Turbo Session, Wk 15 Thursday 14th Jan 2010

After yesterdays run the legs have been feeling a bit tired today. They were certainly moaning about walking between the offices at work today. The didn't seem to mind the bike ride in or home, so following a consultation with the coach (at the coach's request) I went for the planned turbo session.
For those of you not know what a 'turbo' is, it's a trainer that enables me to ride my bike indoors. Mine is a Tacx Flow (click the link to see it on wiggle).
The session involved 15 minute warm up, four 10 minute efforts aiming at producing 300watts throughout with 5minute recoveries and then a 10minute warm down. I found it hard to constantly produce 300+ watts thoughout the efforts, particularly on the 2nd, 3rd and first half of the final effort. You can see that in the heart rate trace as the heart rate is higher to maintain the same workload. Also in the graphic is a summary of the session, shows how I use the variable resistance of the turbo, plus the resistance from different gears to get to desired power outputs. Also in there are some numbers recorded by the turbo's display unit. When riding your body remembers rate of movement and effort. That means power and cadence are the important numbers and generally over time I want to see these increase while the heart rate to drop, that would mean I'm getting more efficient. Miles and speed are largely irrelevant because you can setup on the turbo to give some impressively high numbers which won't be repeatable in the real world.
The numbers today were 80minutes at an average heart rate of 126bpm (69%) with a peak of 153 (84%) with the power being an average of 230watts and a max of 333. Cadence (speed the legs are turning over) of 109rpm max and an average of 94rpm. The power is the important one. Justin Rapp who won Ironman Canada 2009 was aiming to ride at 260-269watts for the 4.5 hours of his bike ride. So I've a bit of a way to go for that. Michael Hutchins when he went for the hour record was aiming at sustaining 400watts which is what the tour riders sustain on the big moutain climbs. Chris Boardman has the hour record and still holds the record for highest average speed on le Tour prologue could sustain much more than that 400watts, but was teased because his peak output didn't break the 1,000 mark. The top sprinters can deliver a peak of 1,600watts. Not that I'm looking to get anything like that. I'd like to get to 230watts (perhaps 250-300) for an ironman ride.
To help me through the session this evening I had the Prodigy and then the Fratellis for company.
Oh, and the legs. You know, I think they might actually feel better now post ride than they did before, but we'll have to review that tomorrow.