From Zero Fitness to BWR - Comeback Story of 2020

stb222

Love Drunk
Jerk Squad
curious to see how "time crunched" endurance training pans out. BWR sounds fucking brutal from the description... like, whoever wrote that was feeling metal AF at the time.
Well, time-crunched doesn't take into account the 15 year cycling base @Pearl has, regardless of how much he rode in the last 6 months

If you and Pearl do this ride, my money is on him.
 
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Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
Most plausible answer yet. Still wondering what BWR is, and if hand-ups are allowed.

belgian waffle ride (east). pearl baited ryan into doing it. solid entertainment (the way he slow played it)
 

UtahJoe

Team Workhorse
Team MTBNJ Halter's
i like the bike, but I hate that seat...and please tell me your wearing a full face.
 

Pearl

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
Thursday
I was getting ready to ride but then I got a call from Jacks school, apparently he was being a little shit so I had to go pick him up and make him sit in solitary confinement until I picked up #2. Eventually he got bored and crashed on the couch, for 90 minutes.
image0.jpeg

Tough day.

That means I did my workout on Zwiftopia after crushing almost two full pies of flatbread pizza, which almost came up towards the end.

Whats wrong with my scoot seat?
Yes, I do wear a full face, seems to be the most responsible thing to do. That bike screamed 90s, so now it looks a little more modern, dont ya think? I wanted to get a different style seat that also had the little cafe racer hump in the back, which I still might do, but was too antsy to get it going and that one fell in my lap.
Image result for cafe racer

That Time Crunched Plan, or two

Kevy isn't too far off with that time crunched plan, and it worked for me last year. Granted I didn't do any 100 mile races, most of them were 60-70 miles, It took me where I wanted to go. I also didn't do the extra volume on the weekends, since I knew my races wouldn't go over 3-4 hours. Some weekends it did call for 5 hours Saturday, 3 hours Sunday, but I kind of just whiffed it. Actually, last year, I only rode over 10 hours a week twice.

I know it doesn't make sense from the outside. In the beginning, its always just "RIDE MORE RIDE MORE" and it works. And its fun. At some point, in my findings of cycling fitness, just throwing hours/miles at your legs only gets you so far. When you know, you know. I recall being able to throw in 10 hour weeks all damn month back in the day of JRAing or chasing people on the mountain bike. After having an actual coach and seeing how "simple" the work was, this kind of follows that mold. The whole "Less is More" and "Quality of Quantity" blah blah. Is it as fun as riding your way into shape? No, it's not fun. It's efficient though.

The book says you can do two of these "plans" a year. Right now I'm doing just the standard competitor plan, which is just relative fitness and should get me back up to speed to where I was. In May, I will start the endurance one.

Remember when @Norm used to throw numbers at us all the time? Comparing fitness to last year, I did a "real deal" 20 minute test in May last year and did 311 watts; quick maths says that puts my FTP at 295. I did a 8 minute test this year, because I was not interested in doing 20 minutes, I was only able to hold 306 watts, which would put my FTP at 275. So maybe I didn't fall as far down the hole as I was.
 

Dave Taylor

Rex kwan Do
I know these different feelings and mentalities. A good training buddy reminded me that “many roads lead to rome”. In the end I find for me that my body is very capable of JRAing pretty much day after day. I tend to lose topend very fast so I try not to take more than two weeks off. My ftp decline from July(just before I got hurt) to the beginning of January )just after my two week break) was 11 watts. I was perfectly happy with that.
I did the whole coach thing for 1.5 years and it taught me discipline but after I got hurt in 18 and dropped the coach I had my two strongest years. This year I am doing a bit less z2 volume but trying to substitute it with a tough interval workout and I have seen substantial gains in 2 months. Over 7% increase in ftp. 30/15 in an over/under variation work well. If I had more time I prefer the JRA method with random all out efforts but for now I’m living that lots of kids in two small of a house life.
I tried Trainer road and I’m sure it works but I need to vent on my bike. It’s too much like boring ironman training. For now I am sticking to some JRAing, intervals twice a week, some running and weight lifting. Do what works for you in your time frame.
Thursday
I was getting ready to ride but then I got a call from Jacks school, apparently he was being a little shit so I had to go pick him up and make him sit in solitary confinement until I picked up #2. Eventually he got bored and crashed on the couch, for 90 minutes.
View attachment 119641
Tough day.

That means I did my workout on Zwiftopia after crushing almost two full pies of flatbread pizza, which almost came up towards the end.

