The Path to Power-Performance Series #2

The second ride in The Series gave Jeremy a total of 25 minutes riding in his Level 4 Threshold Power range compared to just 20 minutes from a week ago.  The difference being he executed five 5 minute intervals rather than the longer 10 minute segments from last week.  Jeremy took advantage of these shorter segments and was able to ride aggressively, as he produced average Power outputs that exceeded his Power Threshold by 10-15 watts on each of the five intervals.

These intervals are more cadence sensitive and designed to help a rider discover the style of riding that is most suited to them.  The first part of the ride focused on higher cadences in the 90's which Jeremy seemed to be very comfortable with, getting his desired watts and then recovering extremely well with a Level 2 Endurance effort after each interval.  Jeremy was able to take his heart rate from the Anaerobic intensity of the Level 4 back down to his Baseline heart rate within 2 minutes even though he was maintaining a very high pedal stroke during the recovery periods.  This is a strong indicator of the tremendous fitness level that Jeremy possesses.

The last 20 minutes of the ride challenges the strength and finishing Power of a rider.  Quite often these final 20 minutes will keep a rider working above their Anaerobic Threshold for it's entirety, as the recovery segments after the intervals are now Tempo riding and with a big gear pushing just 70-75 rpms.  The big drop in Jeremy's heart rate during recovery from earlier in the ride are now gone as he stayed Anaerobic and was pushed out of his comfort zone with the bigger gear Tempo riding.  

Jeremy's efficiency was excellent throughout the ride up until the final 10 minutes where the time in the "Red Zone" and the bigger gears started to take it's toll.  Jeremy admitted that he tends to struggle with the bigger gears, which for anyone who knows Jeremy would surprise most when you think of the tree trunks that he calls his legs. 

Jeremy has had a good start to the Performance Series and over the past couple of weeks has started to lay a good foundation towards developing his Threshold capacity.  This weeks ride should be very interesting to see how Jeremy handles it, and no I'm not trying to torture him.  Ride #3 is a ride completely made up of Tempo intervals using a high cadence and a big gear- low cadence segments with the added challenge of firing off 10 standing sprints throughout the ride.  This ride has Jeremy a little concerned, but my money is on him ripping it to shreds, I just hope that the CycleOps is still in one piece when I get to the studio in the morning.  Check in next week to see how he does.

Make it Count,
Marc