The magic number, Etta James

But first the stats:
Swim: 5.2k
Bike: 6 hrs
Run: 58k

Fairly standard build week. The plan is too increase volume this week and further increase the week after. As mentioned in my last post, I'm in a 'hill phase' of my training, yup Tuesdays and Thursday are hillacious. Aaron and Cliff know what I'm talking about as they ran down the sucker during The Alton HalfIron extravaganza back in January. Here's how I do hills: run steady and evenly paced up, bringing HR to 20 beats less than LT, picking pace up at the crest of the hill focusing on a fast turnover. Easy run down, again picking up cadence in the last third.. rinse, repeat. No stopping.

The second part of hillacious Tuesdays and Thursdays are bike hill repeats. Bring the cadence down to low 70's rpm, crank up the tension and peddle away at 20 beats below LT. Just keep in mind this is strength work, not LT work. LT work is later in the season. Thursdays hill session was awesome, I'm now holding 300w at 20 beats below LT. A substantial increase in power in a fairly short time. Logically this is to be expected. For the last couple of years I was very dedicated in keeping my HR at 40 beats below LT and in the process built a decent base. Now that the shackles are off and I'm routinely training at 30 and 20 beats below LT, subsequent power increases are only logical. Logic be damned, it feels great!

For me, the magic number is 10. Ten is where I can feel the physiological changes kick in. Take the hill training example, after 10 hill sessions ( 1 or 2 sessions per week), the strength component really starts to kick in and you can feel the difference. It might be 10 weeks of base training, 10 long rides, or 10 weeks of Yasso's. Perhaps in tribute to Spinal Tap I should change my magic number to 11..

So Saturday was once again my day to do the Ergvideo Lake Place loop and I'm currently up to averaging 239 watts for the loop. I don't cheat, ie increase target power on the downhills, I just dial in what I want average power at the end to be, knowing full well there are easy parts and hard-as -in-I-don't-wanna-do-this-anymore parts. Coasting down the Keane descent is ummm.. well.. very easy, the bad news is your average power number keeps dropping and you're gonna PAY to get that sucker back up to your target. It was during such time I was 'paying' and I needed a little pick me up from the tuneage department. It was clear that Etta James just wasn't gonna cut it. Time to bring out the heavies.. Sandman by Metallica, and yes in this case the amp did go to 11..

Cheers!