AeT Bike Threshold

The floor after a 90 min spin......ewwwwww


5 am on a Saturday morning and who is up? Just your average triathlete. I have a busy day ahead and wanted to get my weekly grocery shopping in before the stores got busy..plus it was really the only time to do it. If you've ever shopped at Winco or a bulk foods store you know they get crazy and I'm not about to fight someone over a shopping cart again...another story for another day. I decided to pick up a turkey, for me, myself and I. Well it is 10 lbs so I'll probably give some to my mom and friends. I plan on making the turkey sometime after Thanksgiving, eat some on sandwiches, make a few casseroles and huge pot of turkey soup to freeze. 10lb turkey for $2.22, what a steal! I wish they had this kind of deal every week.

I got home about an hour later, unloaded the groceries and switched to training mode. I was going to try to get a read of my aerobic power threshold. I haven't been able to lately because I've beaten my muscles up so badly I keep experiencing muscle failure. This week the DOMS from cross-fit weren't so bad. I don't think my body is growing acclimated to the training, as it is different every week and different muscle groups hurt. I think my Zoot & Sugoi compression socks for the last two days have helped and the 75 min recovery spin I did yesterday as well. Lactic flush test worked...for the most part. Thursday night I experienced really bad restless leg syndrome during slumber, I got it again last night, but not as bad. I think I just woke because my hamstrings hurt, not that they were twitching, they just hurt. It also doesn't help I still have part of this cold which has moved on to my chest. But shit, I'm always going to have muscle soreness and energy fatigue. Power test was going to be now or never. Doing it on sore legs and tired energy levels I think is good, this will probably be my state for most of IM training.

I hoped on my trainer and took it easy for the first 25 minutes. I watched an episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. LMFAO off and almost fell off the trainer. It was the episode where Dee has a heart attack and they need to find work to get her health insurance. Then she goes to the gym with her brother high off energy pills and supplements and yells at the spin instructor because he doesn't have 80s music, then calls him a bumblebee biatch with his Armstrong tee and bike shorts...Ahahahahaha! Funny freakin episode, you've got to check it out. She also injects collagen into her bothers eye instead of botox. Oops. After the episode was over I threw on my power music and started high cadence spins, 1 min each leg X2 spinning over 100 rpms. Took it easy for another 5 mins and then went into the power testing. The objective was to not let my cadence drop below 80 (I'm a pedal masher I know), increase power by 20 watts every two minutes. I was able to get up to 210-220 avg with 82 cadence, my next 2 minutes I dropped the cadence to 78 and couldn't keep it. Now last Feb I got my Vo2 done on the bike and my Aet power was 200 watts at 176 bpm with a Vo2 max of 280 at 189 bpm. Today at 230 I was at 185 bpm. I think my HR was so high because of the Sudafed and I wasn't trying to reach max wattage so I'm not sure how much further I could have gone. Aerobic tempo pace for me is 183-189 bpm, so with that being said I think 220 is my AeT. Am I analyzing this correctly? I really don't believe that my power has gone up from last year....in all honesty I think it has suffered. I have improved greatly on my run which I think has had a negative effect on my bike. My quads have shrunk down to just about nothing, I've lost a decent about of muscle in my legs. But I have increased endurance, I can ride for much longer. Hmmmm, I don't know. I'm going to set my threshold at 200-220 and see how that works out. I did a few 2-3 minute intervals at 180-200 and then 4 x 1 min one legged spins at 145 watts. I finished off with an easy cool down spin for 20 mins. Trained for 90 mins....training indoors wasn't too bad this time around. My avg wattage to kg for 5 mins is 4.32 which puts me between good and very good on the Power Profile Grid. Thoughts or input on this testing is greatly appreciated.

I have a LOT of work to do this season.