IMAZ was contested yesterday. Most noteable for me at least, was that Scott Iott crushed it! In a way that was just downright scary. Almost exact same swim time as IMWI. A strong 4:52 bike to pull himself up to the top 5 of the AG..and set him up for a screaming run. A 2:58 effort! 1/2 of me says "I surrender". With my ongoing injury, shakey motivation and a little more focused on starting up coaching on the side. The other 1/2 say "F that!". Last season was really my 1st attempt and raising my game to really compete with the best. I can get faster. I can focus, make the best use of my limited time and crush it. So looking at my strengths and situation what does that mean? It means I need to bike with speed more like Zucco and have a 5-8' lead off the bike and hang on for my life on the run. Will that be enough.... not if Scott can roll a sub 3:10 at Kona. But it be fun trying and a great experience either way.
How do I accomplish that. I have 3 things planned for the offseason:
1) Raise my FTP or at least my overall "strength" by riding 6-7 days a week with 3 quality rides focused on intervals at 105%+ and otherwise zone 2 to keep up my overall training load. This should work well as I'm still not running.
2) Improve my aerodynamics through position - I'm trying a -35deg stem, but switched back to the OEM headset top cap. So I'm not quite 10mm lower. I went 5mm longer on the stem length. So now I'm even lower, but I'm rotating my hips further forward to maintain a similar open hip angle.
3) Improve my aerodynamics through equipment - Single front ring - I'm going to purchase a "narrow-wide" 54T aero front ring and run that with a 11-28 rear cassette and train to be comfortable at lower RPM's seated. I could go 11-32 or 11-34 but I think I'd give back some aero and the gaps between gears would get a little too large. The things to test will be if the chain stays on or drops, and what type of speed improvements do I see. Hard to objectively test those now that I'll be indoors. But we'll use some basic logic here. I'll have to fab a small aero "block" to go over the fr. der. hanger as it cannot be removed on a Trek SC frame. Falco is making this ring in a short run for a couple athletes including some pros looking for an edge. My buddy advises against it, sure I'll drop my chain and ruin any advantage it gives. I'll take my chances I guess.
This weeks training was unremarkable overall. I will note that I tried a couple Sufferfest videos with short sprints and I'm hooked. You get that slightly shakey feeling afterwards. Probably from using some fast twitch muscles. But I like it. Pound out 90 TSS in 1 hour easy!
By the numbers:
Swim: 2h59m, 12,950y
Bike: 6h4m, 121mi
Run: 0h, 0mi
Strength: 2h
Total: 11h09m
751 TSS
NOTE: the speed on my trainer at the resistance I want is running a little slow right now. SO my mileage is low compared to the effort. I'd say 2-3mph difference compared ot training set-up outdoors.
No comments:
Post a Comment