In...Did Islaggiat last night after work....Revolver X2 on deck in a bit. Good Luck!!

I'm doing the Tour as well. Did ISLAGIATT a few hours ago and my legs feel tired now...tomorrow should be very interesting. Good luck to everyone doing these rides.

So, I'm finished with ISLAGIATT - I've done it before, no surprises. I have my calendar cleared to get the weekday rides in - all are an hour or less except Tuesday's 90 min stage (TGTTOS). I can ride most days early or after work, but Monday is tricky as I'm on family duty dropping off boys to school at 7.00, a full day of work and then Boy Scouts for one son at 7.00p. I wrangled a mid-day schedule break, so I'll race home, do TBTITW, shower and get back to the office. Tricky, but the only way to get it done. Some stats of the ToS...9 stages with a total time of 743 minutes (12 h 23 m), or 83 min/day. From Trainerroad, the projected total TSS is 1046, or an average of 116/day.

How in the world do you do Revolver twice? I assume you just don't hit the power numbers? I've done Revolver lots of times and am lucky to hit the intervals as prescribed just doing the workout once.

Have fun and good luck!

I'm riding my Kickr in Erg mode. Absolutely kicked my ass and hung on for my life.

That's impressive!

I'm in for my first real indoor training ever.
(When you live in SoCal why ever ride indoors - it was 78 today)
I'm going a day ahead using the 50 hours rules.
Every stage is totally new to me.
Just got a Kurt Kinetic Road Machine, didn't get a chance to do a FTP test; so just going with 200. Maybe a bit low, but 9 days in a row will be tough no matter what.

Oh boy, ISLAGIATT was hard yesterday, but today I failed miserably on the 5th interval of Revolver. I'll give it another shot tonight, but will scale everything down to 90% (TrainerRoad, erg mode with a powermeter). I really don't see how anyone could to 2 x Revolver at 100% with an accurate FTP.

I'm in as well, did ISLAGIATT yesterday, it kicked my ass big time. Doing Revolver + Revolver after I finish my morning coffee. I'm planning to do the two back to back. I know that means I'll almost surely have to lower the power a bit at various points, but need to get it done this morning, and figure it'll be a better long workout that way anyway... :)

In. First year participant (been out of country the week of the Tour previously). Did ISLAGIATT and very glad I got it over with early in the day. Took a good hard nap in the afternoon. Revolver+Revolver as soon as I get the kids sorted out.....

OK, forget what I said about doing the two revolver workouts back to back...lol. Did the first one, stayed at full power on the kickr, but was near puke on the last two intervals.... :)

Kids here as well, so gonna hit the slopes for the afternoon, then second revolver tonight...

I'm planning to ride Revolver x 2 in about an hour. I'll be using a Tacx Vortex Smart controlled by Trainerroad, so also erg mode. I've done a bunch of Sufferfest videos previoulsy, but not Revolver. With an IF > 1.0 and a total duration (combined) of over 60 min, this should not be possible to accomplish.

I am in for my third tour. ISLAGIATT kicked my ass yesterday but I do that workout all the time so I knew that was going to happen.

Double-revolver starting in about an hour. I have NO idea how I am going to get through it. I am a quivering puddle of jelly after that workout on the best of days, but twice? Glad I don't have ERG mode on my trainer to force me to a power curve. I expect the second revolver will devolve into a mess.

Double-Revolver was quite possibly the most horrible thing I have ever done on a bike.

^^^^ Totally agree. That was the most difficult trainer ride I've ever had. ^^^^

Can someone explain the falling out between TR and Sufferfest? It seems pretty bitter from the words on the website.

In a nutshell, two things:

1) The Sufferfest launched their own service that is very similar to TR. ANT+ interface to read your power/hr/cadence/etc and matches to the sufferfest workouts. Similar price.

2) Apparently some people thought that TR actually hosted and ran The Tour and that Sufferfest was just part of it, not realizing that TR was just a software interface "partner". The Sufferfest wanted to make sure it was clear that the Tour was their own thing, and not connected to TR in any significant way.

My experience seems equally horrible. I took a short break between sets to refill bottles and find a gel. The 1st interval of the 2nd set - well, I *knew* I was in trouble. The next few intervals, somewhat surprisingly, were not much worse, so, maybe just getting back into the swing of things after the 'cool-down' at the end of set #1 and the 'warm-up' at the start of set #2. The 2nd half of the second set - terrible. The last three or four intervals? Ugh. But, hey, I've earned the Super Bowl drinking and eating later today, so there's that...

