Monday, November 1

Feeling Green…

OMG – 10 hours after my FTP bike test and I still feel like I am going to hurl.  Not as bad as first off the Drainer, but bad enough that eating and drinking are still dangerous. 


I have always been a late day person.  I never liked getting up early for things.  All my training has been in the evenings except for weekend long runs that usually started late morning to mid afternoon.  Seriously, it is much more normal for me to wait till 8:30 or 9 PM to go for a 70 to 90 minute run then have diner just as the late news comes on at 11.

Endurance Nation (EN) has their own philosophy and there are a few things that are VERY different from what I have been used to up till now.  The first and most notable is the notion of building “fast first, then add far”.  I, like so many others have been pummeled by the build “base first, then get fast” mantra that has been around for years.  Well, I am willing to try things their way in part because I see real potential in the method, but also the Team collective of experience and proven success stories really is hard to argue with. 

The other big difference is that it is strongly suggested that workouts be done in the AM.  That’s gonna suck big-time in my book!  Likely, it will be one of the hardest things for me to come to grips with – the training hours – not the sum of hours, but the time of day – i.e. early in the morning  Arrrrgggg!  I have to get up at what time???? And then you want me to do what? Are you fr$##@ nuts? 

Today was a particularly good example.  I woke several times during the night thinking of the brutal session waiting for me in the PC.  Then at 5AM I got some coffee brewing while I prepped for battle with towels, water, and a barf bucket.  Between the coffee, TV, and adjusting everything 14 times, I finally got started on my warm-up at 5:30.  In less than 15 minutes of light spinning and a few spin-ups I hit the Interval button on “Borg” and started.  Borg is what I call my fancy Joule 2.0 computer head. 

I don’t think Borg will be a nice friend.  More like an evil cybernetic slave-master, bent on my self destruction.  He wants to see rivers of sweat pouring off my body into ankle deep pools around the bike.  Forcing me to push harder and harder until I begin convulsing, spraying vomit as I fall off the Drainer.  He laughs with a tauntingly monotone synthetic voice as I writhe in my putrid slime, whimpering and begging for compassion……

Well, I did survive my first encounter with Borg.  It was not pretty; my numbers were low as expected.  I didn’t vomit during the test, but the last 7 minutes I was getting close.  It only got worse as I cooled down.  I was light headed, nauseated, legs were jelly, and I couldn’t seem to stay warm.  Hot shower felt nice and so did the wood stove, but minutes later I was shivering aging.  Eventually I the worst passed and I made my lunch and had to get to work.

My Normalized Power for the 42 minute test came in at 183, resulting in a 2.6 W/Kg.  The really good thing about crappy power numbers is the great potential to dramatically improve over the next 20 weeks.  I will just need to toughen up and hold fast, no matter what Borg does.

2 comments:

Katee said...

Training in the MORNING? That's unheard of, isn't it? Good luck with that!
~Katee

TreeMapper said...

Katee! Yeah, for me it is but I am trying to stay with the program the way it was designed..... at least until can't manage it.