Week 16 of 16 Coaching

It's a wrap. My first time with a coach and just finished my first coaching session. It was a 16 week program that started shortly after Cx season finished so was perfect timing.

How did it go?

Well it went pretty good. I improved about 10%.

While this doesn't seem like much the first half of the training I did only 1 other training session a week because I was busy getting ready for Christmas. Then over the holidays I got a nasty bug that kept me in bed and out of work for a week. Lost 5 pounds and was feeling pretty crappy for about 3 weeks after this. I ended up missing a couple of weeks of the program right after the Christmas brake.

I figure I lost the first half of the training program due to this nasty bug. I figure most of my improvement was done in the last 6 weeks so the 10% for 6 weeks seems good.

There are about 8 weeks til the season starts and I am optimistic I can add close to 10% more power in this time. I have finally dedicated 10 hrs a week to training, will have a coach set program and a power meter to train by.

If I can get that next 10% I will be pretty happy with my LT numbers.

Cheers,

Paul

PowerTap

I finally pulled the trigger and ordered a power meter. Its a PowerTap PRO+. Wireless and with HR. I am hoping that it will give me the motivation to train more and harder and more precisely.

I am hoping to get it for the weekend of the 19th-20th Mar. The hub is actually already in at the shop. It took me 2 weeks to decide on rim/wheel combination and the extra $ along with it otherwise I would probably have it right now.

So the wheels have been ordered, RHUS Elements I believe. Not too sure on all the details except they should be 500g lighter than my current wheels and I will be able to use them for cross and road. I trusted Mike on picking the wheels :) Looking forward to the surprise.

Because the rims come in a set I will be getting a matching front wheel. A little more than I wanted to spend but still a steal of a deal for the wheel set.

The timing is working out perfect as next week is week 16 of 16 of my coaching session at the shop. I have already planned on starting a training program with my coach , Jim Glover. http://www.peakperformancecoaching.ca/html/jim_glover.html

The great thing about using a power meter such as a PowerTap is that it is easy to make a training plan that is easy to follow with power and it is also easy to e-mail training sessions to the coach for analysis.

I won't babble to much about it today, but rather keep an up to date log of how it all works out.

Till next time,

Cheers,

Paul

Week 15 of 16 Coaching Session.

Another great, but extremely tough, coaching session has come and gone. I'd have to say this is the toughest sessions thus far. We did sort of a race type simulation for 1:45 plus the usual 15/15 warm up and cool down.

The session consisted of some LT and VO2 for some climbing with some 10 and 20 second max efforts at the top for the first bit. Then we did some sorter LT sections followed immediately by some short anaerobic to max downhill efforts which required some leg speed to keep the power on.

Things get a bit blurry after this as I went from felling great to feeling really faint after these efforts. We had some more sessions with LT then 20 sec Max effort.

After this I was thinking it was over but then we had some rolling hills and back to LT and VO2 max if I remember correctly.

The last minute or so was like a hill top finish that got steeper and steeper. I managed to recover enough to give the last 7 or 8 minutes a decent effort and finish the climb of 20-30 seconds in the 300-400 watt range :)

I can see that the training is definitely improving my performance. My average wattage was above my 1 hr LT by 4 watts and this was over 1:45 minutes.

Next week is the last week in our 16 week session.

The gang is looking for an extension month by month and I told them I was in for that.

All in all was a very tough session.