Just finished TBTITW. At first glance, it didn't seem like it would be too bad. I even ate the left over chips from last night's superbowl before getting on the bike. The last 5 minute was a killer for me....the two worse moments were at the brief little dip in workload...in mind I had focused on getting to it, and then try and recover a bit before the final slopes...problem was that little dip was at 110%, a little high for active recovery...then the last 15 seconds of the workout currently hold the "most painful" moments of the tour title. No chips tomorrow!

If it's any consolation, the next stage is almost a rest day compared to the first 3. Enjoy stage 4 :)

I'm looking forward to TGTTOS - I've never done it, but the 'profile' and the TSS/IF appear to be a bit of a rest. TBTITW was harder than I thought it would be - maybe just coming off Stages 1 and 2 made it a little tougher. But I agree that the last part of the last interval was pure sufferfest. Well done.

Stage 4 was a walk in the park. I hate ISLAGIATT and would rather do Revolver + Revolver any day of the week than ISLAGIATTT. Stage 3, TBTITW hurt because of day 1 and 2 IMO. Stage 4 was a nice 1:30 recovery ride. I am not looking forward to Violator on day 8 i'll tell you that much. Happy Suffering!

I just finished Stage 4 a couple of hours ago and could not agree more with the above post.
My legs were really beat and today was just what they needed. I've just really started on trainer workouts. Now I look forward to Saturday when I'm going to take a test day. <<< Edit, I meant REST DAY

I had a bad moment in stage 3 during the last 5 minute 'climb' section. My legs were cooked and I reached down to lower the resistance a bit on the TR dial, but couldn't get the mouse pointer to work because sweat had splashed onto my laptop trackpad...lol....I did a slow 30-40 cadence grind through the last few minutes.
Agree that today's stage 4 was much easier, pretty boring.

TGTTOS was active recovery - but long. And boring, but I'm not sure how you could have a stage of this type and not be boring. Still, I'm feeling 4 days in a row. The Wretched just does not sound like a terrific idea tomorrow...

I actually like TGTTOS quite a bit. It is just "different".

The Wretched is going to really suck tomorrow...

The Wretched was brutal after 4 days of suffering. It's only going to get harder. Scared of Violator. Bad.

Just finished the Wretched. I suffered but never thought about dialing it back...the "rest day" yesterday must have helped. Full disclosure, I was probably due for an FTP test before this week, but figured I wouldn't shoot myself in foot and make things harder than they had to be.

As for Violator...I'm making a point not to look at more than one ride at a time.

I'm more of a runner, i'm not used to this riding everyday thing, I'm having to dig into my older cycling shorts pile, my ass is starting to join the sufferfest.

Wretched was fine until about 10 minutes to go and hit a wall midway through second to last climb. It only gets harder from here forward.

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http://www.teamodz.com
http://www.endurancelab.fit

I couldn't do Wretched until tonight, so 24+ hrs between stages. I was surprised - wretched wasn't terrible. BUT, Rookie is scheduled for tomorrow early morning, so I'll only have about 12 hrs between stage 5 and stage 6. Hmmm... And, like everyone else, I'm not looking beyond tomorrow...

I thought The Wretched was particularly tough too...I barely made it through those last couple of power increases leading up to the final sprint. Also I am afraid of Violator, it has always been really hard on me, even with decent rest.

Well, Rookie 12 hours after Wretched...not ideal. But I did get through it at 100% FTP, so I should not complain. I had done Rookie before - a few times, but the middle race simulation seemed particularly rough this morning. The lack of discussion in this thread suggests that many here have discovered their inner Couchlandrian. I may join you. I can't do DAYT until late afternoon Friday and then I'm forced into Saturday's double stage in the early morning. I've never done AVDP, but my only effort on 9H was pretty rough. Since it is the 2nd half of a double stage with probably 18 h or less since the previous stage. Hmmm...

This is my second year. Last year's tour ended with a whimper, after some non-Sufferlandrain approved shenanigans between stages 8 and 9. I guess pacing a friend for miles 80-98 of a 100 mile trail run Saturday night thru Sunday morning wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done (I took a short cut at the end to let his minions know we were about done). However, this year's tour is going great. Sufferfest is a big part of my training; I've used the climbing and intermediate plans with great success. I got a huge kick out of dropping Jensie this morning-and we were just warming up! Not sure what's going to happen after it's all over. Knighhood is rolling around in the back of my mind...

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"A merry heart doeth good like medicine." (Proverbs 17:22)

This is the first I've heard of sufferfest but it sounds interesting, what does one need to do it? Just a laptop, your bike and a basic indoor trainer? I don't have a power meter. Just a very basic, no frills trainer.

