility workout on the schedule today as well, so after dinner tonight I'll get in an UB workout.

Day 6: Pushing the Big Gears

Today was Day 6 of the Spinervals 32 Day Challenge - an oldie but a goodie!!!! I like these old school Spinervals - 11.0 Big Gear Strength consists of sets entirely completed in Big12 or Big13, with a mix of standing and seated work while in those monster gears. Troy is classic Troy - literally SCREAMING at us to push, Push, PUSH through the last few seconds of the sets. Calling on us to "finish with some PRIDE!" And my favorite Troy-ism: "Three, Two, Oooooooooonnnnnnnnneeeeeeee. Now soft pedal." It's fabulous. These big gear workouts are ones where I can actually keep up with the prescribed gearing - some of the workouts are a bit crazy in this regard. I'm currently simply not even CLOSE to capable of riding *aerobically* in Big15 at a cadence of 90 for extended periods of time. But in this workout, I can push Big12 HARD for the minute-long reps and love every leg burning second of it. The time flew by, and before I knew it, it was time to climb out of the HoP to start my day, already feeling accomplished.

Hilarious crazy morning hair, on top of being a sweaty mess. 

Tomorrow is where my resolve to stick with this really kicks in - I'm on a plane at 6:00am and am traveling through next Wednesday night (Boston -> Atlanta -> DC -> Tampa -> Boston). That is 8 days on the road, 8 days away from my OWN bike, my HoP, and stuck on a "cardio machine" type bike in the hotel gym (fingers crossed that they even have one!). But here me now: if there is a bike in the gym, I'll be on it. I'm packing the scheduled workouts and will play them on my laptop, and do my best, putting in the time and effort. It won't even be CLOSE to my usual experience, but it will simply have to do.

Back on the Bike: 32-Day Spinervals Challenge

Yeah, it's been awhile.....

After a crazy few months of LOTS and LOTS of work travel and therefore not much swimbikerun (but lots of strength training, which has been a fun diversion), I'm itching to get back to tri training so I can start '12 feeling strong and READY. I am going to Coach Troy's training camp again this March and want to arrive in tip-top shape when I tackle Mt. Lemmon - I'm totally getting to that pie.....

So.... When I saw that Troy came up with this RIDICULOUS 32-Day December Spinervals Challenge, I was in. At first, he was planning to slaughter us with crazy long/hard Spinerval workouts EVERY day from Dec 1 - Jan 1, but after thinking through a bit, he's adjusted it a TAD. It's still ridiculous, mind you. It's going to hurt, and hurt bad. And I'm so stoked about it I can't contain myself!!!!!

Today was Day 1 - I'll try to blog every day, even if only to specify the workout and a brief comment (such as: "I freakin' hate Troy today!!!!" j/k Troy - you know I love you!). Today was 27.0: Threshold Test and Sufferfest. In a nutshell, this workout serves two purposes: it's a great threshold building workout designed to boost your anaerobic threshold and sustainable power output for time trialing events including triathlons, and it also functions as a repeatable field test used by many prominent coaches and exercise physiologists to determine an athlete's Functional Threshold, or that output of work (power) one can sustain on average over a 20 minute period. We were using it for the latter task today, to set our zones for the workouts for the remainder of the challenge.

It's essentially an hour workout with a 20-minute segment of hell in the middle (the TT segment). I'm excited to see how the challenge will improve my numbers when I retest in January!

It was great, and I mean GREAT to be back on the trainer this morning at 5:30am. It was brutal - there is something about that zone you get in during the last 5 minutes of a TT effort - where you are praying for either death or natural disaster to allow you to get off the bike right now, but somehow, SOMEHOW you are able to dig deeper and hold on to your target numbers and you don't let go. That feeling is truly incredible. When you finish, and finish strong (seemingly an impossible notion mid-way through the workout), you feel like a ROCK STAR. Awesome. Just awesome.

I lost approximately 42 lbs of sweat during the hour workout, and I'm SO happy. Clearly.

Let's Get This Party Started!

Holy Hell, that was a BLAST.

Stay tuned for my daily updates!!!!! And check me out on Facebook as well, where I will be regularly commenting about the challenge on my page as well as the Spinervals FB page. And if you are inspired, JOIN THE FUN!