Whats wrong with my scoot seat?
Yes, I do wear a full face, seems to be the most responsible thing to do. That bike screamed 90s, so now it looks a little more modern, dont ya think? I wanted to get a different style seat that also had the little cafe racer hump in the back, which I still might do, but was too antsy to get it going and that one fell in my lap.
Image result for cafe racer

That Time Crunched Plan, or two

Kevy isn't too far off with that time crunched plan, and it worked for me last year. Granted I didn't do any 100 mile races, most of them were 60-70 miles, It took me where I wanted to go. I also didn't do the extra volume on the weekends, since I knew my races wouldn't go over 3-4 hours. Some weekends it did call for 5 hours Saturday, 3 hours Sunday, but I kind of just whiffed it. Actually, last year, I only rode over 10 hours a week twice.

I know it doesn't make sense from the outside. In the beginning, its always just "RIDE MORE RIDE MORE" and it works. And its fun. At some point, in my findings of cycling fitness, just throwing hours/miles at your legs only gets you so far. When you know, you know. I recall being able to throw in 10 hour weeks all damn month back in the day of JRAing or chasing people on the mountain bike. After having an actual coach and seeing how "simple" the work was, this kind of follows that mold. The whole "Less is More" and "Quality of Quantity" blah blah. Is it as fun as riding your way into shape? No, it's not fun. It's efficient though.

The book says you can do two of these "plans" a year. Right now I'm doing just the standard competitor plan, which is just relative fitness and should get me back up to speed to where I was. In May, I will start the endurance one.

Remember when @Norm used to throw numbers at us all the time? Comparing fitness to last year, I did a "real deal" 20 minute test in May last year and did 311 watts; quick maths says that puts my FTP at 295. I did a 8 minute test this year, because I was not interested in doing 20 minutes, I was only able to hold 306 watts, which would put my FTP at 275. So maybe I didn't fall as far down the hole as I was.
 

jShort

2018 Fantasy Football Toilet Bowl Lead Technician
Team MTBNJ Halter's
FTP is only part. Watt per KG is a little more complete picture. But even still, you can have a guy with a high ftp and watt per kg but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be able to hold threshold for a long time.

Just like someone with a lower ftp might be able to hold threshold longer.
Sufferfest has that “4fp” which they say means 4 dimensional power. It’s just a measure of different power times:
FF3B243E-C475-4EED-AB2D-5AD2004199B2.jpeg


Then you factor in things like nutrition, recovery, equipment, skill.... and the rabbit hole gets really deep. The more you research the more you realize it’s a total crapshoot beyond the basic principles.

The most important thing in my opinion is consistency. Get a program, stick with it, and see it through. “Trust the process” is a cliche for a reason, it’s true. It seems like @Pearl has the program he’s gonna use, now he just needs to do it.
 

Dave Taylor

Rex kwan Do
Exactly, consistency. 3 kids doesn’t give me that haha. FTP is more a baseline for me. No one else’s matters. It’s just so I hit my power workouts as close to perfect as I can. It’s mich more reliable than HR but doesn’t mean HR can’t or doesn’t work. If I ever do good in a race it’s because of my fitness and ability to recover. My bike skills do not rate very high.Dylan Johnson has a whole youtube channel with excellent input. He is a Carmichael coach and knows his stuff.My buddy Tony seems to do well doing top end on every ride. He can go out and win a cat 1 race on no training(he did multiple tomes last year). Me, if I think about taking a week off I lose all my top end and feel like a slug. This year I am trying more top end early on.
FTP is only part. Watt per KG is a little more complete picture. But even still, you can have a guy with a high ftp and watt per kg but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be able to hold threshold for a long time.

Just like someone with a lower ftp might be able to hold threshold longer.
Sufferfest has that “4fp” which they say means 4 dimensional power. It’s just a measure of different power times:
View attachment 119662

Then you factor in things like nutrition, recovery, equipment, skill.... and the rabbit hole gets really deep. The more you research the more you realize it’s a total crapshoot beyond the basic principles.

The most important thing in my opinion is consistency. Get a program, stick with it, and see it through. “Trust the process” is a cliche for a reason, it’s true. It seems like @Pearl has the program he’s gonna use, now he just needs to do it.
 

Pearl

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
@jShort did you do that test? I was intrigued by it because i feel like i can do way better shorter efforts than longer ones, but i don’t think I’m a sprinter.
@Dave Taylor i want to read and write when I’m on the clock so I’ll read Monday
 
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