Just those things and a willingness to Suffer! There's an app or you can purchase and download the videos, which is what I have. Go to Thesufferfest.com for info. The tour happens once a year, and the goal is to raise money for the Davis Phinney foundation for Parkinson's research. It's all virtual and done on the honor system. Check out the Tour of Sufferlandria facebook page if you need a good laugh and/or some motivation. It's great stuff!

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"A merry heart doeth good like medicine." (Proverbs 17:22)

great - thx! will look into it.

Made it through Wretched and Rookie as well, surprisingly didn't find them too bad. Hard, but not to the point that I was pondering lowering the resistance... :)
The first three stages were definitely the hardest for me so far. Today's looks interesting.... ~ 22 high power intervals...

I realize that the videos are all geared towards certain types of workouts - but if i was to download a couple of them, which are the most popular among ST users here?

It depends on what you like. I prefer the videos w/ longer intervals, so my favorites are The Hunted and HHNF. The Hunted has one 20 minute interval and HHNF has two 20 minute interval.

Yup. Add to that ISLAGIATT which is a 2hr workout with 15, 20, 20, 8 and 7:30 for its intervals. Longer intervals are good for triathlon training. I own every single one of the videos (even the running ones, but I don't really use them for more than entertainment). Some of them are not terribly useful for triathlon, but I still do them on occasion to keep my high-end power up. As much as I "like" Revolver, I don't use it as much.

Blender is another good one.

Angels and AVDP are good in the sense that they have shorter intervals (8:00 and 4:00) at SuperLT.

As for The Tour... I faded hard on The Wretched, but came back strong on The Rookie and this morning for Do As You're Told. Although I had watched DAYT while doing a different workout on my own, this was the first time I had actually done the workout. Ouch.

I am riding a wave of confidence that tomorrow's AVDP + 9H will do well. Still not sure about how Power Station + Violator is going to go. (Again, I watched Power Station for entertainment while doing a different workout, but this will be the first time I actually do the workout)

Thanks - I was looking at The Hunted. I'll try it out.

7 days FREE trial through their App. There has been a Sufferfest ad banner on the site for the past week linking you to their App promotional offer. I purchased 20 or so videos two years ago but they've added new ones. So instead, I went with the App. It is awesome having everything in one convenient place. Not to mention the video files are MASSIVE.

Blender, Local Hero, Fight Club, The Long Scream and....Rubber Glove are my favorites for TT specific work.

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Lars Finanger
Odyssey SwimRun

I just did The Hunted and while it was a good workout, didn't think it was that bad. maybe i'm doing something wrong - when they say 4/10 (i use easy Zone ish), 5-6/10…high zone 2, 7/10…zone 3, 8-9/10…zone 4, 9/10…zone 5. Is this what you all do…use your HR monitor?

You can do them based on perceived effort but if you really want them to feel like the hard mofos they are meant to be you'll want to know or find out either your FTP or Lactate Threshold numbers, and do the workouts at those numbers. All workout interval efforts are based off a % of those values (usually ABOVE your FTP/Lactose Threshold).

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Lars Finanger
Odyssey SwimRun

Thanks - can you clarify something for me? if it says to do an effort of 6/10 for example, how is that at LT level? I was under the impression that LT level is zone 5, which for me starts at hr 173-176…thats def more than a 6/10 effort for me.

7.5 on the Sufferfest scale is supposed to be your LT.

1-4 is simply "easy"
5 is what I would call "Ironman Ride" effort.
6 would be "Half Iron Ride Effort".
7 would be "Olympic Ride Effort".
7.5 being right on LT.
8, obviously just above.
9 is your VO2 max
10 is all-out sprint

thanks a lot - no wonder it didn't seem to hard. damn.

yes, what he said.

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Lars Finanger
Odyssey SwimRun

Angels and 9 Hammers are IMO the best intensity workouts, but it depends on how long you like your intervals vs intensity.

Oh, DAYT was *hard* after the previous stages. Not close to chundering into my bucket - today - but I have no idea what Saturday will bring. I've never done AVDP, but 9H is pretty hard. I don't want to imagine 9H after AVDP, though. But all Sufferlandrians must harden up for the last two stages this weekend...

Did stage 8 today. The last 3 vo2 hammers were absolute punishment. First time this ToS that I've had to decrease the intensity slightly near the end. Ouch

Just finished stage 8 also. I was definitely cracking on the last few vo2 hammers but nowhere near the implosion that happened on stage 2.

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All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. ~Gandalf

I like 9 hammers, AVDP and blender (which I don't hear too often). That said, instead of training my strengths I should do Half is easy/revolver more often. I may like DAYT - it seemed like a more realistic workout (for me) than revolver. Will see how I feel when I try it not in the middle of the ToS.

