From Zero Fitness to BWR - Comeback Story of 2020

1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
I was wondering why I hadn't seen your oddly named rides on a Strava in a while. Welcome back to your sharp end! Good luck with the whole training thing. And I really dig the motorcycle - I think you made great choice on the scoot seat. Couldn't agree more that turning it into something more like a cafe racer is the way to go there.

I watched both movies on the BWR in San Diego on Amazon. That just looks really fun - I don't think I have it in me to GAF about training for this kind of thing right now: too many years of racing, too many other life things have kind of put me in a place where I'm looking at it all a bit differently right now. But still I'd love to just show up and ride that. I know I can ride 140 miles regardless of terrain, but doing it well? Aaaaah - maybe not so much. Good for you on putting yourself on a plan. I will enjoy following along. Best of luck, JP!
 

jShort

2018 Fantasy Football Toilet Bowl Lead Technician
Team MTBNJ Halter's
@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

No. Never did the test. Just read About it. I think they have a free trial so you can if you want
 

Steve Vai

Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
Garmin does a pretty good job at estimating your FTP just from ride data. It put mine a bit high for real life but it makes my Z2/3 numbers line up right.
 

Hakimaki

Active Member
From the little I played around with WKO5, it seems to offer mFTP, or modeled FTP in where it estimates your FTP based on your daily ride data. The Garmin algorithm from my what I read a while back seemed to look for your best 20min power x 0.95, just like a traditional 20min Coggan test. The problem with those automated calculations is that you'll get skewed numbers unless you're actually going all out for those 5 seconds, 1min, 5min, and 20min efforts.

The Sufferfest 4DP profile appears to be the same as a Coggan power profile, but what's intriguing is that they provide training numbers according to each profile. I couldn't find any math on how they scale the workouts, I guess its a closely guarded business secret. I may give it a trial to see how it stacks up against my current training regimen/philosophy.

In the end, whatever you do, as long as you're consistent, you'll see gains.
 

Steve Vai

Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
I think the thing I like about the auto FTP is that it generally gets pulled from a peak 20 minute during a race. I don't know about everyone else, but I generally cannot match Race power numbers during Training Rides. When I was doing TTs my hardest FTP test put me at 390 watts, yet I consistently stayed in the mid-400s during events. My coach at the time would use that data to plan my workouts instead of what I was putting out during tests. For me at least, my HR and PE change very little between 350 and 450 watts.
 

Dave Taylor

Rex kwan Do
I think one way to improve yourself is by doing things that you don’t want to do. For example I sat in on a road ride with a buddy. I hate any hr between 150-165 so I did that a lot today. I don’t like tempo at all. Also, I tend to get lazy and roll over the top of hills. Today I stood up and mashed the tops.
Also, my highest 20min power was on a road ride. That’s not what you should train with however unless you do power intervals outdoors. On a side note I think that long and slow with random efforts is still neccesary for endurance racers. From muscle adaptation to dialing in nutrition and riding tired. Somethings you just can’t get from short efforts. Ted King, Dylan Johnson, Jeremiah Bishop are all perfect examples.
 

Pearl

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
Da Weekend was rad.
Theres a "gravel" group race/ride that is pretty much a race in March, and the guy was tuning up the loop and sent it to me sine he knows I have a huge boner for riding out in this area. The road race/rides are usually 60 miles, that turn around 100-300 people, so I'm imagining this will have a huge turnout. It the same weekend as a real gravel race in Love Valley, but who knows what the weather will do in March. Anyway, I wanted to pre ride it with tubeless 28's on the road bike. It was rather swell.

The views out this way are amazing.
Screen Shot 2020-02-24 at 11.23.39 AM.png



There was maybe 20 feet of gravel that I did not like on my road bike, but otherwise, it was the tool for the job. Those 28mm gravel kings are the bees knees. I've ridden most of it, but always wondered if it would be faster on a road bike. Starva says it was.

Then on Sunday, Mandis mom was in town so we got to sneak in a mountain bike ride at the local spot. Haven't done that in many, many months. I forgot my garmin, rode my single speed and wore Dickies, so I was totally getting sendy.
Screen Shot 2020-02-24 at 11.25.10 AM.png

I did wear a shirt on the ride.

"The Plan" had a workout Saturday and endurance Sunday, so this was pretty close. The efforts on the gravel for sure made up for the structured training I was suppose ta do.
 

Big Dumb Animal

Hippo Nipples' #1 Fan
Da Weekend was rad.
Theres a "gravel" group race/ride that is pretty much a race in March, and the guy was tuning up the loop and sent it to me sine he knows I have a huge boner for riding out in this area. The road race/rides are usually 60 miles, that turn around 100-300 people, so I'm imagining this will have a huge turnout. It the same weekend as a real gravel race in Love Valley, but who knows what the weather will do in March. Anyway, I wanted to pre ride it with tubeless 28's on the road bike. It was rather swell.

The views out this way are amazing.
View attachment 119960


There was maybe 20 feet of gravel that I did not like on my road bike, but otherwise, it was the tool for the job. Those 28mm gravel kings are the bees knees. I've ridden most of it, but always wondered if it would be faster on a road bike. Starva says it was.

Then on Sunday, Mandis mom was in town so we got to sneak in a mountain bike ride at the local spot. Haven't done that in many, many months. I forgot my garmin, rode my single speed and wore Dickies, so I was totally getting sendy.
View attachment 119961
I did wear a shirt on the ride.

"The Plan" had a workout Saturday and endurance Sunday, so this was pretty close. The efforts on the gravel for sure made up for the structured training I was suppose ta do.
You look like a creepy uber driver Mandi regretted calling
 

Pearl

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
Tuesday I thought i would be stuck in Zwiftopia, but I was able to get out on some wet roads crushed this, 2 sets of 3, 3 minutes on, steady full gas, 3 minutes off. Remember when everyone used to share their garmin links before strava?
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Not the hardest math equation, but none the less, counting to 3 is sometimes hard. The one hard thing about this Tuesday/Thursday thing, is sometimes the workout is exactly the same. Which is kind of tough.

316, 316, 314,
and then
312, 312, 310

I think that is good for me at my "heavy" 154lbs?


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Then me and #1 went to the grocery store.

The good thing about only riding 2 times in 5 days is time to do other things. Got to work on the scoot and the wiring hell hole I created for myself with a new speedo and switches. Learned a bunch. Finally got it to a phase where I don't see myself tinkering with it too much, just cleaning it up.
IMG_3123.jpg

Not many 65 degree days in February, so it was a nice quick rip to make sure everything worked correctly, and it did, thank goodness.

Since @jimvreeland didn't like my paint on my Aloominator, I decided to start over and go with the standard BBQ grill paint black.
IMG_3127.jpg
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One coat down, many many more to go.
 

jmanic

JORBA Board Member/Chapter Leader
Staff member
JORBA.ORG
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Yeah, go full murder or go home.
Frim the TT down, it’s pretty sweet.
 
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