Last workout of 2011!

I am finishing up the makeup week I choose to do after recovering from my December four to six week cold. Today’s workout was intervals – five during warm up and five during the main set. The warm up intervals were 20 seconds long at 110% Critical Power but the main set intervals were 30 seconds long (with ten seconds less of recovery time.

As you can see, that extra ten seconds in the main set intervals really hit me hard. I managed to hold the intended wattage during the recovery phase of the interval for only the first interval. After that, I could not. Perhaps, I hit the intervals too hard. The workout called for an effort of 110% of my critical power of 244 watts, but I my effort was higher – 136%, 139%, 128%, 133% and 128% for the five intervals.

After these intervals, it took me some time to recover, but I did and extended the final main set item from ten minutes to fifteen minutes shorting the cool down from ten minutes to five.

The other interesting characteristic of this workout, and all three this week, is my high average heart rate. The first time I did this workout, my average heart rate was 138 bpm. Today, it was 152. This difference is magnified by the fact the first time I did this workout was without a rest day before. My conclusion, my cold is responsible – I am not completely well yet.

For this workout, I switched back to the PowerTap Comp wheel. Testing before the workout revealed that the dropped data was not due to weak batteries in the hub – they tested as strong as new batteries. The data dropping stopped when I moved the pickup closer to the hub. Now that this wheel is fixed, I am going to keep it on the trainer until my first race on February 26. I think there is something wrong with the old Powertap hub, not only does it send data spikes but it also creaks. I need to tear it apart and inspect it.

Tomorrow’s work out calls for over two hours on the trainer. This does not sound like fun.