Moving it up a notch

Thursday's scheduled workout was 2 hours at power zone 2, with two 20 minute zone 3 intervals thrown in the middle. This was my first interval workout since my threshold test, and I was instructed to keep the efforts isolated to the low end of my new power zones. Turns out that low end was really close to where my previous threshold range was at. All told, 1:20 of solid pedaling and 40 minutes of "this really hurts".

My Fargo shipped from QBP on Tuesdays and showed up at Rasmussen's on Wednesday. The paint ist starting to grow on me, but I still would prefer all polished titanium. The shop has it put together, but I'm waiting for a few things to get sorted before I bring it home. At this point, I'm not comfortable riding it for CIRREM next week, so it will be a trainer queen for a bit while we get to know each other a bit better. Since it shipped with the Cane Creek suspension post, I had the shop order in a Salsa Regulator post to replace it. It will look better, and will be one less thing that can fail mechanically in the middle of nowhere.

A few random shots of the new ride. Sorry, but I didn't snag any full bike shots (yet)

Ride to failure

Coach scheduled my FTP test for today after work. It hurt. A lot. I guess I must have executed it correctly. My threshold power went up 15% since this time last year, so I'm pretty happy right now. In other exciting news, I picked up my new Thermarest today. Sleep system v1.0 is complete and ready for testing as soon as the weather gets a bit warmer.

That was easy

Coach has me on a rest week this week. Hours and effort are backed down a notch or two. I did a 90 minute indoor ride yesterday with what I thought would be hard intervals, but it turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. I had a call from my coach within a couple of hours of uploading my workout stats. We were both on the same page during the call - time to schedule another threshold power test. After a two hour spin this afternoon with three tempo intervals thrown in, I get a rest day tomorrow and the FTP test sometime this week. It will be interesting to see if my numbers go up. Based on how I'm feeling right now, I'm sure they will, but I have no idea how much, but, to some extent, I really don't care. I just want to make sure that I'm doing everything I can to finish in Antelope Wells in 2015. Have to keep moving the bar up and leaping over it to make that happen. Remainder of my training is going well. I'm starting to really enjoy the strength training. I'm sure that it's responsible for some of how I feel on the bike right now. Need to constantly expand the boundaries there too, and add in some different exercises to keep things fresh.

I spent some time over the last few days making decisions re: gear and filling in some holes here and there. I ordered a new light from Kerry at klite. I bought his new 1000/600 model with the hour standlight. Probably way more light than I need, but I'd rather be a little over prepared in this department. I want people to be able to see me dusty or rainy weather, along with being able to see at night. I also picked up a Kemo Electronic dyno to usb charger. It should keep my GPS and any other devices charged if I can't get power from a regular outlet. 

To finish out my sleep system, I am going to start with a women's Thermarest Neoair XLite pad. The women's pad has a slightly higher R rating than the standard pad, but it's also 6" shorter than the regular sized pad. I borrowed one from a friend and tried it out on my living room floor and I think it will work fairly well. It took me about 16 breaths to blow it up. With that amount of air, I wasn't hitting the floor sleeping on either my back, side, or stomach. 

Rumor has it that my Fargo will be shipping to the shop this week. If that's true, it will make for a happy Valentine's Day for me. :)