Bit of a disclaimer - I'm just a roadie now. If I was still racing tri's I doubt I'd care much about sprint/AC type workouts.

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All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. ~Gandalf

Just finished AVDP and 9hammers. I asked "why" I was doing this during the first and wanted to cry during the second but had no H2O to spare for tears. I kept on looking at the hammers and telling myself that some didn't look too bad...they all sucked, especially hammer 9.5. The day started off bad...with those two hard efforts in AVDP 9 and 12 minutes in, I was never able to shake that achy quad feeling for the rest of the rides. If I don't gain biking strength from this week, I don't want to know what it would take.

Chin up. The final stage is a lot easier than stage 8. You'll be happy and proud to have completed the gongshow known as the ToS! Not sure about how much training value there is though from hammering for 9 days straight :p

Oh, I just finished stage 8, too. Pretty horrible. I wasn't really recovered for AVDP as I rode DAYT late afternoon yesterday. I had not done AVDP and thought that it was pretty tough - and then, 9H (which I have done before - probably a mistake to know what was coming). So hard for many of the hammers, but #8, well, I could NOT figure out what to do. Shift up. Shift down. Stand. Sit. A real mess, but done. Hammer #9 was hard, but the end was in sight, so it turned out fine. My legs are already aching. Stage 9 tomorrow!

Stage 9 was quite a bit easier. I found power station a bit boring. Also I don't have the indoor setup to hit the low cadence numbers and also hit the target power.

Also I don't really know how to do the 5s/5s intervals at the end of violator; it just turns into a painful blur of shifting.

Overall the tour was ok, not nearly as fun without the TR dropped rider count though.

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All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. ~Gandalf

I managed the stage 8 workouts back to back without too much difficulty......which is really just to say that I didn't lower he resistance. I found the first three stages really hard, but since then not too bad.
Anyone else find that this year is a bit easier than last year?

Somebody on the ToS facebook group pulled the data from the Trainerroad 2016 ToS group, it can be found at http://rpubs.com/arfenarf/151898.
It has a lot of interesting stats

I previously said earlier in this thread that double-Revolver was probably the most horrible thing I have ever done on a bike. But AVDP+9H I think dethroned it only 7 days later. That was truly awful. The suffering was glorious. I cracked a bit of Hammer 6, made it though Hammer 7. Cracked a bit again on 8 but then rallied and hit 9 really well. My friend was over doing his own ride next to me and was trying to talk to me in the aftermath, but all I could do was grunt and bury my face in my towel draped over my aerobars. I pretty much said nothing at all until the cooldown ended because I didn't have the ability to talk anymore.

I stopped pedaling and looked around. Realized I was somewhat unable to get off the bike. I eventually did and only said "uhh, what...just happened here?"

In years past, there were a number of individuals that did FTP tests before and after and the results were very impressive. ToS level of suffering may not be required to get those gains but you will definitely see improvements.

I am not finding this year easier than last year:( I just came out of a cold last Thursday which seems to make everything a bit harder. Yesterday didn't help...because of scheduling with a work conference this week I wasn't able to do stage 6 this Thursday, it got pushed back to Friday morning. My plan was to "catch up" on Friday night and do stage 7, but that didn't work out either. So I ended up doing stage 7 and 8 yesterday, ouch. I am going to wait until later this afternoon to finish up. It helps that it is 15 below here and there is nothing else to do!

rich

I wasn't aware of the TR ToS 2016 team - I just joined a moment ago (late, I know). I still have Stage 9 to go, programmed for late afternoon USA CT on Sunday (about 6 hours after this post).

Finished, showered and had something to eat. Thanks everyone for the virtual cycling training camp, it was a little less painful having others to share this with. My plan is to let my legs recover for 5-6 days and do an FTP test. I did TOS usring 280....I"m hoping for 294 which is my all time high.

Cheers

If I can get 14 watts in two weeks from this I'll do it over and over.

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All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. ~Gandalf

Me too, done! The worst part of the last stages for me was the last 5 minute set of intervals in violator, those hurt. A fitting ending I guess. :)

Now back to normal training.......as in, need to start running again... :(

Uffda -- that was rough but certainly a sense of accomplishment getting to the end today.

If you haven't already, please head over to the thread linked here and ID yourself so we know how many ST'ers we had complete the T of Suf this year!

Link: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...%20of%20suf;#5854826

Now, time for a Duvel or two!

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Lars Finanger
Odyssey SwimRun

No doubt. Kudo's to anyone that can nail those 5sec on/5sec off intervals. Maybe it was just my video, but I found the video and the TrainerRoad intervals were like 1.5s off. I never got out of the small chain ring and maybe my 12 or 13 on the back. pedal hard, back off and repeat. I could not hit the targets. Pretty much nailed all the other ones though, just not those 5/5 ones.

Also, I still don't get why TR shows a 1.06 IF for Violator. I basically hit all but those 5's and only had a .85 IF for that ride.

Glad to be done the tour. Congrats to all finishers!!

I nailed Power Station really well but then cracked on the last "section" of Violator when there was no real rest. Really happy with my effort in the tour this year. I actually have an FTP test scheduled for next sunday so I am looking forward to seeing what I gained.

I'm done, too. Power Station was easier than I thought, but despite my size (130 lbs), I'm kind of a diesel. Violator *looked* horrible. The first two 'sets' were fine. The high power 5s intervals, for me, were the worst. The middle 10s intervals were better. The lowest power 15s intervals were fine. But, my goodness, the last set...pure suffering. The 1st 5s intervals of the 3rd set were a complete mess - I just hammered through the 'rest' - but ugh. The 'middle' intervals of the last set were still pretty trashy. The last two - totally fine. I've never been so happy to finish a trainer ride. But the ToS was great!

I'm a ToS finisher too, my third. Did the first few stages under 100% but starting with day 4 I managed them all at 100%. Well except that last jumble of Violator sprints, what a mess!

I know the FTP is up. Good challenge for the winter!

Finished last night (working a 24hour shift today). First time!

Great winter training. And there was no way I was going to make all of those intervals at 100% after around day 4. But there's always next year....

what was the total TSS this year? couldn't find if it was listed.

Won't that vary for each individual based on their effort?
I did all the workouts on trainer road, and adding up my daily TSS scores, I got 949.

It does depend on just how hard you rode but there is also an "ideal" TSS based on 100% in Trainer Road.

Looks like I picked up 786.1 TSS points with the biggest day being 135 on AVDP+9H day.

If you add up all of the rides in TR it looks like 1049 is the grand total. I never come close to hitting the true spec TSS on any TR ride though so I am not surprised I am low, despite mostly hitting the power targets through the majority of the tour.

I know I missed a little on the latter part of ISLAGIATT, definitely missed a few towards the end of Double Revolver. The Wretched lived up to it's name and I cracked there a bit. But then I didn't crack again until most of the way through 9H and I hit the final stage well.

OK, my spreadsheet says 1046 TSS 'ideal' from TR. I got 920. Violator was a big problem for me - the Tacx Vortex Smart could not ramp the power up/down fast enough, so those short intervals were pretty sloppy. I was within 2% if ideal on most, but double revolver and violator were way off.

Well....?

curious - i'm wondering for a well balanced training regimen, how often do folks do these brutal rides (compared to more SST or recovery rides) per week?

While it somewhat depends on where I am in a training block, I would usually do two sessions like this in a week, one endurance ride around 1hr-1.5hr and one long endurance ride.

As far as which ones I use: farther out from an A-race I'll be doing more short-interval Super LT and VO2 work (AVDP, Angels, Fight Club, Revolver, Nine Hammers, etc). Closer to the A-race I'll end up doing more long Sub-LT to LT work (Rookie, ISLAGIATT, HHNF, Hunted, etc).

I did my FTP test on Friday, using the Trainer Road 8 minute test. I finished with a 297FTP, which is a PB for me, TOS 2016 has already paid dividends in my books.

Either TOS taught me to suffer or I didn't go hard enough as I didn't find the first 8 minute effort that terrible; the second 8minutes felt longer but I didn't collapse off the bike like I have in the past. Initially, I was a little disappointed that I didn't crack the 300, but now, I think that's a good thing, there's still lots of time before my A races and I'll need the extra motivation to keep on doing the quality work.

Speaking of quality work, I just did my first hard workout with my new FTP, if any of you are getting tired of Sufferfest rides, give "Mary Austin" on TR a go, I guarantee she'll provide some of the most miserable 90minutes of your life.

Congrats on the bump. Those first few rides at a new FTP are always fun.

Last year, I had our athletes ride a mixture of Sufferfests and slope/grade courses, just to balance out the training. We didn't get quite the results we were looking for, so this winter we've gone full-Sufferfest two nights a week for an hour (I edited the longer videos to one hour and the shorter videos longer to one hour). The athletes howl but they're putting out some impressive watts. One athlete started in mid-December at 166 NP and is now riding at 246 NP for one-hour Sufferfests. That's a 50% increase (he's abnormal, but getting very strong) and he did Revolver last week (with 8 additional intervals to make an hour ride) at an FTP of 360. So it's going to be high intensity interval training all the way through March.